MAKING THE MONEY GO FURTHER Few of us can spend as much money as we want on a project, we have to work to a budget, but how do we do that without compromising our dream, or cutting corners. Here are some ways to make your budget stretch a little bit further. Learn to do as much as you can yourself You need to understand that I was not a very practical person, at school I was hopeless at dressmaking, and girls were not taught woodwork or home maintenance. I am not an exact person, so careful measuring and neatly sewn seams are beyond my capabilities. My father had a boat and taught my sister and I how to paint and varnish. From the interior design course I gained more experience with tools. I am telling you this because if someone like me can do practical things, you can to. And, surprisingly you may even find it therapeutic and enjoyable. Read books, go to classes, watch and ask trades people questions when they work. Almost every-body should be able to- Paint It really is not difficult. I find painting very therapeutic, and so satisfying as it makes such a difference to a room, so fast. Become familiar with a brush, a pad, and a roller. Each one is best for different situations Painting is physically hard work. If it is too much for you to wield a roller up a ladder, just do the cutting in. This the fiddly part at the corner of the walls, around the doors an windows. It takes time and patience. Ask your stronger partner, or the painter to do the rest of the walls and the ceiling. Would it be possible to paint a feature wall instead of all four walls? This gives a dramatic change, especially if the walls are white, off white, cream or beige. Could you do a decorative paint finish instead of painting? Sponging, rag rolling, frottage etc, are very fast and use very little paint. Work with friends, you help them paint a room, they will reciprocate and help you. Offer young students pizzas and a crate of beer in exchange for their labour. Learn when to use the different paint types, water or oil based, matt, semi and gloss.

Learn to apply decorative paint techniques Sponging, rag-rolling, stenciling etc. are not hard to do, and are very effective. They can be used on walls, material, accessories, furniture, pictures and frames. Combine them with decoupage, printing, collage and material
Paper Putting up wallpaper is not as easy as painting, you need to get the knack of measuring, cutting, rolling soaking and trimming. It is very quick, especially if two people are doing if together.
My friend Annie was having a child coming to stay and needed to do –up the spare room in a hurry, and on a limited budget, so she bought rolls of the cheapest wrapping paper she could find, and stapled it to the walls. It looked great and would probably last a few years.

Annie chose bright coloured wrapping paper, and stapled it to the wall.

Tile It is not that hard to tile, but you do need to be exact. Start with a small project, for example, a line of tiles above a sink. When you have found that it was not as hard as you thought, move onto more ambitious projects, like a shower. Some tiles are easier to fix as they don’t need spacers between them. Cutting a tile is tricky, you can waste tiles and money very quickly. I make a paper template and take it to a tile shop to cut for me. They only charged a few dollars, and the hard part was done for me. People often have spare tiles at the end of a project that you can pick–up cheaply. Always try to keep a few spares to cover later breakages. The next day, when the tiles are set, grouting goes over the top and into the cracks.
If you learn to grout, you can change grouting that has greyed with mildew. Plaster Small holes and dents in a wall can easily be filled and sanded down. Plastering walls and gib-stopping is a little harder, but not impossible. Caulk Filling in around a bath, window etc. to stop the water leaking through. The professionals put a large filler tube into a ‘gun’ This takes a bit of practice, but is a similar technique to using an icing bag, a combination of movement and pressure. If a gun seems too daunting, try a small tube, it gives the same result. There is a knack to putting putty around a window, get some-one to show you, then do it yourself. Varnish Varnishing is exactly like gloss painting, so if you can do one, you can do the other. Make a window treatment You may not have the skill [or inclination] to make curtains, swags and tails, but you could make some simpler treatments using a staple or glue gun instead of sewing. Drape a length of material artistically over a pole, and hem the ends

Make a statement in a window with a swag of material draped over a white pole.

Net curtains can be bought by the metre, with the heading sewn on, and a special ‘tear off’ bottom border. They come in different lengths. All you have to do is buy about double the width of the window, and slightly longer than your drop, hang them and tear off the length you don’t need. No sewing required!

