How can we make our house look nicer inside on a budget of about 10p?

[rooksby]

Our house is a state. It's better than when we bought it as we have done a bit of painting and got a couple of carpets given.

It needs totally replastering, the walls are horrendous (we pulled ancient ancient woodchip off). The woodwork and doors all need sanding and repainting. Is there any point starting to do that before it's been replastered?

A couple of the carpets are terrible, they depress me. So old and marked. We used to put rugs down but have a toddler and they just get in the way. Ditto curtains, but the windows are huge and the curtain tracks are so old they're obsolete.

We don't have any spare money, we are still paying back the loan for the windows and the boiler. We don't have a lot of time either, both work and study and don't have a lot of babysitting.

Everyone's house is nicer than ours it seems! I am sick of feeling blue about it, what could we do that is very cheap, very easy and very quick that would make it look a bit nicer over the next few years while we save up for the plastering and new stuff?

Would love to hear your suggestions :)

Freecycle for new curtains?
What's under the carpet? Any chance there's a beautiful parquet floor?

Have you tried steam cleaning the carpets?

How soon will you be replastering? If it's not on the immediate horizon, I'd get on with sanding and repainting woodwork and doors - you can do it a bit at a time, when you have the time.

Carpets - give them a shampoo? Is there a wooden floor underneath good enough to just strip it all off?

Sagging curtains are depressing - can you stretch to new rails? If not, cheap blinds? In the upstairs bedrooms could you hang those wires with cheap white muslin drapes?

I'm very sympathetic as my house is far from how I'd like it and I never seem to have the money to do it up properly. But I've done some things on the cheap that have really helped, like painting the hideous kitchen units and tiles, pulling up the downstairs carpet, buying retro dining chairs from a car boot sale (£5!) and new oilcloth for the dining table. I repainted everywhere, and am about to put down grey vinyl over the hideous orange bathroom floor. I buy cheap furniture from car boot sales and Ikea, and make throws and cushion covers.

If you don't have good storage, get some (I have some big wooden trunks, again from car boot sales, either sanded and stained or repainted, so all the clutter can get hidden) and try to keep clean and tidy (I'm not good at this, but good at advising it). Keep the windows clean! It really helps.

Just to add: if you can't afford to do all the big things, try to get through the little things. Write a list, stick it to your fridge, try to do at least one a month. My list has things like: new house numbers for the front door, replace broken letterbox, clean out front porch, replace door handles. None of them will transform the place in themselves, but I think the cumulative effect will be big.

Good advice from the others, like the list on fridge idea for boosting morale...

You can get cheap curtain tracks from B&Q/Argos and can often find curtains in charity shops,also ask on freecycle.
When we were moving I gave away a king sized bed, canvas wardrobe and kitchen table on Freecycle, all in VGC, so its really worth signing up, if you can bear all the emails...

Also if you live near IKEA they are very good for cheap curtains/blinds/poles etc etc.

Pull up the carpets if you can?

Keep it clean and tidy and have fresh local/seasonal flowers (cheaper than imported).

I'd start by cleaning everything . Proper clean , with loads of ebow grease .

You will be surprised how much better even the shabbiest house can look with a good clean.

Next thing is start looking in charity shops for curtains and bits and bobs..try going for an eclectic vintage look , its amazing what can change the look of a room , a few cushions or a nice eye drawing piece ( picture ,poster , ect? )

My friend has crumbly Walls in her bedroom . They are truly awful. She can't afford to replaster . What she did was go vintage. Got her old furniture and painted it , got Lacey curtains from ikea, an old beaded lampshade from charity shop and gave it a good clean. Perminately borrowed a patchwork throw from her granny , painted the scabby Walls with a chalky paint ( matt finish) , addded a mirror to draw the eye away from imperfections and voila room looks very nice . Must have cost her £40 max , ( mainly for paint).

Thanks! Me and my mum did a big clean the other week, unfortunately that's what tipped me over the edge :) we spent ages and it still looks horrible, it isn't a big old house or anything so doesn't get especially dusty.

The floors are rubbish, 1930s house so no wood or anything I'm afraid. The issue with the curtain tracks is hard to explain, they are weird square bay windows but the rooms are tiny and ceilings low so standard tracks don't fit and there's not enough room above for poles so it's tricky, I think we are going to have to try and get blinds to fit but again the ones in DC room cost more than we wanted to spend to get them to fit the awkward window.

The outside of the house looks nice (apart from the drive but that is waaaay down the list of things that need doing and cost £££££), we have new windows/roof etc and front garden is neat and back garden pretty. It doesn't bother me too much in the warmer weather as the kitchen looks okay and we spend lots of time out in the garden.

I've been trying to persuade DP that we should clean the carpets. Even if they don't look any better I might feel a bit better, I'm ashamed of them and they're not even dirty (we hoover regularly and every now and again I use that foam stuff), just marked. The one in the front room was ok but got a huge wine spill and then a big tea spill and I just can't get them out. What is a good method? My friend has a Vax or should I pay someone to do it?

We have nice pictures up, which do help. Unfortunately the house is just so small that knick knacks and cushions get in the way, all my cushions ended up going to the charity shop! Apart from the cat's special one :)

Flowers are a lovely idea but I really don't have the space, never mind the money. The house is very tiny, smaller living/bedroom than my old back-to-back. We don't even have plants inside as there is no room, we do have a garden full of gorgeous flowers though! Maybe I'll look out for some pictures of flowers, there is lots of wall space on the stairs that I could floral up.

