The Secret Way to Decorate on a Budget

Ok friends, let’s talk about how to decorate on a budget.  Doesn’t sound fun, does it?  But it is something that a lot of us deal with in one form or another–unless you happen to be independently wealthy!!  😉  Recently, I shared my five best tips for decorating on a budget, and so many of you were excited about that!  So today I want to give you my secret weapon on keeping your decorating costs as low as possible!

Are you ready??

Create a design board for the room you will be decorating.  What is a design board you ask?  It’s basically a place where you can gather your ideas for the space; things like colors you’d like in the room, furniture ideas, accent pieces, wallpaper.  Having them grouped all together will help you see right away if you like how they look and if it gives you the style and feeling you want for the room.  Easy right?

Here’s an example:

This is actually a room I’ve been working on for a client!  They are updating their family room and want lots of creams, blues and greys for a calm, welcoming feeling.  Don’t you love it??

How does using a design board help you decorate on a budget?

Great question!!  How many of you have been walking through Target and saw a great accent piece, or a picture or rug that you just had to have!  You weren’t exactly sure where you were going to put it in your home, but knew you could find a place for it 😉  (Am I the only one raising my hand here?!)  Those little purchases add up my friend!  They. Add. Up.  And many times, your space ends up feeling thrown together, things placed here and there, without a real flow and design to it.  Loose, loose 🙁

Having a design board allows you to plan ahead, so you know what types of colors and accent pieces–and those BIG pieces–that you’re really looking for.  So, now when you’re out at Target and you see some gorgeous decor pieces, you’ll know right away whether or not it will go with your design plan.  If not, it will be much easier to say no and put it back.  You also have the option of purchasing everything on your design board all at once, or over time!  You have time to shop around and compare prices to get the best deal.  This works for any budget and any situation!

So, how do you create a design board?

You can use anything, really.  A word or pages document will work, but I like using Canva.  It’s very user friendly and I can save and share my plans in different ways, depending on my needs.  If you’ve never heard of Canva, I’ll give you a quick tutorial.  First, go to canva.com and select “Create a Design”.

For my design boards, I usually go to the “Documents” section and select “US Letter”.  It then opens up a blank page.

The next step is uploading the pictures of the items you want for your room!  When you’re on a website, like target.com for example 😉 and you see a chair that you love, hover your cursor over the image, right click and select “save image as”.  Then you can save that picture to a file on your computer.  Now, when you’re in Canva, you can select “upload your own images”, select the ones you want on your design board, and then drag them over to your page.

Now comes the fun part!  Start arranging things–see how you like the different items together!  You can add and delete things until you find a combination that you love.

Here are a few more examples of design boards that I’ve done.  (If you’re interested in any of the items that I’ve picked out for the living room, bathroom or spring board, just click on the picture!)

Cozy Living Room

Fresh Bathroom

Affordable Bedroom Update

Spring Refresh

Bohemian Entryway and Living Room

I hope you are pumped to decorate on a budget and start creating fabulous design boards!

Happy decorating friends!

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