10 Tips for Budget-Friendly Interior Design

We all have dreams of how our homes could look if only we had the cash to make those dreams a reality. Indeed, most of the interior design content you see on socials or come across in other people’s homes is geared toward those with money to burn. But what about those of us on a tighter budget?

The good news is that redesigning, renovating, and reimagining your indoor spaces doesn’t have to break the bank. Far from it—in fact, the constraints of an interior design budget can actually benefit the overall look and feel of your home. 

Greater pressure to get creative, the unique aesthetic of reclaimed pieces, the investment of your own unique taste—these aspects of a budget-friendly interior design all come together to create something truly special. 

Follow our guide to budget-friendly home interior design with 10 top tips to inspire and drive your next home renovation project, and don’t forget to stock up on some more helpful home style advice by delving deeper into our blog once you’re done!

How to Prepare Your Interior for a Budget-Friendly Renovation

Before we get stuck into our expert’s top 10 tips for affordable interior design, it’s important to properly prepare. Follow the three steps below to ensure you’re ready to get designing within the confines of your budget.

1. Clean up the clutter!

There’s no point in beginning a home redesign when the place is a mess. Even if you keep an eternally tidy home, we can guarantee you there’ll be plenty of overlooked corners simply crawling with clutter. Do a good deep clean of the place and you’ll establish a nice blank canvas on which to dream up your redesign ideas!

2. Do your research!

The very best interior design reflects its owners in the truest sense. It is, after all, what makes a house a home. When you walk into a room and feel instantly comfortable, relaxed, and at home, it is because the room has been designed with heart and the unique taste of its owner.

So, before you begin shopping for the very best interior design furniture, materials, and colors, do some window shopping and online mood-board hunting to find out what you like and what suits you, as well as what you don’t and don’t!

3. Budget accordingly!

Just like there’s no point in redesigning a messy home interior, there’s also no point in beginning a redesign without first setting a strict budget. We all know what it’s like to go antiquing—you’ll come away with more than you need for more than you wanted to pay if you’re not careful.

Set a strict budget, and—better yet—break this down room by room, so that it is as easy as possible to stick to.

Interior Design on a Budget: 10 Tips to Transform Your Home for Cheap

Now that you’re ready to start your budget-friendly home redesign, let’s take a tour through 10 of our design experts’ most money-savvy tips for an affordable home makeover.

Tip 1) Discover the Power of Paint

One of the simplest yet most effective and affordable means of reinventing your indoor spaces is to apply a lick of paint. Most people tend to think of furniture, wall art, and lighting before they think of redecorating their walls, but the careful addition of color can be utterly transformative—especially in darker, smaller rooms. 

And you don’t have to opt for fancy paint, either. Many local homeware stores offer paint mixing services which allow you to get your hands on the perfect colours for your space at a fraction of the cost. 

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that if you don’t have the time or cash to repaint every room in its entirety, you can opt instead to use paint in more creative ways—painting door frames and trim or creating angular feature walls for an even more budget-friendly renovation.

Tip 2) Save Where You Won’t Notice, Spend Where You Will

Perhaps the handiest piece of advice for all you budget and DIY interior designers out there is this: “Save money on spaces you’re less likely to notice, but spend it on those you will.”

In other words, to keep your budget under tight control, you’re best apportioning the cash you have to spend to the parts of your home in which you spend the most time or which receive the most attention from yourself and your guests. 

For example, you could choose to go minimalist on the redesign of a spare room you rarely use, or a utility room that guests never visit, in order to give you greater spending leeway in high-traffic living rooms and bathrooms.

Tip 3) Revel in the Return of Retro

Retro, antique, upcycled pieces of furniture and décor are—handily for the budget designer—making a serious comeback in the world of interior design.

With so much gorgeous second-hand stuff out there, and in a climate where we better understand the need to reuse and recycle, it’s not always necessary to shop new. 

Instead, we highly recommend that you scour your local antique stores, charity shops, and second-hand furniture outlets—as well as online via apps like Gumtree and Craigslist—to find unique, often one-off pieces for bargain prices.

You can then upcycle and renovate these—often with a quick lick of paint or reupholstery—to give your rooms an eye-catching and original aesthetic that will make you the envy of your neighbors.

