Design on a dime

I’ve had home improvement on the brain lately, probably because I’ve spent so much time trapped inside my house over the last few weeks. Anyone else?

I don’t have any major projects in the works, but I’m always trying to find little ways to personalize my 1954 rancher.

An article I wrote on sprucing up your interior on a budget ran in today’s Spokesman-Review. You can read the story here .

Some of my favorite tips from the interior designers and decorators I interviewed were to paint a piece of furniture a playful color (as opposed to painting an accent wall in a room, which has been a trend over the last several years); taking noncredit classes on skills like tile setting or upholstery at a community college to save on labor costs; and hiring a professional for a couple of hours to suggest ways to rearrange your furniture, to help you choose paint colors and make other general suggestions for your home.

I picked up another great idea from an old issue of Blueprint magazine this weekend. For wall decor, scan a sentimental object using your computer scanner then print it out HUGE at a place like Kinko’s and frame it. I’m thinking of doing this with some of my grandmother’s old sewing supplies and hanging the results in my craft room. My parents recently gave me a box of her old buttons, ric rac, patterns and other treasures.

Whether you’re a pro or not, what suggestions do you have for decorating on a dime? Have any photos of what you’ve done? I’d love for readers to send some in so I can post them here. Drop me a line (megan.cooley@comcast.net) or leave a comment here.

P.S. The photo above is of a wall in my living room (and my pooch sleeping in front of it). We get a lot of hummingbirds in the backyard during the summertime, and since we live in a ranch-style house, we call our home Hummingbird Ranch. I cut out the hummingbird and flower from fabric then brushed it onto the wall with liquid starch. The fabric cost less than $10 and the starch was just a few bucks.

It might not be a look everyone is crazy about for their living rooms, but you could follow the same steps on a smaller scale or in a child’s bedroom. My daughter has a giant fabric rooster on the wall above her bed.