by Simon Temprell

Created on: April 26, 2008   Last Updated: April 30, 2008

I just returned from a week in London where I was dazed each morning by an endless array of home decorating makeover' shows on TV. Although the format of each show is slightly different the main principal seems to be; revitalize your rooms for under $500.00. Is this a realistic goal?

My advice on this particular subject is simple: No staples, no glue guns and no tacky window treatments made from old sheets or tablecloths! If you want to spend your $500.00 wisely and you want maximum impact then the most dramatic results you can garner are those achieved with paint. Be daring in your choice of color and roll away those boring neutrals that seemed so safe' when you first moved in. Unify your furnishings with a stroke of saturated color and if you are worried about closing in' the space or making it too dark then choose one or two walls for an accent color and keeps the others a tone or two lighter.

Another trick is to create a faux chair-rail effect by painting the bottom third of the walls in a dark shade and keeping the top two-thirds pale. You can apply a narrow wallpaper border where the two colors meet or nail up some simple molding and add architectural interest at the same time.

And talking about moldings; the addition of crown molding can make the world of difference to a boxy, uninteresting room, especially if you take the fast food approach and supersize' it. Even if your ceilings are low I would suggest that you use a nice, hefty 8" crown to bring significant life to those otherwise featureless walls.

Another quick fix' for your $500.00 can be the re-grouping of pictures and accessories or a new floor plan for your furniture. Sometimes pictures just need re-framing to give them a new lease of life and accessories that were once picked up for $19.99 at Marshall's can be discarded and upgraded. My Rule of Thumb when it comes to accessories is the same as my advice for crown moldings; Big is Better. Don't clutter your surfaces with hundreds of dust-collecting knick-knacks when one or two well-placed items will suffice. Keep photograph frames to one area of your room instead of littering them around and unify your collection by changing the frames to one or two colors and themes instead of framing each photo in a totally different style. Photos can get out of hand if you let them so keep control of your family and friends by limiting yourself to ten frames per room.

Finally, for those of you enamored by the do-it-yourself syndrome of home decorating please never attempt to re-upholster your dining chairs unless you've taken a course in soft furnishings and have the right tools for the job. Likewise, please avoid faux paint effects and stencilled designs if you've never done it before. I have seen too many ghastly sponge-effects in my lifetime and some of them looked as though the walls had been dabbed with a paint-dipped cauliflower.

When tackling a simple makeover in your home the best advice I can give is to keep it simple, keep it bold and keep it as far away from hot glue as possible.

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