Tip 4) Invest in a Little Biophilia

Biophilia, or the love of nature, is a term being used fairly regularly in modern interior design. In essence, biophilic interior design is the art of bringing the outdoors, indoors. The most straightforward and affordable way to do this is simply to invest in some houseplants.

Houseplants don’t tend to be particularly expensive, yet they can completely transform drab, dull, dark, or lifeless indoor spaces into living, breathing, bright, and green havens of calm. 

Tip 5) Make Your Space Work for You

Those of us redesigning our interiors on a budget tend also to be working with less space than, say, someone with money to burn might. Smaller homes and smaller rooms can be more challenging to renovate given the lack of available space—which is where this next top tip comes in.

Applying space-saving techniques helps to make the final look of your redesign feel more open, more spacious, and less cluttered. Three of the best space-saving ideas include:

1. Floating installations in bathrooms, to create the illusion of more floor space.
2. Floating shelving in other rooms, to display plants, art, and trinkets whilst utilizing your free wall space.
3. Multipurpose furniture, with built-in storage or space for storage underneath to keep your functional, less attractive possessions out of sight and out of mind. 

Tip 6) Add Texture to Your Interior with Wall Panelling

Texture is an often overlooked and underappreciated component of a seriously impactful interior design. Adding texture to your aesthetic helps it to feel more vibrant, more fluid, and more dynamic. Texture can come from any number of interior design additions, including rugs, wallpaper, tiling, and contrasting finishes (matt and glossy, for example). 

Yet one of the most affordable and DIY-friendly ways to add texture to your home is with wall panelling.

Often inexpensive and generally easy to install yourself, wall panels resembling natural wood or marble, for example, can be used for trim, features, media walls and to cover entire rooms without breaking the bank.

Tip 7) Waste Not, Want Not

When you’re forced to work to a budget, it is really important not to throw away any materials once you’re finished using them. Think of the tiles you’ve got left over from a bathroom renovation, for example, or the material scraps you’re left with after making new curtains for your bedroom. Leftover materials can often be used again elsewhere in the home, benefiting the budgeting renovator in two distinct ways:

1. These materials are essentially free and can be used to improve the look of other rooms without dipping back into the budget. 
2. Reutilizing materials in different places throughout the home helps to tie your design aesthetic together, telling a story as you and your guests move from room to room.

Tip 8) Embrace the Magic of Mirrors

Mirrors certainly serve an important practical function, certainly, but what about their role in improving aesthetics? A secret top tip for renovating on a budget is to hang mirrors strategically throughout the home. 

A well-placed mirror helps to catch and redistribute natural and interior lighting in ways that make small, dark spaces feel much bigger and lighter. Moreover, they can help to accentuate the colours and accents of each room by duplicating them in the reflection.

Tip 9) Shop at Home

Before you jump in the car or on the bus to visit your favorite local furniture store or open up that app on your phone to shop for finishing accessories, why not have a look around your own home first?

You may be pleasantly surprised by the trinkets you unearth, from vases and plant pots, frames and art, to scrap material, old furniture in need of some love, and much, much more—it’s always worth reusing and reworking what you’ve already got before you start spending.

Tip 10) Let Loose Your Inner Artiste 

And finally, let’s not overlook the cheapest, most budget-friendly interior design tip of them all: using your imagination. Your imagination, individual taste, and creativity are all 100% free, inherently useful resources that the budgeting home renovator should take full advantage of. 

As we said in the introduction, the best interior designs go beyond what’s trending and pierce straight to the heart of the homeowner’s individuality. Whether or not you consider yourself a ‘creative person,’ it’s important to remember that we are all creative and express ourselves creatively on a daily basis—from the meals we cook to the conversations we hold. 

Don’t be afraid to try out color combinations and furniture placements that may seem odd or unusual. You can always redesign and change again, but you never know—you might just strike gold if you let your inner artist loose!

Recapping Our Top 10 Tips for a Budget-Friendly Redesign

Home renovations and interior design don’t have to break the bank. In fact, being forced to get creative and hunt for second-hand bargains can result in a house that looks, feels, and moves with greater artistry and inviting individuality than the sort of interiors stolen straight from the splash pages of a magazine. 

Be savvy, be colorful, be bold, and be creative—we think you might just surprise yourself with how stunning your budget-friendly interior design turns out.