It’s often said that you don’t get a second chance at a first impression. This holds especially true when it comes to your home. Though no one likes to think about it and fewer like to admit to doing it, a solid forty-seven percent of people say that they would think worse of someone whose home looks cheap.
So, how are you to avert this judgment if you still have to live on a budget? Our helpful guide will show you twelve tips to help you create an opulent home for yourself without breaking the bank in the process!
1. Swap Out Your Furniture Hardware
One quick and easy way to create a more opulent home is to swap out your old furniture hardware. Look into the trending finishes for one that you really enjoy, grab a screwdriver, and go to town.
The best part? You can do this for your outlet and light switch plates as well, even if you live in an apartment complex.
2. Apply a Fresh Coat of Paint or New Wallpaper
You’d be surprised what a fresh coat of paint does to make a space look new and exciting. If you’re wondering how to make your home look expensive with minimal effort, you can do this over a weekend. Just make sure that you stick to either neutrals or deep, rich shades to give the illusion of a luxury home.
If painting isn’t your thing, you can add a custom wallpaper to update how your walls look. Peel-and-stick works just as well for this and lets you finish the project within a few hours.
3. Adjust Your Lighting
The type of lighting you have in your home has serious effects on how it comes across to others. Let’s face it: Poorly-lit spaces look sketchy and cheap. If you want to add a touch of luxe, consider swapping your current overhead lights for Interior Deluxe large chandeliers.
You should also consider adding more lamps to your living spaces. Relying on overhead and natural light to illuminate your space can leave you with dark corners, making your home look and feel dingy.
4. Floor-to-Ceiling Drapes Add a Sense of Grandeur
If you want to make your windows look bigger and the ceilings look higher than they are, use floor-to-ceiling drapes. This inexpensive piece of home décor instantly makes a room look much larger and more luxurious. This trick often gets recommended by realtors to those listing their homes for sale as part of the staging process.
5. Add an Accent Table
If you want something that adds both form and function, you can add an accent table to your living room. Make sure to choose something that matches your personal style and catches the eye. You’ll have a piece of art as well as a place for your knick-knacks, which is a cornerstone of opulent living.
6. Mat and Frame Your Photos and Wall Art
Crafting an opulent home doesn’t have to come at the expense of your memories or personalization. If you frame and mat your photos yourself, you can turn treasured memories into gorgeous works of art. It’s also recommended that you use larger frames for this, as people tend to associate large wall art with money.
If you’re artistically inclined, this is a great opportunity to show off your skills and immortalize your best works. Wall art is a staple in an opulent home.
7. Add a Glint of Metallic Shades
Years upon years of conditioning have trained us to see glimmers of gold and silver as signs of opulence.
It doesn’t matter that you spray-painted your lamp base with gold color. Nor does it matter that your “mirrored table” is the result of assembling several inexpensive mirror panels and adhering them to the table’s surface. As long as people see the shimmer of metal, they’ll think it’s a piece of expensive décor.
8. Backsplashes Add Visual Interest
Want to upgrade your bathroom or kitchen without redoing the entire wall? Adding a quick peel-and-stick backsplash will add visual interest and luxury to your blah walls in the space of a few hours. Or, if you own your home, you can apply a normal one yourself with a bit of elbow grease and a free weekend.
9. Don’t Match Finishes; Coordinate Them
If there’s one interior design mistake that people make over and over again, it’s getting too matchy with their colors and finishes. If the finishes look too similar, it makes people think that you bought the set from a big box store. So, rather than matching your finishes, choose ones that coordinate well with one another.
10. Pick Towels You’ll Love Using
When most people choose towels for their bathroom, they’re looking for utility, not luxury. However, if you pick well-designed, plush towels that you’ll love to use and your guests love looking at, you’ll seem to have a more opulent home. If you can swing the expense, monogrammed towels can also add a sense of luxury and opulence.
11. Softness and Plushness Adds Luxe
In ages past, only the rich and powerful could afford the softest, most comfortable surfaces and finishes. So, if you want to have a more opulent home, you need to throw soft and plush pillows on your couches. If you can, try to swap out the polyester filling in your pillows for a feather insert.
As a bonus, they’ll give you nice, soft things to curl up with on cold, rainy days.
12. Keep Your Home Clean
This might seem rather obvious, but clean homes look more luxurious than dirty ones. If you can keep your surfaces cleaned off, it makes it look like you can afford to have someone clean your home for you. A clean home looks like an opulent home.
Looking for More Ways to Create an Opulent Home?
The twelve tips we listed above are only the beginning steps to create an opulent home on a budget. If you’re looking for more ways to make your home look more expensive than it is, check out our blog each day for more articles like this one!
