guest post crafty DIY tips for creating apartment style on a Budget

Crafty DIY Tips for Creating Apartment Style on a Budget

While decorating is never an easy task for most of us, adorning your place can be especially hard in an apartment.  With less storage space and fewer square feet to work with, it's often better to take a do-it-yourself approach to decorating. 

Crafty DIY tricks to spruce up your place add a unique, homemade twist to your dwelling on the dime.  By using money-saving resources and these tips below, you can have a beautifully decorated apartment without spending a fortune. 

Repurposing

Better Homes and Gardens decided to come up with some ideas by giving their designers a challenge: they were given an old piece of furniture and told to revamp it as something else to be used within a home. For instance, one designer turned a child’s school classroom desk into a cabinet with three stack shelves, which hold garden supplies and candies. Another one turned a medicine cabinet into a cubby for mail, photos, keys, and other small miscellanea.

These designers were given specific, limiting items, so while they had some genius ideas, they only scratched the surface.  Do you have similar objects lying around the house?  Try the trick and see what treasures you can whip up. 

25 Ideas for Under $50

Apartment Therapy has another 25 ideas to help furnish your place. Unfortunately, for a lot of apartment hunters, any single decoration or piece of furniture totaling anywhere close to $50 is too steep. To get around that problem, click all of the links that say “DIY” in the name, and you’ll be shown projects that are largely free, plus some minor expenses for supplies. Plus, the vast majority of these links are of the do-it-yourself variety.

If you are a little flush with cash and low on time or effort, some of the projects also show you where to buy a pre-made version. For instance, while they show you how to make a fleece blanket on your own, they also let you know that American Apparel has one for $28.

5 More Ideas from RealSimple.com

While less of an overwhelming list than the one at Apartment Therapy, these little projects are cute, unique, and brighten areas that are often overlooked. For instance, they show you how to make a box for your towels in the bathroom, instead of the traditional rack, and they also give a recipe for making over your drab hallway. Use this method and spruce up the space by adding a bright runner on the ground.

Turning your apartment into a home doesn’t require countless trips to IKEA and draining your bank account.  With a little elbow grease and the willingness to be resourceful, you can have a fashionable décor without overspending.