Interior Designers on How to Make Inexpensive Home furniture Glance Superior

  • Insider spoke with interior designers about budget-friendly hacks for upgrading affordable home furnishings. 
  • Incorporating new paint, new upholstery, or upgraded hardware are some of the best methods.
  • For a much more creative venture, you can incorporate fascination to bedroom furnishings by generating a Do it yourself headboard.
  • Take a look at Insider’s homepage for much more tales.

Insider asked interior designers to share their beloved ways to make cheap pieces appear extra pricey. 

This is what they claimed:

Spruce up a low-cost sofa by changing the legs

dog sitting on a couch in a decorated living room complete with artwork, a rug, and plants

Making an attempt a new leg style can revamp the entire couch.

FollowTheFlow/Getty Images


Brijé Alexandra, the principal designer at Harper + Parkyr Style Residence, advised Insider you can up grade your couch by switching its leg style. 

“Double-verify the current sofa-leg measurements to assure the new legs are stable immediately after the swap,” she additional. 

If your sofa’s legs are not removable, use paint to give them a new seem. 

Use metallic paint to update a glass desk

Interior designer Kim Depole of Depole Design claimed it can be easy to give a affordable glass desk a luxe improve.

“Use silver or gold paint to go over the underside of the glass tabletop,” she instructed Insider. “Since the paint is on the underside, you won’t have to worry about spills.”

You can also use gold or silver leaf to generate the search. 

Get in touch with paper can improve the appear of a desk or countertop

red arrow pointing toward a marble-looking kitchen counter

You can acquire contact paper that mimics marble.

Xi Bai/Shutterstock


Get hold of paper can insert texture and colour to flat surfaces. 

“Gown up your kitchen counter, dining table, or equivalent flat surfaces with get in touch with paper,” Alexandra stated. “Quite a few make contact with papers occur in peel-and-stick versions for simple application.”

Glimpse for a water resistant merchandise if you are applying it in your kitchen area or toilet. 

Make your personal headboard out of vintage finds

Increase visible desire to a bed room by pairing a low cost

mattress frame
with a Diy headboard. 

“I like employing outdated doorways to create headboards,” Depole advised Insider. “Be positive that the headboard is wider than the mattress and at minimum 7 feet in top.”

Other Diy headboard options include things like vintage window frames, tapestries, or big items of framed artwork. 

Reupholster your low-priced home furnishings in a nicer cloth

hand holding a tool to reupholster the under side of an ottoman

Reupholstering is a reasonably simply just Do it yourself task.

Kateryna Omelianchenko/Shutterstock


Anthony Stransky of Anthony Charles Interiors instructed Insider that new fabric can make chairs and sofas look substantial-conclude.  

“Reupholstering a minimal-end piece in additional deluxe cloth will expense significantly fewer than having to pay for premium furniture,” he stated.

You can include specifics like tufting or folds to additional boost the glance.

Create a dialogue-setting up piece with spray foam

Ordinarily made use of to seal cracks, polyurethane-based foam generates a fluffy texture when utilized to a surface area.

“This straightforward procedure can be utilised to ramp up the drama for most extras or home furniture,” Alexandra mentioned. “Simply just spay the foam and address with a coat of paint.”

Implement the foam exterior to assist prevent inhaling the fumes.

Swap out the components on cupboards and drawers for a more unique appear

arrow pointing to gold hardware on piece of wooden furniture

Updating the handles on a piece of furnishings can make it search thoroughly distinctive.

Nataliia Zhekova/Shutterstock


If you won’t be able to afford new furniture, take into consideration replacing the components on your drawers and cupboards.

“You can swap out all those generic handles or pulls with a lot more aspirational choices that will charge less than an solely new piece of home furniture,” Stransky told Insider.

Antique outlets are a great place to research for one of a kind components.

Use pricier add-ons to accent affordable home furnishings

“You can intensify your bigger, a lot less high priced home furniture parts with far more high-priced accents from quality models,” Stransky reported. 

Include a great toss or pillow to your sofa or splurge on an eye-catching decor piece for a decrease-finish desk.

Get your eating chairs refinished at an auto store

A new coat of paint can remodel affordable dining chairs.

“I like to acquire aged chair frames to car refinishing shops,” Depole mentioned. “You can have them refinished in so several awesome colors, which includes metallics.” 

Contact the automobile store ahead of time to make positive it’s inclined to repaint furniture.

Disguise a worn-out couch by adding pillows

throw pillows on couch

Toss pillows can distract from a low-priced couch.

Andy Dean Photography/Shuttershock


“Just one of the less complicated methods to improve a basic couch is to incorporate incredible pillows,” Depole advised Insider. 

If you can sew, you can even make your have addresses applying deluxe materials.

Try out introducing doorways to a inexpensive bookcase

“You can make a tailor made storage device by adding cupboard doorways to an previous picket bookcase,” Depole explained. 

Make sure to evaluate all the things 1st, then paint or stain the device to produce a seamless physical appearance. You can also insert quality components for additional type.

Paint your outdated home furnishings for a fresh look

hand painting a brown wooden end table light blue

A clean coat of paint can elevate a piece of furnishings.

Hydr Ercn/Shutterstock


Your furnishings may well just need a new coat of paint.

“What I like to do is increase a bold coloration to a piece with a basic silhouette, this sort of as a wooden stool,” Stransky claimed. 

You can also modernize conventional household furniture with a coat of high-gloss paint or a lacquer end.