Are you looking for some living room ideas that are on a budget? Our living rooms are places where we live hard, as the name implies. This is where we relax, have parties, and drink coffee every morning (and wine every night). On these nights, you can find us shamelessly eating dinner off a tray and staying up all night watching box sets.
Where do you begin, though, when it comes to designing a new living room on a budget when you don’t have a lot to work with? Consider these ideas: with low on budget but high on style, affordable living room ideas and tweaks that will give your room a fresh new look.
Fortunately, you can easily and inexpensively update the look of your living room without spending a lot of money. Whether you want to add some wallpaper or paint your furniture, there are several DIYs that can be done without breaking the bank.
Living Room Ideas that Are on a Budget
You can accomplish many of these projects in under a weekend, and most can be done for under $100. Keep scrolling for more inspiration, or click here to see all of the ideas.
1) Arrange the furniture in the room
Think about the furniture that you already own before you go to the store. It is possible to completely revamp the look of your living room without spending a great deal of money by simply rearranging the layout of the room.
For example, instead of following the traditional living room layout – coffee table in the center, sofas against the walls, TV on one end – why not try something different, such as moving the furniture away from the wall; using art instead of the TV as an accent point; or rearranging the furniture to make the room appear larger.
2) Utilize Existing Resources to Maximize Your Budget
Make sure you look around your house and see if there are any items that you can borrow from somewhere else in the house to help you stretch your teeny budget a little further. Perhaps a piece of furniture cluttering up your room would be much more effective in your living room. Or maybe a neglected piece of furniture can be used once more in your loft or garage.
3) Decorating Your Walls With Artwork
Have you ever thought about displaying something other than photos and pictures on your walls? The bohemian trend is on-trend, which makes for a great fabric wall hanging to brighten up your standard-issue blank wall. It may be appropriate to use a bedcover that is sitting in a drawer somewhere as a wall hanging if you do not wish to purchase something new.
4) Plants in the Livingroom Will Add Greenery
A great addition to your design arsenal is planted in the house. Their bright colors and shapes give a room a sense of life (literally).
In some areas, if you don’t like to spend a lot of money, you can pick up some high-quality foliage for a very low price: Ikea has an amazing selection, and they are small and relatively budget-friendly, too.
In spite of the fact that larger house plants can still be extremely expensive, you can make it appear as though you are surrounded by plenty of greenery by arranging groups of smaller plants at different heights to create the illusion of a lush environment.
5) Believe In The Power Of Paint
To decorate a living room on a budget, you will have to don your DIY dungarees and get to work painting. In terms of paint, there are loads of good quality, reasonably priced options on the market. However, if you want to save even more, you can always buy a small pot and paint just one wall or alcove just for a splash of color.
6) Put Up (Then Take Down) Removable Wallpaper
When it comes to interior commitment photos or renters, removable wallpaper can make a huge difference. Now it is possible to get incredible wallpaper, cover your walls with it, remove it in a couple of years, and still walk away with your deposit.
You can find peel-and-stick wallpaper on Etsy, and they have a big selection of different prints and different sizes to suit the space that you need to cover.
7) Quickly Add A Mural
If you are looking for cheap living room ideas, consider adding a wall mural. In the end, you do not need to spend ages hanging a print on your wall or painting one yourself; you will be able to find a wide selection of large-scale prints that you can just hang up quickly and easily.
The good thing about wall murals is that you can use them as decoration if you rent a place since there is no need to be as permanent as wallpaper or paint.
8) Create a Gallery Wall
In addition to gallery walls being a trend that has stood the test of time, they’ve become a great way to fill a blank wall and give a room the sense of personality that it needs. Getting creative with your frames will allow you to use photos, record covers, prints, and even pieces of fabric or wallpaper that are sitting around.
Desenio has a great gallery wall layout and frame selection service on their website that allows you to plan out your wall layout and choose prints and frames that fit in your space.
Those who rent their properties and are not allowed to hammer hundreds of holes in the wall can use command hooks as a temporary solution or replace them with a picture shelf to do virtually no damage to the wall.
9) Switch Up Your Cushions
It is without a doubt that cushions are the most versatile soft furnishings. Adding new cushions to your living room can get your living room feeling new and refreshed. Depending on the type and style of cushions you choose, your living room will look new.
