Affordable Home Decor Tips

Being on a budget is not as bad as it may seem. You don’t need a ton of things or expensive things to decorate a beautiful home. Some of the most beautiful homes are the ones that are simple. So here are some tips to decorate your home if you’re on a budget. 

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1.    Cut the clutter

A very simple tip to decorate your home is to start by decluttering it. Clutter will always take away grace from your home. No matter how beautifully you’ve decorated it if it’s messed up it will never look that good. So it is important to make it a habit of being organized.

2. Retrofit furniture

This is perhaps the best way to furnish your home if you’re on a budget. All you have to do is to repaint your old furniture and you’re good to go. You can also change the fabric of your sofas or dining chairs if you want to give them a new look. You can also repaint an old console table and add knobs to it to change its look completely. This way you don’t have to give away your old furniture when you get tired of its design and pattern. You can totally reuse it.

3. Mix up your furniture

Buying furniture in sets is usually expensive and it’s boring too. It makes your interior look like it’s part of a catalog. So by mixing up your furniture you get to incorporate your style into your home and save a lot of money on furniture sets. 

4. Faux lamps

Lamps make any room look grand and beautiful. Their dim light adds a soothing feel to the place. You can add standard lamps to your home but they’re pretty boring as they’re available in any other home, whereas, unique and big lamps are usually very expensive. So you can create your own fancy faux lamps. You can use candle holders to make them. If you want a tall lamp then stack a few candle holders on top of each other and at the top place a battery operated candle. Put a shade on it to give it a finished lamp look and you’re done. So you can put lamps in nontraditional places such as your bathroom where it is not safe to have a plug in lamp.

5. Pick the right locations to shop

Even though you may be buying second hand items but shopping in the correct locations can help you find really good items. Get up early and go to those yard sales. Sometimes there are just amazing things that people are trying to get rid of. They’re not necessarily damaged and the owners just want to redecorate their place so you’ll end up getting really great things most times.

6. Paint

Color can add so much personality to your home. If you can’t afford to paint all four walls then just pick an accent wall and paint it. You’ll be surprised by the effect it has on your home decor.

 Photo credit: www.pinterest.com

7. Area rugs

Area rugs can make your home feel really warm, cozy and inviting. They can also be used to cover up any chippings in your hard wood floor or any stains on your carpet. If you don’t have the budget to go for one large rug then you can combine two small rugs. There is a huge variety of beautiful over dyed rugs for sale available online.

Author Bio: This article was written by Rida Maqbool. She blogs at onlysportsgear.com

Red Alert! Get Rid of Unnecessary Things in Your House

In many ways, clutter is like a disease. If you leave it unchecked, it will spread until it buries you. This comparison may sound a bit extreme, but joking aside, clutter in our homes is a problem and it has to be dealt with – sooner the better. Waiting for the right season, or the right time are just excuses. Use these few tips we will give you and start de-cluttering right now.

 

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Identify what do You Actually Need

One of the most common causes of clutter is sentimentality and the naïve thinking that something will serve some purpose somewhere in the future. A lot of uncertainties in one sentence, right? Unfortunately, huge part of items we keep in our homes, if not the majority of them, is simply unnecessary and it will never be used. In order to identify such items, you will first have to throw everything but the bare furniture (although, there may be even some furniture pieces which are redundant) out and slowly move in only the things which are essential for your life. You will see just how much junk will remain outside.

Think About the Expansion

There are, of course, some situations when you will actually need to save some items for the future times, but you will need to store them outside the house. In that case, expansion is the only sensible way to go. Fortunately, outdoor solutions are very affordable and range from the regular tarps, all the way up to full-blown no-nonsense sheds. What makes them even better is that making them does not falls away from the usual DIY territory. If you, on the other side, want the best protection for your stuff.

Give the Things You Will Not Use to Charity

Do not get us wrong, there is nothing bad about earning some money on the things you bought hoping that you will use them someday. Still, if you are well-situated, you should strongly consider donating some of the things you do not need to the people who need them the most. You will still have a chance to earn on the collectibles, magazines and other more exclusive stuff, but as for the clothes and all the other things that befall into the group of the basic human needs, charity is certainly the more noble way to go. Just think of all the children who need just a little thing to make their day beautiful.

 

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Organize a Garage Sale

Once you carefully store what needs to be preserved, you will still end up with the excessive amount of things you will simply want to lose. The best way to do that is to organize a good old garage sale. People just love to buy stuff from someone's garage or attic. Set the date, release your inner Don Draper and distribute the advertisements across the neighborhood (although, expanding your efforts throughout entire city is much better if you can afford it) and sell whatever you can. Once you are not in dire need to throw everything at once, you can play a little game to keep the clutter on the minimum. Every day, choose one item you do not need and sell it. At the end of each year you will have 365 useless items in your home less. You can go one step further and consider putting some interesting window graphics, and your garage sale will be noticed – that's for sure.

Fighting the clutter can be time consuming, and tiresome, so as the time goes by we tend to become more tolerant in that regard. Still there are some times when enough is enough and the red alert is turned on. If you find yourself in such situation, just use these few tips we gave you and you will solve this irritating problem in no-time. 

Things to Look for When Choosing an AC Repair Company

Choosing the right technician to repair your air conditioning unit is something that is a critical decision. This decision has to be made after taking into account factors as diverse as:

·         Cost effectiveness of the technician.

·         Reputation or honesty of the AC repair man.

·         Referrals from people you know.

·         The make and model of your unit as well.

Here are a few things to look for when choosing an AC repair company.

 

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Start with references

Going through the following will give you references and referrals that you can trust:

·         Social media information.

·         Client testimonials.

·         Asking friends, business colleagues and so on.

·         Checking with other allied contractors – electricians and plumbers and so on.

This should give you plenty of names to consider.

License and certifications

It is important to go with a licensed repair company. You could look for HVAC industry certification and see whether a company is licensed to repair your particular brand of air conditioner. You could also look for certifications such as NATE and those handed out by the EPA. BBB or Better Business Bureau is also another reliable source of information. A repair company should be listed in BBB.

Do not go as per cost alone

It is interesting to note that HVAC repair companies offer many incentives for choosing them. Deals, discounts, bargain prices and so on are par for the course when it comes to their services. However, let cost not be the only criterion that you look at when it comes to repair work.

Factors such as the following should go into the decision making process as well:

·         Quality of work and reputation in the market.

·         Ability to deliver assurances and guarantees on work.

·         The company’s approach to work that should start with a visit to your premises.

·         Longevity in the marketplace.

·         The service levels in terms of customer friendliness.

It may also be a good idea to stay away from companies that force you to make a decision by making too many calls to you and offering unbelievable price savings as well. You should not be pressured into taking the wrong (possibly) decision.

Timeframe

It is also a good idea to find out whether the company will be able to provide you 24 x 7 support. You may find the need for their repair services at any time of the year or day and a company should be able to promise and deliver a really quick response time. Quick diagnosis and quick repair work can allow you to get back to normal life as soon as possible. A slow response time can have health consequences and even result in the unit itself developing bigger problems.

How do they deal with you?

This is an important question. Start with finding out how they will give you the estimate for repair work. Ideally, the repair company should send someone to your premises before giving you the estimate. While you can certainly furnish all the details on the phone, a qualified technician will have to come home to see the various technical details before giving you an estimate.