If you are anything like me, then you probably spend a little too much time with your eyes glued to the television watching home renovation shows.
What can I say, seeing those rooms turned from trash to treasure just feels too good.
But what doesn’t do it for me is when I hop online and see just how much those renovations cost.
It still hits me in the feels, just in a much less pleasant way…
Which is why I have put together 10 simple design hacks you can use to take your entire apartment to the next level – without breaking the bank.
You can thank me later.
1 – Upgrade Your Bathroom Tiles (but not in the way that you think)
Bathrooms are unquestionably one of the most important rooms in the house.
They can provide a little escape from the rest of the family, and offer a safe haven where you can prepare yourself for the upcoming day.
Unfortunately, they are traditionally one of the most expensive rooms to change in any capacity.
However, they don’t have to be. If you want to give your bathroom a facelift without incurring a cost, look no further than bathroom tile paint.
Changing the colour of your bathroom tiles with a simple paint is the perfect way to upgrade the look of your bathroom on the cheap.
2 – Put on Some Shades
The addition of a funky light shade to your loungeroom is arguably one of the easiest ways to change the feel of the whole room.
A unique lightshade essentially acts as a focal point for the room, in which it becomes a fantastic visual feature.
Check out Etsy for lampshades with character.
As a bonus, a light shade obviously changes the lighting within the room. This makes it the perfect way to give your loungeroom that relaxing vibe that everyone craves after a hard day of work.
3 – Embrace Your Mirror Image
Have you ever walked into a boutique store and been taken aback by how large it is – only to realise that you are really looking at a couple of mirrors?
All. The. Time.
As annoying as this little trick can be, you can use it to your design advantage. By hanging a couple of large mirrors in one of your smaller rooms, you can make them room feel much bigger.
This little design hack works particularly well in rooms that receive a bit of natural light, as the mirrors obviously reflect that. This then results in a room that feels whiter, brighter, and way more natural.
4 – Check the Time
One of the best ways to offer a new perspective to an old room is through the addition of a feature object – something that draws your attention, and that you never get sick of looking at.
And the perfect feature object?
A wall clock.
Not only is a wall clock a great option that offers a point of difference to most homes, but they also serve a very practical purpose – talk about bang for your buck (or back for your clock?).
The trick to using a wall clock as your feature object is to make sure that it stands out above all else in the room like the Thomas Kent wall clock above.
A large clock is a must! It helps if the clock contains a pattern or colour that is slightly different to the rest of the room.
5 – Draw away some clutter
If your apartment is anything like mine, then I can only assume that there are times when it feels small, cramped, and cluttered.
A great way to remedy this is to head to Ikea (or any other furniture store) and try and get your hands on a mismatch of drawers. The shape and style don’t really matter, although you do want them to match your colour scheme of your home.
You can then use these to store any clutter under items of furniture such as your bed, your TV cabinet, and your wardrobe.
This not only provides a really nice look to the room, but also makes the whole place feel roomier in the process.
For a kick of inspiration, start watch Tidying Up on Netflix. It’s a life changer!
6 – Prioritise Minimalist Furniture
Building on the above suggestion, when it comes to a smaller apartment, it really is best to buy your furniture to suit your needs, and nothing more.
A prime example would be the dining table – do you really need an eight-seater, or will that small four-seater suit better?
By choosing smaller pieces of furniture, you increase the space available for decorations, while simultaneously making the room feel larger. Not to mention the fact that you often save a bit of cash on furniture purchases in the process.
7 – Throw It Up
I often find some well-designed rooms end up feeling a little too clinical. The colour scheme comes across almost too well matched, and there is a noticeable lack of texture.
However, this can be remedied very easily by using throw rugs.
Nice patterned throw rugs offer a point of difference to a room. This can be in the form of a unique color, pattern, or texture – and trust me when I say it can make a world of difference.
These can simply be layered about the room on different pieces of furniture. This will obviously increase the look of room, while also creating a much more comfortable feel.
8 – Rug down
We are going to be keeping with the ‘rug’ theme in line with the previous point, albeit in a very different way.
That’s right – we are talking about floor rugs.
Much like throw rugs, floor rugs offer an extremely efficient way of changing the entire feel of a room, although in a much more powerful way.
For example, a nice shaggy rug can turn a room that feels a little clinical into something that is relaxed and easy going. A heavily patterned rug can take a boring looking room into something straight out of a magazine.
The only rule with floor rugs (because they are so damn large) is that you want to make sure they don’t clash completely with your colour scheme – they should be a slight variation.
9 – Go Green
Our second to last design hack revolves entirely around the concept of re-oxygenating your apartment with the integration of plants.
Indoor plants add a touch of natural color that really cannot be produced any other way. More importantly, exposure to nature has been shown to cause significant improvement in mindset and wellbeing – they literally make your house a more pleasant place to be!
Some of the best indoor plants (read: hardest to kill) include the swiss cheese plant, devil’s ivy, the peace lily, and the mother in laws tongue.
10 – Find brighter lights
Often when we are looking for design hacks, we spend way too much time looking at what’s in the room, rather than what we can do to immediately make that room better.
Enter lighting.
Lighting that is too dim can make an already cramped room feel even smaller, a dark room feel darker, and a drab room feel even drabber.
But opting to increase the brightness of your lighting can reverse this effect, making your rooms feel brighter, larger, and much more inviting.
So next time you find yourself wondering if you need some new furniture, take a quick look at the ceiling and see if you can make an immediate change there – your bank balance will thank you.
Take Home Message
Upgrading your apartment doesn’t have to be ridiculously expensive, nor does it require a complete overhaul.
All you need is some smart decision making, and a little bit of ingenuity – which our 10 design hacks have in spades!
So, please give them a go and get back to us – we would love to hear how they went for you.
