With house prices and rent costs soaring in the midst of the cost of living crisis, it's no surprise that most people don't have much disposable income left to spend on renovating their homes.
But for those who still want to spruce up their properties, celebrity home makeover experts Style Sisters have now given their top money-saving tips to help homeowners and renters to transform their space on a budget.
Charlotte Reddington and Gemma Lilly, who are in fact best friends not sisters, started their organising and decluttering business five years ago. Since then they have helped a range of celebrity clients from Amanda Holden and Rochelle Humes to Vicky Pattison and Mark Wright, and their Instagram account now amasses more than 280,000 followers.
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The stylish duo, who met at school in Essex, are famed for transforming celebrities' cluttered spaces - from walk-in wardrobes to full home detoxes.
“People are looking to declutter, reorganise and just keep costs down and make the best of what they’ve got at the moment," said Gemma.
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"Mortgage rates are rising and we’re in a cost-of-living crisis, and I think people feel they can’t move or spend much on improving. And that’s why we want to help people improve the spaces they’re in.”
Here are Charlotte and Gemma's 10 best ways to spruce up your home without spending a fortune:
1. Write a list
"To create attractive order in your home, your mind needs to be in order first – so write a list of things you need to do," suggests Charlotte.
“Think about what you need to tackle in the home – it can be quite overwhelming and daunting and we tend to end up putting it off.
"So our first protocol would be to either list it by room, and detail what you’d like to achieve in that room, whether it’s detoxing your wardrobe or going through the kitchen cupboards.
“Just by having it down in a list and slowly ticking it off gives you those small wins to keep you motivated to continue.”
2. Identify affordable but effective updates
Gemma says people need to think about how they use the spaces in their home, and what might need updating.
“Could your kitchen cupboards do with a fresh lick of paint?” she asks.
“You might not be able to afford to completely get a new kitchen, but there are ways to update your existing rooms on a budget. You can do that by changing handles, painting cupboards and so on.”
3. Think about changing the room function
Swapping what you use rooms for what can add a fresh take to your home.
“You might have a dining room and a living room and actually, the rooms might work better vice-versa," Gemma said.
"Even just rearranging the furniture can make it feel like a new space and make the room flow better.”
4. Invite the outside in
If possible, try to make your main living space near the back doors and the garden if you have one, to make the most of any good weather over the summer.
“The back doors can be opened so you’re letting the outside in, just making your space work for you and your lifestyle,” suggests Charlotte.
5. Don’t neglect outside space
Gardens, or even front or back yards, are still part of your home and should be kept as tidy as possible, say the pair.
“Give your front garden kerb appeal and make it look nice, and give your front door a lick of paint if it needs it,” advises Charlotte, who points out that it shouldn’t cost much to hire someone to help out in the garden if you haven’t got green fingers yourself.
6. Neutral tones with pops of colour
The Sisters agree they generally prefer more neutral tones on interior house walls, but they stress it’s very much down to individual taste.
“Colour schemes are entirely up to each person and their tastes – this is your home and you live in it and you’ve got to enjoy it,” stresses Gemma.
“We tend to stick to more neutral tones, but you can add a pop of colour or you can wallpaper a feature wall, for example.
“If you’re living in quite a small space, we always tend to steer clear of colour on the walls because that can make the room look smaller. Save the pops of colour for small bathrooms, maybe, because you can get away with being a bit more adventurous in there.”
7. Make smaller rooms look bigger
If some, or all, of your rooms are small, Gemma says mirrors are great to bounce light and make spaces appear a lot larger.
In addition, lighter-coloured flooring can make a big difference to the perception of space in a room, she points out.
“The amount of times I’ve seen light sucked out of the room because of a dark-coloured flooring, and instantly once we change the flooring and make it lighter, it makes the room feel so much bigger,” she says.
“And even if you’re not in a position to change the flooring, it could be that you get a lighter-coloured rug and instantly that would lift the room. Or you could simply paint the floorboards lighter.”
8. Be careful with curtains
"Look at your window dressings or curtains – curtains sometimes cover a lot of the light in the room, making it feel more closed in and darker," explains Charlotte.
“We always say to position curtains either side of the window rather than on the window, because it just gives the illusion of the space feeling a lot bigger.”
9. Memory boxes to help decluttering
Decluttering is a vital part of making a home more attractive, say Charlotte and Gemma, who point out that often the problem with clutter is that it has sentimental value and people are reluctant to get rid of it.
“With items that people tend to struggle to part with when they’re really sentimental, we’ll recommend creating a memory box because it’s a safe place, it’s not taking up prime space in the home, and you can put it into a loft or storage,” says Gemma.
10. Take pictures of precious but often unattractive items
Rather than allowing things like children’s artwork or other sentimental items to overrun your rooms, the Style Sisters recommend you take pictures of them and create albums, and have a bookcase of pictures of these sentimental items before storing them away.
“You’ve still got the memory there, but they’re just not taking up so much space,” says Charlotte, who suggests another alternative is to take pictures of items and create a digital memory book on your phone, so they’re physically taking up no space at all, but you can still look at them.
You can request The Style Sisters’ help for a limited amount of time this July to improve your home, by visiting Airtasker.
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Want to feature your home in our Where I Live series? If so, please email your details to phoebe.jobling@reachplc.com.
