Get a Contemporary Home, for Next to Nothing

I spend a lot of money on those glossy house-interior-design ones. Of course I would love to have a house like that, if I could only afford the Interior Designer that comes with it. Oh yes, and a Big Budget. So how do you get that sleek, spacious Scandinavian look?

But, frugal woman that I am I found a couple of ways around all that without breaking the bank. First, in order to give the house a feeling of space you need to paint all the walls an off-white. There are whites with a bit of green in them, a bit of blue or a bit of yellow. I always choose the off-white with yellow. Then when winter arrives and outside is gloomy, the house gets a nice sunny "glow". The second thing you really need to do is throw all the furniture in the garage, but hopefully you have done that already in order to paint the walls. Now you can see how much space you have. Scandinavians love wooden floors. If you have one, keep it. I did not, and I could not afford real wooden ones, so I opted for Laminate flooring. I have asthma and 5 cats (yes, about the worst combination) but I absolutely love my floors. These floors come in packets. The designs come in a lot of colors and look like the real deal.(wood) The "wood" is photographed onto the top-layer in the factory. This top-layer is like nothing you've ever had in your life! High heels, scratching from dog/cats nails, dropping a burning cigarette on them etc. nothing destroys a Laminate floor it seems. We put "bubble wrap" underneath it. No doubt you can buy it by the roll from a specialized office-supplier. It is a lot cheaper(I paid only $120 for the whole house) than the official foam, and insulates well. And no, you don't hear "Plop plop" when you walk over it.It's easy to lay the floor yourself, but you need to be an advanced handyman, or a carpenter. These floors are not suitable in bathrooms. You can clean them with warm water and a tiny bit of plant-based liquid dish washing detergent in it.

So, this look is basically white walls and light wooden floors. Now we're going to "fluff up". I like this part. Look through your photo's. Choose a couple of pictures of your loved ones. Photo-copy them in black and white. Then go to a really cheap department-store and by large black edged frames. (I paid only $10 for them).
Take the back off .Cut the photo small and preferably square. Glue the photo on white cardboard,in the middle and put the whole lot together again. If you put two of these frames next to each other on your white wall, it will look really contemporary and expensive.

Art: this is always a tricky bit. Art is really anything that is beautiful, but pretty useless. If you want the very contemporary look, go to my articles "Painting 1 and Painting 2", just follow the basics and you 'll have real art on your wall in no time, but for next to nothing.(and made by yourself!) The look I am describing is not for people who like all their 'nick-knacks' around, like Meissen-figurines. Go to a local Art-market and stay on the look-out for nice pieces for a reasonable price.
But it is better to place only 1 really nice piece of art on display than 5 lesser ones!

Glass is always contemporary; even antique glass. If you have a large glass vase, fill it up with pebbles. They cost next to nothing and come in black and white to get that "contemporary"look. To get that clean look, don't put table-cloths on tables everywhere, leave the table bare.

And lastly: less is best; for this style anyway.