Love What You Have

This is a guest post from Lindsay at Living With Lindsay. She has a fabulous blog full of budget-minded DIY projects. She’s fun, funny, and handy. Love her.

In our gotta-have-it-now culture, it’s easy to get caught up in wanting what someone else has. It goes for handbags, cars, and even home decor. You see a new dresser in a magazine that you think you can’t live without and suddenly, the perfectly fine dresser in your bedroom is no longer acceptable.

Instead of lamenting what you don’t have or can’t afford, why not make some cheap and easy changes to help you fall in love with what you already have? A few simple tips and tricks can go a long way in helping you turn your home decor into exactly what you want it to be.

1. Declutter - One of the best ways to fall in love with what you have is to have less of it. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. We all have tons of knick-knacks given to us by well-meaning family members and friends. It’s very nice that our loved ones think of us on vacations and at holidays, but do you really need to display that Niagara Falls snow globe or that dolphin picture frame Aunt Mary brought back from the beach? No, you don’t.

I’m not advocating you get rid of these items. You can simply put them in a box and hide them in the closet. What I am advocating is making sure each item displayed in your home is one that you love. It will be easier to fall in love with what you already have if all of the other clutter isn’t in the way.

This room, from House Beautiful, is very warmly appointed, yet doesn’t contain a lot of “stuff.”

2. Paint - Do you have tons of picture frames but your photo displays look a little disorganized? Spray paint your frames the same color to add cohesion to your collection. Do you really like the shape of that vase but hate the pastel flower painted on the front of it? Try spray painting it. Do you wish you hadn’t bought the grapevine-themed plates hanging in your kitchen but don’t want to buy something else to put in that space? You guessed it – spray paint them!

Whether you are changing the wall color in a room or updating a pair of candlesticks, paint can work wonders. A can of spray paint costs under $3 at most big box stores, and all it takes is a few minutes to refresh most items. Just looking around my own house, I see a handful of things that I would probably like better with a quick color change. Before you get rid of an item that is working in your space but not working for you, hit it with a can of spray paint and see if you can change your own mind.

Replicate this display from Pottery Barn by painting a grouping of frames a single color. The frames don’t need to be the same style in order to make this look work.

Just this week, I sprayed something Heirloom White and then changed my mind and sprayed it Brushed Silver. Spray paint makes it easy to change your mind.

3. Refinish your furniture – Changing the finish of your wooden furniture – dining tables, desks, chairs, bookcases, you name it – couldn’t be easier these days. A great array of paint colors are available, so you can easily branch out from the traditional furniture colors of black, white, and brown. I recently painted a wooden end table to use as my nightstand, and it transformed from a dark wood finish to a whitewashed light aqua finish. It looks like an entirely different piece of furniture!

Did you know that you can even repaint cheap laminate furniture? That’s right! I put together a tutorial on the process for you here. It’s a very simple thing to do but does take a lot of patience. Don’t be afraid to try it.

This is an example of painted laminate furniture. What a difference it has made in my son’s playroom!

4. Rearrange what you already have – Rearranging your furniture and “shopping your house” for accessories and furniture are great ways to breath new life into a room. It’s amazing how you can find new uses for items, such as Emily did when she decided to use stools as nightstands. When I get bored with a space, I pull my furniture away from the walls and move it around a bit.

Accessories make a big difference, too. Grab frames, mirrors, and pillows from other rooms and try them out in a different space. I took my recently made-over chair from “okay” to “awesome” when I added a pillow to it that was being used in a different room.

Shop your home for accessories to add the extra “wow” factor to your pieces.

You don’t have to break the bank to turn what you already have into something you’ll love. Look your own home for inspiration. Don’t shop the stores – shop your home! Simplify your life.

Visit Lindsay at Living With Lindsay for more brilliant ideas of hers. You can subscribe to her feed here.