Organization on a Budget

In today's economy it's harder to think about spending money on organizing or updating your home. Here are a few tips that might help you enjoy changes without hurting your bank account.

• Move furniture around in the room to create a new look.
  
• Bring furniture or decorative items from other rooms to create something more updated.


• Look at your old dinner ware from the china cabinet or those that maybe you have not unpacked yet and see how they would like on a wall as an art piece. Or you might want to just start eating off those instead of keeping them packed away.


• Create your own art work with canvas and paint.


• Put up your children's or grand children's drawings in frames. You can even remove pictures from older frames and add new items in there (i.e., handkerchief's, shawls, postcards, a great picture from a magazine, etc.), just think of something that makes you happy and that you would enjoy seeing on your walls.


• Use interesting bowls or vases to hold candy, fruit, snacks and put it in different areas of your home to create interesting looks.


• Use clear bowls or vases to make a theme for each month (February - for Valentine's day - use red items, for December - Christmas - use pine cones, etc.)


• Add a throw, small blanket or even a shawl on a chair, bed or sofa to add a pop of color.


• Use trays that are normally hidden and put candles on top of it or even put a set of books or magazines on there.


• Who says you have to put flowers in the middle of a table. Put a huge candle or something else that you would like to be an attraction each month or for however long you desire.


• Change the look of a sofa by just adding colorful throw pillows on there. We did this on sofas that we have had for over 10 years and no one realizes they are that old due to the newer pillows we have on there.


• Color makes a huge difference to a drab room, use paint to change the look often.

The thing that is helpful to know is that if you don't want to keep spending money on buying things every year, make sure that what you first buy is of at least some good quality, make sure that it's not too trendy (get something that you know will last, even if it looks really simple) and once you have it in your home, take care of it. Why spend all your money on things that you will be replacing in a year? Almost everything in your home should have the ability to be re-purposed somewhere else. Just get a little creative and use your imagination.

Marlin