An ornamental blind can be made by stapling the material to a wooden pole and gathering it up at the middle and each end with a length of ribbon.
Spray frosting on glass so people can’t see in to your room Stick plastic, acetate, or material, onto the glass. Paint onto the glass with washable powder paints, or more permanent house paint. Put up a wire with cup hooks to hang a net or café curtain, or a stronger wire with larger hooks to hang curtains with eyelets punched through the top, instead of tape.

Learn how to use tools Go to an evening class, or ask a professional to show you the correct way to use a screwdriver, a plane, a chisel, a hot air gun, a saw, craft and Stanley knives and to hammer a nail into a wall. Get a tool box and keep every thing tidy, in one place.

Use power tools Always use a circuit breaker to protect you from an electric shock, it’s like a mini circuit breaker, and could save your life. This is vital with all power tools, when sanding a door, or mowing the lawn. Power tools make hard work fast and easy. My favorite is the sander. I use it on old ‘junk’ I am renovating, it quickly strips of old varnish back to the wood. Another useful tool is a glue-gun. They take different sticks of adhesive to bond different materials. I use one for making art work, decorating light shades and waste paper baskets, getting material to stick, and fixing broken furniture. Do up junk I love hunting for pieces of furniture that other people no longer want and will give or sell to me very cheaply. Many people lack the imagination when seeing a scruffy old chest of drawers. They can’t see that if you strip of the dark varnish, oil the wood, and change the handles you a beautiful old antique that someone would pat hundreds of dollars for. That is a true story, it was a chest of drawers that someone had actually thrown away! Coffee tables and bedside cabinets and be picked up very cheaply and repainted to fit in with your colour schemes. Decorative paint techniques [sponging, ragging etc.] add impact.

This chest of drawers was left behind with an apology that the previous owner had not had enough time to dump it! It was a skillfully made, with dovetail joints, in rimu, a New Zealand native and highly prized, wood. I spent a few hours sanding and varnishing, and sold it for a couple of hundred dollars.

Putting unusual pieces together can look stunning

This table is made from and old marble washstand top and a wooden crate!

Stones from the beach were put around this country-style fireplace, instead of tiles.

Make a picture It is often difficult to find artwork in the colours to match your room. I find secondhand canvas and paint over them, or buy a large new canvas from an art shop or gallery. Make sure that they have been primed ready for painting. If not, put a primer and base coat on before you paint. A canvas is the least expensive option, as working on paper and then framing is very expensive. I am always on the lookout for pictures in good frames, which I can recycle.

……………………rs son on canvas,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
If you want glass and a frame, buy them ready made for the mass market. You can change the colour of a wooden frame by painting or putting a colour wash over the wood. Having a frame made specially is exorbitant. Another alternative is light-weight particle board, obtained from do it yourself shops. Prime and paint it, then treat it like a canvas. It will be strong enough to add texture,[ I use Pollyfilla.]

This is an easy piece of art using the room’s colour scheme, and their son’s name

I use my wall paint for my art work, that way I have an exact colour match. I keep a folder of ideas, pictures torn from magazines, cards, and photos. Even if you are not an artist you can Make swirls of colour Splash colour. Soak pieces of cloth in polyfilla or plaster of paris and drape it on the board [see below]. Sponge backgound colours on, then cut a simple stencil design and paint over background. Make a collage with leaf shapes and prints Make a collage with scraps of material and paper. Use masking tape to make a pattern of straight lines Paint it all one colour to contrast with your wall. Or a series in different colours that are tones or shades of your wall colour.

Two long, thin canvas are mounted on a white alcove, surrounded by a green wall. Shades and tones of the green have been painted on , with brown for contrast.

