How To Brighten Up & Polish A Room For Less Than 80 Bucks

Our house is nowhere near finshed in terms of decoration.  Little by little I’ve been trying to pick up odds & ends. On a tight budget, decorating your home can be very difficult, especially if you want it done tastefully.  Yesterday, I kind of had enough, I was fed up.  So, I got in my car and drove to Ikea.  It’s usually hit or miss for me there unless I have a very clear idea what I’m shopping for.  It can be very overwheming. I had a clear idea of what I wanted, so I was ready 🙂

 I want to make our dining room feel like a real room, not just a dinner table & chairs on a wood floor.  I fondly called it The Wooden Wonderland.  It was seriously lacking texture and mood. Here’s what it looked like before:

Um, boring.  I knew it was a boring room and that idea tortured me every time I walked into my house!  It is the first room you see when you walk in the front door (take a tour of what it looked like last month here…Rocco is the tour guide 😉 ).  But, this picture was taken in late Fall, early Winter and the dark green curtains worked as far as making the space feel cozier (there were no curatins in this room for 1 1/2 months.

Here’s what I picked up at Ikea.

The curtains have metal grommets at the top and were just $19 for the set.  They aren’t stark white (pure white can look cheap if not done right) they are more like a bleached canvas which feels more natural rather than hospital-ish.

 They are 118″ long and they came with hemming tape, which I dind’t use because I let them pool on the floor (but how cool is that free option?!).   Allowing the curtains to gather at the floor soften the front window and make it feel a little more luxe. Here’s the link to the product page if you want to get some for yourself.

 The tablerunners were just $5 a pop so I splurged and picked up 2. 

 This room desperately needed a rug to ground the furniture.  It is a really durable, natural material.  The best part about the rug  is  it’s reversable! Perfect for the girl that changes her mind all the time. It came in 3 sizes.  I went with the  medium 5’7″ x 7’10” Dragor rug (see it at Ikea here).  At 50 dollars, I couldn’t say no. 

Put it all together….

It’s amazing what a pair of curtains, a rug & table runners can do for a room!  We are still not finished with this room, but it’s a vast improvement for under $100.

Ther you have it.  $80 for a brighter, softer, more inviting room! 

Any inexpensive upgrades you know about?  Tell me!!