5 Quick and Cheap Decorating Ideas for Family Living
by Kathy Wilson
Description: Tips for decorating your home for comfortable family living.
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Any space in your home where all the family tends to gather
can be considered family living spaces. Generally, the
family room or den and the kitchen and dining areas are
areas that need to accommodate the needs and tastes of all
the family members. Here are some great low cost ideas for
dressing up those inviting rooms just right for the whole
clan!
1. Color your world! Don’t be shy about adding color to the
walls of your rooms. Family oriented rooms tend to be busy,
sometimes crowded spaces, so I recommend some calming colors
to create more restful retreats. Blues, greens, and neutrals
rate here. However, if you have a high-energy family, go
with the flow, and bring in some yellow, terra cotta, or
even lime green! Paint makes a dramatic impact in as little
as one afternoon, for a pretty low cost. If you are
wondering what the colors will look like in your room, check
out the online personal color viewer at
www.benjaminmoore.com.
2. Let the sun shine in! Most family oriented spaces don’t
demand the privacy that a bedroom or bath would, so strip
off those curtains and blinds and see the light! It makes
the room look bigger (always a plus when the whole family is
there!) and the extra light really brightens the mood in the
room. If some nighttime privacy or light control is needed,
such as in a TV viewing area, make sure the curtains or
blinds are hung totally clear of the window so that when
they are drawn, they don’t block out any of the light. To
bring focus to windows with no treatments, use a stenciled
or wallpaper border around each window casing. And you
thought those window treatments would be expensive! Who
needs ‘em!
3. Create different use areas in the room, so that more than
one activity can take place at a time. This gives you more
opportunities to be together as a family, and just requires
some rearranging and creativity, not bucks! Set up a small
table and two chairs in an unused corner for a game table,
sneak an unused easy chair into the room for someone to
read, pick up a couple of bar stools at a yard sale to add
to the kitchen counter. Store placemats in drawers to turn
the coffee table into a quick dining area, and make sure
there are a couple of floor pillows for impromptu movie
night!
4. Create some personal accessories for your family spaces
that celebrate who you are as a group. No, you don’t have to
spend hundreds of dollars having a family portrait painted
to hang over the fireplace! Print out pics of each member of
the family in black and white, then hang them in matching
black frames gallery style as a group on one wall. Frame
those special family moments to share with your guests…a
wedding or graduation invitation, love letters your
grandfather sent your grandmother during the war, “secret”
family recipes, or one piece of treasured childhood artwork
from each of your children or grandchildren. Forget those
time-consuming photo albums…set a bunch of snapshots out in
a pretty basket you picked up at the dollar shop. You’ll be
shocked at how often you catch your own kids musing through
them! Want a really interesting conversation piece? Print
out family candid snapshots on regular paper, then use
polyurethane to decoupage them onto a tabletop, cupboard
door, or even a whole wall! Slightly overlap each photo, and
then seal the whole top with a final coat of polyurethane to
protect. What a collage!
5. Finally, bring comfort into your family space to encourage
loved ones to linger, and spend that precious time together.
Stitch up comfy throw pillows from old childhood sweaters or
dresses. Stencil or free hand comforting quotes around the
ceiling line or over a door. (Need ideas? Go to
http://www.quotationspage.com). Keep a few fleece blankets
tossed over the back of the sofa…just right for those
“cuddle up on the couch” evenings with loved ones.
These are some great ideas for adding more than décor to a
room…it’s about interjecting your family into the spaces you
inhabit. None of these ideas cost but a few dollars, and
many of them are free for the use of your creative mind!
Make your family spaces rooms that you will all remember as
places where life was lived, and memories made.
Kathy Wilson is an author, columnist, and editor of The
Budget Decorator. For hundreds of free budget decorating
ideas, and to sign up for her free online newsletter and
ebook, visit her at http://www.TheBudgetDecorator.com.
Recommended by Frugal-Home-Decor.com: Check out Kathy's new ebook, "How to Decorate Like a Pro for Pennies!".
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