Decorating on a Budget: Part 3 of 3

Day 3 of the Apartment Therapy 20/20 Home Cure was to find inspiration photos.  I’m by no means done with this step, but I did a lot of this when I was first decorating my apartment and I thought I’d share my third (and perhaps most fun) step for decorating on a budget– figuring out exactly what you want.  This saves you a lot of money when you don’t buy stuff you don’t need, and will keep you from wasting time trying to coordinate things post-purchase rather than shopping with a plan.  It helps to do this step in conjunction with the other steps, so that your budget ultimately reflects what you want to buy.

My living room thus far...

Fanning through home decor magazines, lifestyle publications, and interior design books may seem like a quick way to develop expensive taste.  While you’ll definitely learn about some pricey pieces (hello, lamp that costs as much as a car!), you’ll also develop a sense of what you like.  I really enjoyed the Domino Book of Decorating, Design Sponge, Apartment Therapy, and different retailers (Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, and Mecox Gardens come to mind) for ideas.

Points to note:

• Most of us dress ourselves a lot more often than we make decorating decisions.  It makes sense that you’d want/need to think a little harder about your decorating style.
• Just because you like a certain trend now doesn’t mean you love that style for all time… I really recommend looking through decorating books from different years/decades to figure out what appeals to your eye.
• If you flag/bookmark/tear out lots of pictures you like, you’ll see at least one or two major themes.  I promise. These will include colors, shapes, styles, textures, and lighting.

Once you know your style, you can work on the layout you want for your room.  You may want to make a few different ideas depending on what you find.  For my apartment, I based my layout on what I remembered from my first ‘tour’.  This ended up being a little off, but I was still able to draft a few possible layouts based on how I wanted the space to flow.  I knew I wanted seating to face each other for conversation, and I wanted plenty of places to sit and to set out food for entertaining.   Once I settled on a layout, I had my list of things to buy/find/ask my friends and family about.

But what style? What color? What shapes?

I’d looked at lots and lots of books, magazines, and websites to figure out what sorts of things I liked.  I love earthy colors with white to break it up, and I think gold or brass is more homey than silver.  I’d also read that you should buy a rug or couch or central piece of art first, then base everything else on that.  With that in mind, I started popping into stores whenever I had a free hour or so.  I finally found my rug (which you can see here) at World Market, marked way down, in a colorway and texture I loved!  I took it home and used that to choose everything else.

For a while, though, I was stumped!  How to use this earthy, geometrical rug in a way that wasn’t too retro?  I went back to my inspiration photos and found gemoetric rugs and ikat-esque textiles in lots of the pictures.

At the time, I saved them into a word document, so I’m afraid I don’t have the original sources.  If you see your photos here, please let me know!  Looking at these, I got a good idea of what materials and shapes I wanted to look for. White, wood, clean shapes with natural accents.  This really helped me put together the next few steps with a clear idea of how I was ‘building’ the room, rather than buying things and trying to fit them together as I went– then wishing I’d waited or thought more about it.

Obviously the living room isn’t the only room in the house, so I’ve saved some bedroom ideas as well.  I haven’t done as much work in there since I’m the only one really spending much time there, but for my bed I’m looking forward to a more colorful version of this:

So I already know I need more pillows and blankets, in a variety of textures.  I also need some practical things, like drawers.  As I go a long, I like the idea of little vases in different places as well.

I doubt I’ll be ‘finished’ any time soon, but it’s been a lot easier and cost-effective to have some idea of what I wanted, about what it would cost, and how much I could spend at a time.  That’s my series on Decorating on a Budget, folks!  I’m not exactly done, but hopefully these three components will save you lots of money and still give you the look and feel you want.

What do you think?  How do you save money on home projects?  Do you have a certain ‘look’ you tried to achieve, or have any good guides for decorating ideas?

Also, wouldn’t this be such a huge job if you did it full-time?  The fabric swatches alone would overwhelm me!

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