Now the festive season is done and dusted it’s time for a fresh start, and what better place to begin than your home? If 2012 is the year you decide to give your home the look you lust after, read on to discover some great tips. And you needn’t think you’ll have to set aside a whole month’s salary just to tackle one room. Oh no, in fact, this guide is all about how to give your home a vintage-style makeover even if you’re on the tightest of budgets.

Feature Walls

So you’re looking to give a particular room a new lease of life. There’s one quick, simple and relatively easy way of going about this, and that’s to decide on a wall and make it a feature of the room.

If it’s your living room, it might be the wall where the fireplace is, for instance. If it’s the kitchen, you might think about highlighting a wall by the eating area. You can even make a feature wall of a downstairs washroom. Basically, the only limitation is your imagination – and the supplies you can get hold of.

Wallpapering

Bold wallpapers are best taken with a pinch of salt and used sparingly – they’re usually a lot more expensive than regular patterns so they’re ideal for creating a feature wall with. If you want to avoid wallpapering the whole room, why not buy some wall decals instead? This way you can still make the wall look more exciting without having to use wallpaper! Alternatively, you could use old newspapers and magazines for a really cool and funky look. A teenage music fan would love a feature wall plastered in cuttings of their favorite band, or a little girl with a love of ponies would adore a wall decorated in pages from a horse magazine. What’s more, instead of keeping a stack of magazines by the toilet in the washroom, why not paper a wall in old newspaper cuttings instead? It makes for a much more interesting (and fun) room, and will always be a talking point!

Use Old Books

This is one for the real creatives out there – instead of a standard fire surround, why not craft your own from old hardback books, glue, and glass? Simply source a few box loads of books and get to work creating your masterpiece. Glue the books together (make sure there are no first editions in there!) to the height you want your fire surround to stand at (it’s best to do this in situ). Next up you’ll need two pieces of glass cut to the required size. One of these pieces you’ll place on top of the book columns that form either side of the fire surround, then add a couple of layers of books on top of this sheet of glass, and finally top the surround off with the second piece of glass on the top to form a smooth surface for your ornaments. It’s a relatively easy project but the trick comes in getting the book columns either side of the fireplace to reach the same height.

Unusual Shelving

Ditch the same old same old shelves that are available at every hardware store on the high street, and plump for a look that’s altogether more fun and individual. We’re talking old fruit, veg and wine crates. To get an idea of what we’re talking about take a look at this article on ‘five favorite reuses for wooden crates‘. For a real rustic look keep them as they are – just make sure you sand down any rough surfaces and repair any broken slats. If you’re looking to achieve a more polished finish you could line them with wallpaper remnants (so don’t chuck any out if you’ve been wallpapering a feature wall).

Crates like these can be fixed to walls or simply stacked up against them from the floor up. If you’re not sure where to get your hands on such crates you can try asking at your local liquor store, or rummaging round at flea markets and garage sales if you prefer the more vintage look.

Sacks

Continuing on from the crate theme, old sacks make great materials for hard-wearing soft furnishings. We’re talking old hessian potato sacks, or if you can’t find any of these, old tea towels also make a good option – the more vintage the pattern the better! Sacks and tea towels can be used to create all sorts of things from funky cushions to little curtains for cupboards (or for your crate shelves above), and sacks can even be used to form the base for making your own rag rugs.

Vintage-style décor is definitely having a resurgence and not only does it give your home a unique style, it won’t cost the earth to achieve the look – especially if you’re a thrift store and garage sale junkie! So get hunting…

—

Izzy Woods is into DIY in a big way and frequently writes on all things property – from park home insurance to automatic gate installation.