10) Layer Up Rugs
If you are considering hiding the red wine stains in your living room, the first thing you should do is to hide them with layers of rugs instead of spending money on carpeting in order to prevent your living room from needing to be re-carpeted.
There are rag rugs, jute rugs, Persian rugs, as well as sheepskin rugs, and it seems that more is the order of the day. Add a variety of textures, colors, and patterns to give the space some visual interest.
Keep the right balance between the edgy-bohemian vibe and a full-on carpet shop by sticking to a simple color palette and painting the walls with neutral rugs, such as jute.
11) Give Tired Furniture Some TLC
Adding new upholstery can bring a whole new lease of life to shabby furniture. A simple re-covering or reupholstering can transform old sofas and armchairs completely and is an inexpensive way to update your living room furniture.
In search of an inexpensive solution to reupholster large pieces of furniture, we have discovered that drapes can be draped over the cushions of the sofas, as shown below.
12) Mix Up The Lighting
Changing the lighting in your living room is something you can do very quickly and for a very reasonable price.
The lamps in your room need to be laid out in a way that creates cozy pools of light that quickly transform the mood of the room while at the same time preventing the room from feeling like an overly-lit operating theatre.
13) Remodel Your Living Room Floor With New Paint
Although this isn’t one of those five-minute projects, it is still a great budget-friendly idea for decorating a living room on a budget. By painting your floorboards over the weekend, you could completely change the appearance of your home without spending a lot of money.
These black floorboards in this living room are so on-trend at the moment that if you are brave enough to put them in your own home, you will absolutely love them.
14) Enhance Your Living Room With Useful (Yet Lovely) Storage
While practical storage isn’t the most exciting cheap living room idea, minimizing clutter and using storage to add personality to your room can completely change the feel of the living space.
Check out our ideas for living room storage if you don’t already have something like that, but if you do have something like a bookshelf or open shelving system, you can use that to update the look of the room.
15) Splurge Strategically
Make sure that the pieces you choose are pieces that will be the focal point of your space, pieces that a whole room can be built around. A pricey mustard yellow sofa you’re in love with or an amazing piece of artwork could be the thing you’re looking for. If it transforms your room into something completely different, then, hate to say it, it might be worth it to buy.
16) Match Your Wall Colour To Your Furniture
Adding the wall color to your most dominant piece of furniture, if not exactly, then at least in the same tonality, creates an expensive look on a budget.
As a general rule, this trick tends to work best with neutral and muted tones, so feel free not to expect your bright purple walls or matching furniture to carry the expensive vibe.
17) Curate Interesting Displays
Create displays that reflect your style and your personality by shopping from home and creating displays that reflect your budget living room ideas. Try to find quirky pieces in thrift shops too, and see if you can find prints you love that you wish to invest in.
18) Hang Fresh New Living Room Curtains
If you find yourself getting so used to how your living room curtains look, you probably won’t even notice that they are getting slightly faded or that they don’t match your space anymore. If you replace your curtains for something lighter, you will notice a difference in your room – making it feel so much fresher and brighter.
The top tip for hanging curtains is to hang them several inches above your window frame to add some height to the window and make the window appear larger.
19) Go Secondhand
Aside from the fact that secondhand furniture and decor are usually cheaper, it is also an extremely easy way to add instant personality to your living room. If you are looking for pieces that speak to you, check out Etsy, eBay, and even Facebook Market.
You should avoid getting overwhelmed and keep track of the pieces you are looking for, as well as note down the measurements of the items you are looking for. It is important to remember how much a simple coat of paint can transform your home. So, look out for shapes that you adore instead of colors.
20) Curate A Coffee Table Display
What inexpensive things can you do to make your living room look more expensive without having to spend a great deal of money?
Set up a coffee table display. With a candle, a coffee table book, a vase of flowers, and a couple of cute coasters, your living room looks like something straight out of Pinterest while costing you only a few dollars.
Conclusion
Are you looking for low-cost interior design services? Then you have come to the right place. Besides adding some potted greens in various rooms of the house, you can create a green wall by using artificial plants to create a green wall.
The professionals advise you to use this wall to add a dash of color and to infuse some lively touches into a monochromatic setting or setting where you want to add a touch of color.
Because these plants do not fade or lose their lush green color for an extended period of time, it is low-maintenance and makes them stand out from the competition.