The chalky paint on crumbly walls is a great tip though, we forked out a bit extra for some Craig and Rose paint for the hall as it does play down how dreadful the walls are!

Hmm, so I think clean the carpets (or depending on cost of that, get an offcut down), repaint the ceilings and make a start on the woodwork and otherwise just suck it up until we've got some money saved for the curtains, plastering and new flooring. We're having DC2 soon and I wanted to go camping next summer so we might have to make some tough decisions...we tend to turn the lights right down once DC is in bed so I may treat myself to the string of rose lights I saw in Next to make the dark look a bit more glam! Can pin them high up so they won't get in the way.

Re. the woodwork, can I sand it with a mouse or would that take too much wood off? We can borrow one and it would make it quicker.

Use a steam cleaner on the carpet stains , and rub with a clean white cloth. the stain will come out . If you cant borrow one , try cleaning the stains with a solution of bicarb of soda, that helps life most things.

Window ...try using the curtain wire and hooks on the window. they only hold light curtains or fabric blinds , but might do until youve saved enough for the blinds you want.

You can use a mouse on woodwork , but it takes ages and the pads are expensive ...you might be just a well using normal sandpaper wrapped around a sanding block ( or an offcut of wood , or take wheels of large toy car and use that ? >.

We've had our fair share of grotty houses. I've got a few suggestions...

For carpets, I'd hire a Rug Doctor and do the lot in a weekend - they will come up like new. I had one a few months ago and was so impressed I wish I had more carpets to use it on. Honestly about £40 well spent.

Curtain tracks, they may be able to be repaired if you are handy at DIY. They may just need a good clean and some WD40 so they run smoothly. Curtains could be washed at launderette or get new/secondhand from ebay, freecycle, charity shop. Oversize ones are easy to shorten.

Have you got that old grey plaster that is not exactly falling off but not good enough to paint bare either? For our old walls, we hung thick lining paper (1200 grade, very cheap) and painted with really matt paint. We got away with only skimming 1 or 2 rooms like the kitchen which take more punishment.

Are you stripping the woodwork or just rubbing down? Stripping is quickest with a heat gun, they are quite cheap to buy. Then you just sand off the residue. Doors you can unscrew and send for dipping as and when you can afford it, or just give them a coat of fresh paint and ignore .

You have a house with it's own character so you might as well go with it!

lower-power light bulbs.

Actually table lamps and led fairy lights are a great way to make a home look cosy and low lighting levels hide lots of imperfections....

We do make the most of "mood lighting" :) - there's a dimmer switch in the front room so we use it!

VERY excited at the thought of Rug Doctor! Someone in my office has used it and says it's great, plus I can afford it :o

Not sure about using heat on the paint as it could be lead, so I think it'll be the elbow grease with the sanding block. The front room curtains are okay actually, I took them to the dry cleaner last year expecting them not to survive but they did, unfortunately the bedroom ones had to come down and be replaced by travel rugs as they disintegrated when handled!

Feel a lot more positive now and planning a few things to brighten the place up

If it's a 70s house it's unlikely to be lead paint, but if you have doubts I think you'd be better to avoid sanding it (and creating dust you could ingest). See here for advice.

Sorry, can't think why I read 1930s as 1970s!

if it was lead paint, sanding will release lead dust into the air for you to breathe. It might be better to use a chemical paint stripper.

Lead respirators need a special filter and are expensive, like army gas-masks.

Oh blimey! There don't look to be enough layers of paint for it to be original, I would guess that at some stage fairly recently (!) it's been stripped back to the wood...previous owners were here from the late 70s, I think they probably did it, and will ask when I see them.

For some reason I thought it was heat you shouldn't use on lead paint rather than sanding. Will be v careful. I remember reading a book when I was little where puppies ate lead paint and died, I was distraught!

D'oh, I meant to say I will look into stripping it safely if the previous owners can't vouch for the paint.

I know how you feel because I am in a similar position. Bought a small Victorian terrace that needs lots of work and I don't really have the money at the moment. Here is what I have done.

• got some very cheap curtain rods from ikea and hung up nice curtains - not new ones, but an assortment that I already had or picked up from charity shops.
• ripped up horrible manly carpet and painted the floor boards and in some rooms put down some carpet from eBay.
• painted some of the walls white. Everything needs to be replastered but in the meantime it looks cleaner and whiter.

I might be a bit late on this, but if you're anywhere near Oxford I have a carpet cleaner I'd be happy to loan you.

Such good ideas already! For windows, you could check into window film. You could put in on top half of windows so you get light through it, but also privacy. For the bottom half, you could put up cafe curtains IF the windows are fairly narrow.

Ikea do curtain wires called dignitet - they cost less than £9. using the supports/connectors, which cost £3 each, you can adapt them to fit any space. I would use throws and cushions, and make wall art by framing cut offs of fancy wallpaper that you can nick get from diy shops as samples.

EBay or IKEA for curtains and blinds. IKEA blackout roller blinds are cheap as are their voiles. I ebayed curtains from my daughters room and they went for next to nothing and perfect condition so you could get lucky. You could try eBay for paint too.

Have read great reviews about rug doctor on here. We have a back but don't think its much good.