Tips to decorate your home on the cheap

The folks from Budget Living magazine – the premier guide on living large and spending small – have now put many of their penny pinching tricks and tips in a new book called, "Home Cheap Home: A Room by Room Guide to Great Decorating." Sarah Gray Miller, editor-in-chief of Budget Living magazine, was invited to appear on Weekend Today to talk about the book and give ideas on frugal ways to decorate your home.

Buy Mass, Make it Yours
The big home décor chains offer great straightforward pieces at great prices. But no one wants their house to look like an IKEA showroom or a Pottery Barn catalog. Go ahead and take advantage of the deals at big-box stores, but customize the furniture to give your rooms a one-of-a-kind look.

Sofa
It's a $300 IKEA bargain, but a custom-made toile slipcover gives this couch some rich, uptown polish. The combination of the sofa's spare, modern lines with the old-fashioned  (almost fussy) from Calico Corners ($16 a yard) is fresh and unexpected.
Tip: To keep upholstery costs down, avoid recovering furniture with complicated shapes, skirts, pleats, etc.

Breakdown
$300 for sofa at IKEA
$200 for fabric Calico Corners
$300 for labor
Total Cost: $800

Throw Pillows
These are simple $19 cushions from Crate & Barrel, made personal with the addition of cheap iron-on monograms that cost around $1 at most fabric stores. An easy, affordable way to put your stamp on sheets, pillowcase, tea towels, any fabric accessory.

Breakdown
$19 for pillow
$1 for monogram
Total Cost: $20

Tape Side Table
This plain parson's table costs $10 at IKEA. It gets a hole new look courtesy of brightly-colored packing tape, available at most art stores or on websites like DickBlick.com and Pearlpaint.com for a few bucks a roll – no sanding, painting, or varnishing necessary. It’s a great idea from New York City interior decorator Christopher Coleman.

Breakdown
$10 for table
Approximately $30 for tape
Total Cost: Approximately $40

Break Boundaries
Refuse to be limited by someone else's idea of what's appropriate. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Bring outdoor furniture inside, shop industrial supply sources, use pieces in unexpected ways.

Trash Can Side Table
This $15 IKEA trash can is intended to hold garbage. Flipped upside down, it makes a fabulous (and dirt-cheap) side table. It comes in white, yellow, black, or plain galvanized metal. You can simply spray-paint it with Rust-Oleum to make it fit in with your color scheme.

Breakdown
$15 for trash can
$4 for spray paint
Total Cost: $19

Outdoor Chair
Not only is backyard and porch furniture cheaper than upholstered interior pieces, it'll also add texture and interest to a room. Pier One's $59 rattan porch chairs can be softened up with a throw pillow made of leftover fabric from the sofa re-covering job.

Breakdown
$59 per chair
Total Cost: $118 for two chairs

Pendant Lamp
Pier One sells hanging cord sets for $10 a piece. You can pair them up with various household objects for a one-of-a-kind pendant lamp. We used an $8 wicker waste basket from Pearl River Mart, but you can also use a colander, a metal paint bucket — anything will become a pendant lamp shade once you punch or drill a hole in the bottom. Use your imagination.

Breakdown
$10 for cord set
$8 for wastebasket from Target
Total Cost: $18

Think, Don't Spend
Dropping big bucks on art and other collectibles isn't the solution. Use your head and your hands – instead of your wallet – to come up with your own ingenious details. Just because something is homemade doesn't mean it needs to look like it came from a cutsie-pie country craft fair.

IKEA Frames with Paper
Anything becomes "art" once it's properly framed – fabric, wrapping paper, even that wallpaper that's too pricey for using on the interior living room. Dealers will often give you old wallpaper sample books, or you can bid for vintage ones on eBay, for as little as $10.

Breakdown
$45 for three frames
$32 for different wrapping papers
Total Cost: $79

Book Art
We were inspired by artist Mary Bennett to create this nifty 3-D paper art out of old books. Any hardbound book will do, even if it's an embarrassing summer beach read, since the cover will face the wall. It takes a little time to get the pages folded properly--too long for me to explain on TV. Once you've got the pages folded, just hang each book on the wall using a 7-inch plate hanger, available at doitbest.com.

Breakdown
Total Cost: $5 for three plate hangers

Mercury Glass
Real, antique mercury glass can fetch hundreds of dollars per vase. Thanks to Krylon's Looking Glass two-step paint kit, you can make any old florist's vase look like pricey object de art.

Breakdown
Total Cost: $12 for paint kit

Shop Outside The Box
Chain stores aren't the only sources for well-priced merchandise. Restaurant and school supply warehouses offer a chic industrial look for less. It's also possible to get a deal at pricier, specialty shops.

Bar
This is really a restaurant prep cart from Katom.com. At $113, it's not dirt cheap, but it's moveable and completely indestructible. For even better prices, check your local yellow pages and classified ads for used restaurant, school, and library equipment.

Breakdown
Total Cost: $113

Area Rug
Are you sick of bland, store-bought sisals? Don't want to pay up to $6000 for a patterned designer rug? Hit a carpet store – even an expensive one – and buy a few remnants in complimentary shades. Then design your own color block rug and have it professionally seamed together for around $100.

Breakdown
$50 for remnants
$100 for seaming
Total Cost: $150

Excerpted from "Home Cheap Home: A Room by Room Guide to Great Decorating" by Budget Living Magazine. Copyright © 2004 by Budget Living Magazine. Published by Perigee Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.

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