When you’re living on a budget, you might find yourself at home a little more than you’re used to. Whilst savvy party boys and girls have long since cottoned on to the joys of entertaining at home to save the pennies, nobody is going to want to come and hang at your pad if the place is not exactly chic, but just plain shabby.
We’ve come up with some of the easiest ways to spruce up your nest, and create the perfect environment for entertaining, leaving you with spare cash for the perfect cocktail dress to wear…
Fresh Flowers
Now, now boys, don’t scoff. This was actually a habit introduced to me by my male housemate. Whilst he digs cars and chicks, he also loves to walk into a kitchen to see a bunch of rainbow tulips on the table. They smell good and they brighten up any room.
If suitors are thin on the ground and you have to resort to buying your own flowers,
never fear! You can pick up flowers for a few pounds from your local market, or even supermarket. Tesco and Aldi tend to sell quite cheap floral arrangements, Aldi in particular selling gorgeous lilies for well under a fiver! We also keep a ficus tree in the bathroom, to add a botanical vibe amidst the shower steam and piles of towels. A cheap bunch of spray carnations for less than a pound can be distributed amongst small jars (wash out the jam or peanut butter first!) and dotted throughout the house to brighten up every room.
Make your flowers last longer by adding two teaspoons of bleach and two teaspoons of sugar into the water. The sugar’s carbohydrates feed the stems, and the bleach helps keep the water bacteria-free.
Lighting
I used to work in a nightclub as a DJ, and we had to control the lights as well as the music. It was the hardest part of my job. Forget swatting away drunks or losing a shoe to sticky dance floors, creating good vibes is all about the lighting.
Right, harsh lighting is flattering to no one. How are you supposed to enjoy an evening when the glare from the ceiling light is giving you a headache and making you look pale and tired? If you don’t have a couple of Tiffany lamps lying around, Wilko’s sell some lovely lamps for less than £10. Statement lamp colours can really make a room pop; Jeska Hearne wrote a must-read piece on this for her blog Lobster and Swan which gives a great example of how to make this lamp work in a colourful corner.
Fairy lights are a staple of many teenage girls’ bedrooms, but do not overlook them! Purchased in the post-Christmas sales, you can pay mere pounds for a string of twinkly little lights. I have gathered mine in an empty fireplace, a friend strings outdoor lights up around her garden and they always look lovely looped around mirrors or dressing tables. Personally, I prefer plain lights, but you can get an assortment of colours and styles. Paperchase usually has a crazy variety.
Tea light candles make for excellent lighting, but please ensure they aren’t left unattended. You can pick up lovely, scented tea lights from Ikea, with budget-friendly glass holders.
Art
Who is to say what qualifies as art? To some, it may be a Klimt painting in a gilt frame hung from a wall. To others, a wax crayon scribble stuck to the fridge with a souvenir shop fridge magnet. Art is something that is there to provoke thought and be beautiful to look at. If you think something is lovely, have it in your home. Even if others aren’t huge fans themselves, at least it will be thought-provoking!
Etsy is a wonderful place to find art from budding artists. Most items do not come with frames though and if buying from overseas, factor in shipping costs. My housemate and I have some lovely pieces we have found on trips or holidays. He recently visited Portugal and came back with a collection of prints from a street art market that had cost a few Euros and look beautiful hung in our home.
If you’re feeling creative, you can buy a blank canvas from most homeware stores for a couple of pounds and go wild! Handprints, paint splashes, fabric scraps, felt-tip scribbles, and just go to town! Work within the colour scheme of your home and even the craziest of scrawls can look like a masterful work of modern art.
Booze Cabinet
If you like to entertain at home, a well-stocked drinks cupboard is probably essential. Whilst I have friends who have built their own bars at the
bottom of the garden, not all of us have space or the funds for such an endeavour! A really fun idea is to scour eBay, car boot sales and the like for a hostess trolley. You can treat this as you like, my friend’s parents have an old pine trolley that they stained and varnished and it really looks incredibly handsome now. Atop your trolley should be a decanter or two. Decanters are so pretty and you can again find an abundance of these in antique shops, vintage boutiques or online.
You’ll also need glasses. A mix of tumblers, wine glasses, champagne flutes and shot glasses will be necessary to cater to all tastes. Marks and Spencer normally have a beautiful range of glassware, but if your budget is even tighter, stick with Wilko’s, where glasses start at 60p each.
I recently found some really cute, striped paper straws (save the oceans) and matching napkins at Sainsbury’s which I snapped up for parties. You can get really kitsch and buy cocktail umbrellas from 99p stores too!
On the lower tier of your hostess trolley, an assortment of lemons, limes, mint, cherries, brown sugar and anything else you can muddle into a cocktail is a good shout. And of course, the booze! Again, depending upon your budget, there are two ways to go about this. You can make this a BYOB affair and ask guests to bring their own beverages.
Or you can take my favoured approach and slowly build a collection of your own liquors. Once again, Aldi is a fantastic place to stock up. You can find own brand versions of popular drinks at bargain prices. Their limoncello is the best I’ve ever tasted. When I do my weekly food shopping, I always pop a bottle of wine in the basket or any liquor that is on offer.
It may seem frivolous, but having your own “bar” at home can make a quiet evening with friends one to remember as you sit up late giggling and talking over a couple of Old Fashioned’s.
Blankets
To me, there is nothing better than snuggling up on the sofa with your friends, family or pets and cuddling under a blanket. Maybe this is deemed an essential as I live in a very large, very old and very cold apartment. As a listed building, double glazing is probably not going to happen. And as the rooms are so large and the ceilings so high, it can get rather chilly. I was brought up in a household with an ex-military father who believed “any idiot can be cold” and as such would refuse to put the heating on until we could see our breath.
Very frugal, father! And it certainly encouraged a life-long love for blankets. I learnt how to knit (also from my father, another military skill) and can knit a blanket the size of a single duvet in a few weeks, always the colour that I’m most into at the time. Dove grey, inky blue, mustard yellow… these blankets appear in November and go back into cupboard hibernation when the daffodils start to spring from the ground. If you haven’t got a knitting Nana or in my case, Papa, then go onto YouTube and teach yourself how to knit. It had a bit of a revival, but people have lost interest again. It’s a great hobby to have, you’ll always have great gifts to give at Christmas (blankets, scarves, knee socks!) and it keeps your hands busy and out of the biscuit tin at night. Kate Burt wrote about signing a petition from Hobbycraft to get more people into sewing for her blog Your Home Is Lovely – definitely a worthy cause!
Blankets and throws are ideal for renters who move into furnished properties. Hate that vile green velour sofa? A beautiful throw will disguise it. Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters have some beautiful blankets and throws. If you’re pulling the purse strings a little tighter, Primark has a surprisingly varied selection of throws and fleecy blankets for around about £5.
Do you have any other home decorating tips? Let us know in a comment below.
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