To ask your (affordable) interior design loves?

Buy a large bag of cushion stuffing from Amazon, restuff all your cushions. Cushions look cheap when they are thin and flat, they look expensive when they are all plump. You can make them look like that in seconds and for pennies.

i got a huge 10kg bag and also restuffed the sofa seat cushions as they zip open, everything is all plump and new looking again.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08J3R7S45/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

past that I’m afraid I’m an advocate of buy stuff you love and try to stay away from the ubiquitous stuff in dunelm, next, ikea etc. don’t buy something just to fill a space. Spend time enjoying the search. Buy something you love. As if you love it when you buy it, you will likely always love it. Antique shops are an excellent source of treasure.

lots of artwork on the walls. Again don’t buy big chain reproduced stuff, look in Etsy, antique shops, charity shops. Buy stuff you love. Make it different and interesting.

Thick woollen throws. National trust does some great thick ones for about 40 quid.

Amber bulbs in any side lights, gives a lovely warm glow in the evening.

Ercol furniture.

Very affordable 2nd hand.

I’ve had some great buys from Dunelm, it’s about getting the mix right for me. You can get old brown furniture so cheaply and polish or stain yourself. Nina Campbell has done a range for Next, there’s some lovely bits and pieces in there that you could mix and would look great, a really lovely fluted glass and white bowl for example that went in the sale for about £12, would look great on a kitchen table with fruit in it. People bitch about things but they are taken out of context, if you have a warm welcoming home that you love that’s what’s important.

Lots of people seem to turn their noses up at feature walls, but I think they can have and a role and enhance certain areas, as long as the wallpaper - or mural - is carefully chosen. I am thinking of the wall behind the bed or the TV, or at the end of a long corridor.

I am very jealous - very very!

I love mid century stuff - have a coffee table I was gifted which is beautiful.

My prize possession is my grandfathers donkey bookcase - and I agree - mix and match styles work well.

I try and find a colour theme OP - so in my living room I have sort of water colour effect flower curtains and I've matched the green in them to the wall and the green and blues to the cushions - the rest of the room is white and pretty tame.

Colour

Photos

Just enough mess that people feel they can relax when they visit.

I'm not asking for you to follow me? @Mercurial123 I'm not an influencer, I am replying to someone's thread, you don't have to follow me anywhere.

I like wicker.

Nothing mad, but a wicker trunk for a coffee table and wicker baskets for throws.

Plants in nice pots.

Candles.

Pets draped artfully across your sofas.

Rugs.

Stuff you love. (I collect model campervans.)

Nice lamps.

Cheaper frames with art that speaks to you - I get loads from Etsy.

Try to be sympathetic to the time period of your house. I live in a 60s/70s build so try to lean into that.

I still don't get it, but I would never follow anyone who thinks plants are a "trend."

I love stuff from Hay. It’s colourful and not planet-killing crap from China, but also not prohibitively expensive. Small design brands like Tom Dixon and Norman Copenhagen and Ferm Living can also be affordable at a stretch.

Done to death as a 'trend' rather than something more understated IYSWIM, obviously I don't think that's a consideration, I love house plants and I think they make a home feel welcoming as well as being aesthetically pleasing. They are also a very quick easy (mostly) cheap of adding interest and character to a room.

Agree that antique furniture is incredibly affordable, especially at auction. I recently bought a beautiful glazed Victorian cabinet for £100 and a mahogany demi lune table for £60. Cheaper than Ikea, beautifully made and full of character. They blend really well with more contemporary pieces and styling. Worth checking out Auctionet.

I like the look of home that has evolved over years. So a mix of furniture which is loved and looked after and reupholstered or re-purposed and things which have a story.

As someone mentioned above - storage and plenty of it. Whether it be old blanket boxes to store the bed linen, sideboard for the debris of clutter, ottomans to store the junk. Everything needs a specific home. I like quirky vintage pieces to do these jobs which will double up as show pieces and surfaces I can display interesting art/ objects on.

Agree with PP on floor length curtains - anything else tends to look as if you are just putting a random pair up until you can afford to get some proper ones made.

Little details like changing the knobs on cupboard doors/handles on chests of drawers. I have a great 9 drawer chest which I bought as a nasty piece of orange pine in B&Q because it was the size and shape I wanted. I painted it with navy gloss and changed the handles to pewter cup handles and it looks amazing and stores a huge amount of home office crap in the sitting room.

Everything has to be big enough. It’s something you see people getting wrong all the time; rugs are too small, a few tiny pictures on a wall, curtains that are too short or skimpy.

A living room rug should be big enough that your sofas and armchairs have their front feet sitting on it. It shouldn’t float around in the middle of the furniture; that will make your space look smaller and disjointed.

A couple of small pictures will look lost and unmoored on a large wall. One really big print or painting is much better, and if you can’t find an affordable one that you like then a gallery wall of prints or paintings looks more coherent.

Curtains should touch the floor and be full enough to gather properly.

Getting basic proportions like these right can make a huge difference to the overall appearance of a room. Even expensive rugs, artwork and curtains will look bad if they’re the wrong dimensions for a space.

We live in renovated 1970s house and I like midcentury objects in my space, have couple of chairs, lamp shade and big glass vases from the 60s (Czech art glass, from Chribska factory). All from eBay, in the range of 30-50 pounds.

Oh and soft yellow lighting. Hate white lights.

Metallic/brass accents.
Well placed mirrors.
Tropical plants.
Colourful cushions.

The minimalistic style! I love it as it creates the more airy atmosphere and makes the palce look spacious.
My personal finding was a 3d design software that also posts a ton of ideas for a small home decoration on their website. I love me some small apartement but then again, I want it to look big 😄

Plants will always be beautiful. Why would they be done to death?! If something isn't heavily promoted on SM, it doesn't mean it's not worth having. That's an insane point of view.

Quite a number of homes featured in interior design magazines have IKEA kitchens.
I had fantastic curtains once made up from IKEA fabric that was less than £5/m. I had it bordered with black which elevated it.
My favourite feature in my current home is the extension which I covered in brick slips (affordable) and Crittall style steel/glass back wall (not so affordable). Adds so much character. I have loads of artwork too.

Go to a museum shop for prints and posters and buy a frame from IKEA or see if the charity shop has any.

EBay or second-hand furniture shops. The British Heart Foundation can have some decent furniture.

Lots of pictures. Almost all mine are from op shops, a local second-hand market (retro and antique things, mostly), online, or simply things I printed from the internet and put up in frames from The Reject Shop. I have a painting of two cats that cost 55 cents from an op shop!

Plants.
Still love them even though they have been done to death.
Another one who likes wallpaper. I think it can be a really quick way to change a room (only usually do a wall or half a room or I have 2 different ones in a room). Cheaper and quicker and less messy than paint IMHO