People have been spending less during this recession, but shops such as luxury interior design shops have had a particularly rough time. There high-end goods have been put on the back-burner for most households.
For example, the luxury interiors shop Habitat, has recently hit some trouble and proves that been put we are moving away from long-lasting, one off pieces of furniture for the home in favour of Ikea-type items that are cheap but still ooze style and functional design features.
If you need to do up your home on a budget, but don't want your home looking like the Ikea catalogue, there are a few tricks of the design trade you can try. These tips can change the style and feel of your home without costing a fortune or conforming to off-the-peg designs.
To drastically affect the ambiance of a room, lighting is up there as one of the most effective tricks. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't need to involve a trip to an expensive lighting specialist. Softer, calming lighting can be achieved with lamps and side- lights instead of ceiling mounts or strip-lights. You can also change lighting effects by altering your curtains. Muslin diffuses light without making the room dark but can still provide a shield from prying eyes in the outside world.
By focusing on one or part of a wall, you can have a major impact on the style and design of a room without having to fork out on paint or wallpaper for the whole area. By only decorating a small part of the room and creating a feature wall, you can be braver with paint colours or wall-paper designs, which will have a greater impact on the room. This idea works particularly well on chimney breasts.
Wood flooring or comforting carpeting may be wonderful but they come at a price, so you may want to think about getting a rug instead. You can add colour and fun as well as a tactile element to your design simply by adding a rug to a room. The room can be transformed instantly and cheaply whether the rug is under a table or standing alone in the centre of the room and it will be significantly cheaper than carpeting a whole room. Furthermore, as with the feature wall idea, you can be bolder with your rug design than you could with a carpet.
For a whole host of rug designs in various colours and at a range of prices, shop online and compare each style easily with Modern Rugs. They have the widest selection of rugs available in the UK and you can shop by type, colour, price and size.
