DIY: Deocrating Your First Home on a Budget

So, you've bought your first house! You are now and property owner, congratulations. Now that the dust has settled you look around and realize that the walls are empty, the rooms are sparse, and well, there is a general lack of stuff. Most new homeowners go through this. Most likely you moved into your new home from straight form an apartment or a college dorm room with little furniture. And, like most first time homeowners, you are on a budget. Having a little more time than money is normal at this stage in the game, so why not put a little elbow grease into some easy home projects that can add some design and sitting space to your new home.

Sources for Inexpensive Furniture
There are a lot of sources out there for inexpensive furniture. In this case I am talking really inexpensive, if you can afford to go to Rooms to Go, this may not be the advice you want to hear. My favorite places to find inexpensive furniture is Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Look in you local yellow pages and find the location that offers furniture. Some of the shops may only carry clothing and little objects. Take a weekend or two to really dig through what they have. Now, you have got to have an imagination to do this. Look beyond the brown fake wood covering every surface and look at the lines of the piece. Is it clean and simple? Retro? Country? Try to imagine what it would look like with a coat of paint and you are in business. Both of these locations are great about marking down their furniture to lower prices. Goodwill has the occasional 50% off everything day and the Salvation Army will take an additional 25% off every two weeks the furniture item is still in their store.

For those of you with a little bit more money, garage sales and estate sales are a great source of inexpensive furniture and lots of other house hold items. Garage sales are definitely the less expensive of the two. Often people are cleaning out their own home and definitely do not want to carry all the furniture back inside. Bargain with the owners politely and you may find they are willing to part with it for a lot less than the initial asking price. Estate sales are a great place to buy pieces you would like to invest in and possibly keep the rest of your life. This is a great source for antiques. Estate sales can be held inside the home that is selling the furniture, in which case prices are usually marked and are generally nonnegotiable. Usually an estate sale lasts two to three days. On the final day you may find the operators are willing to mark all items 50% off in an attempt to sell as much as possible. Estate sales can also be held at an auction house. In which case you will be bidding on the items you want. This is a fun and exciting way to spend the weekend. Generally, most auctions allow a preview of the items they will be selling. This gives you a chance to see if it is worth your time to attend the actual auction. There can be expensive items, but you can definitely find deals at an auction.

Hitting up friends and family for unwanted furniture is also a great source for furniture. Do you parents have a basement full of unwanted treasures? If they are anything like my family, they never get rid of anything and retro is definitely a huge design style right now. Try offering to exchange a service for furniture. This won't cost you any money. Mowing your Grandmother's lawn every Saturday could lead to a great old dining room table. Some of my favorite furniture has come from family members. They love seeing it in my home when they visit!

Now, for those of you with thin skin, this next source of inexpensive furniture may be unapproachable. Dumpster diving! Yes, garbage day can be a great day. All along the streets in my neighborhood people place things out with the garbage that they just don't feel like lugging to Goodwill. Maybe they can't see beyond the brown fake wood, but that shouldn't stop you. This is also a greet source for old door molding and other architectural details that you find in every antique store. This can be a great source in larger cities, where it is common for the city to remove larger pieces of garbage like unwanted cabinets and tables.


How to Turn Trash into Treasure
Okay, you found all this stuff and you have no idea what to do with it. Well, paint it, slip cover it, and definitely clean it. You will find some things that can be used as is, but what about the pieces that need something more. Paint is an inexpensive way to change the entire look of a piece of furniture. What was once a piece of garbage to someone can now become your great patio table.

Painting those brown fake wood pieces of furniture requires a few different steps. First, clean the piece thoroughly. Get that piece of gum stuck under the ledge off! Next, you will want to sand the entire piece. Remove any of the shine on the smooth surface. This gives your primer something to stick to. After you are finished sanding, clean the furniture again and remove any dust. If you don't do this, than you will never achieve a smooth finished surface. Next, paint your furniture! This is the fun part. Chose colors that either suit the piece of furniture or your home. Shabby Chic furniture looks great white, but most often a piece will just look like it needs to be a certain color! Color is a great way to create a unified look when you have a lot of different styles of pieces. Semi-gloss interior paint and high gloss interior paint hold up well on furniture that will get a lot of use. Milk paint is a flat paint that provides a great country look. If you are unsure about which paint to use, visit you local home improvement store. The paint choices are endless and usually the staff is very helpful. Often you will find listings for classes that can teach you how to faux finish. Use a large foam roller to apply you paint. This will create a smooth professional looking finish. It may be necessary to sand this lightly after it dries and paint on a second coat, especially with darker colors. Another fun trick is to take a wood stain and rub or paint it on to the surface. This adds instant age to apiece and helps protect the surface. Gel stain is the easiest form of stain to use. Squirt a glob onto an old t-short and rub it onto your furniture. Instant charm! This is also a great way to tone down a paint color that looked great on the paint chip, but looks bright and garish on your dresser.

To paint iron or outdoor furniture make sure you use steel wool to sand down the piece first. Remove any rust spots you see. If you do not remove the rust it will show up through the paint and continue to damage your furniture. When choosing your spray paint, make sure you choose one that say "exterior" somewhere on the can. Interior paints will not hold up under outdoor conditions like rain and snow. If your furniture is plastic, Krylon has a new type of spray paint designed specifically for plastic. Basically, read the front of the spray paint cans, they are designed to quickly tell you what the paint is designed for. Once your furniture is clean begin spraying. Hold the can about a foot away and work evenly in a well-ventilated area. If you spray too close to the furniture you will get big drips of paint. This is a great way to create a cohesive look to furniture that may not exactly match.

Slip covering that old couch your parents gave you may seem like a daunting task, and it is. I highly recommend purchasing a pre-made slipcover. They are worth the investment and will save you a lot of time and trouble. I have sewn many slipcovers only to have them fall apart or shrink the very first time I washed them. Pre-made slipcovers are made to hold up to the wear and tear people give them. If you must forge ahead on sewing your own slipcover, here are a few tips. Choose a sold color fabric. At the very least do not chose one that has a small pattern. Larger patterns on fabric blend better once you have sewn the pieces together. Buy some cheep fabric and make yourself a pattern. This will save you a lot of money if you are investing in some pricier fabric. Work in sections while cutting the pieces. For example, use one whole piece of fabric for the back of the couch. If the back of you couch is going to be visible, this will help create and more polished and professional look. Most of all be patient. A little patience goes a long way in this task.

These are just some quick guidelines on how you can revamp inexpensive furniture for you home. You may not keep all these pieces for the rest of your life, but it is definitely a fun and inexpensive and you never know, you may create that one perfect piece that makes every ask, "Where did you get that," every time they visit your new home!