Get a book on abstracts out of the library and copy some of the simpler designs. Use a photocopier to enlarge designs to make into stencils, or draw around, or cut out for a collage. Buy loads of cheap newsprint and practice on that first. When you are confident, try the canvas. If you don’t like the result, you can always paint over it and try again! Hang pictures Find the stud by knocking on the wall until it sounds different, or use an electronic stud finder. That’s where you put your nail in, making sure you avoid being over a power point. I would always recommend calling in a professional plumber or electrician for anything to do with electricity or water.
Make some sculptures

We all made clay pots and figurines at school. There are clays that harden without firing that you can paint to match your room, and finish off with a coat of varnish. You can buy blocks of polystyrene that can be shaped with knives and sandpaper, then covered with plaster or concrete [for outside] and painted. Paper mache can produce some great works of art. One of the easiest ways is using polyfiller.

This was a man’s jacket that I stuffed with newspapers and coated with several layers of polyfilla.

The first two coats I painted on as a watery consistancy.

I nade them thicker as they dried and held their shape. The last coat was textured and was put on with a knife. If I had sprayed it with a bronze paint, it would have looked like a cast metal statue.

The two white pictures were done on a thin board with material dipped in pollfilla trailed over them.

BUY SECOND HAND Someone, somewhere will be selling cheaply exactly what you are looking for, it’s a question of looking in the right places, and giving yourself enough time. Always make an offer. The best time to buy or sell something is when you don’t have to! Don’t appear to be to eager, if the price is right, you may be persuaded to buy. I find the best bargains at the town refuse station. The smaller ones are very good. I always call in when passing by.

An old waste-paper basket had been thrown away, it was just what I needed for a bedroom I had just designed the curtains for. I wiped diluted paint onto the basket and left it to dry. There were a few scraps of material left over. I cut it into three strips, long medium and short. The long strip was soaked in wallpaper paste. While it was still wet I folded it into a long thin strip, with all the edges folded over on the inside, cut the ends at an angle, then draped it artistically over the basket. While that was drying I made a bow and propped the loops open with the middle of a toilet roll. The last strip went over the middle of the bow to finish it neatly. When dried it was all secured with a glue gun.

Garage sales are great, because the owners are highly motivated to sell, and will be open to offers. Take the biggest car you have access to, or borrow/hire a trailer for the morning if you are after larger furniture. Arrive early to get the choice, arrive late to get the bargains. The owners don’t want to do this again next week! Pick up and carry around items that you might want, or someone else will buy them. Don’t take a friend, they may decide to buy exactly what you had wanted!

I bought four of these stained old light shades for a dollar. I bought some wrapping paper that co-ordinated with the room I was decorating, and cut out the stars. I painted then sponged the outside in a matching colour. Next I glued on the stars, you can use a wallpaper glue if the material is thin, this was thicker so I used a pva glue, taking care to spread it evenly so it would not show through when the light was on. Lastly I put a coat of clear varnish on to protect the finish.
Ask to see items actually working. Always have an assortment of notes in your pocket, but still bargain.
It is also worth looking in your garage/junk room, and your friend’s and families, I found these old flower pots.

The pots were chipped and cracked,but I covered them with several layers of wrapping paper and wallpaper glue, rather like paper-mache.I finished them off with three coats of varvish to make them waterproof.

Buy, sell and exchange papers are excellent, but you have to start early. I prefer to advertise items that I am requiring, so they have to contact me, rather than compete with several people contacting them. Look at notice boards at shops, schools and work. Put up your own notices. Ask friends and acquatances, it’s a small world. If you are doing a lot of work and will have to buy new items, ask for a discount card from the shops you will be using. Most of them will see you as a valuable customer, they don’t want you going to the competition. Talk to the manager. Always get to know the staff by name, have a chat with them, if they are not to busy. You’ll be amazed how they can help you with advice and discounts and free samples. Auctions can be great fun. You don’t have to be there in person, you can leave a written bid, and some auction houses will do telephone bidding. I prefer that, because I tend to get so excited that I end up bidding against myself! Go to a few different auction houses and find out what they specialise in. Attend a few auctions to get a feel for the prices of items that you are interested in. Be strict about how much you are prepared to pay. My best bargain was a solid wood eight- seater conference table, in a modern design. There was a sheet of plate glass on the top, so the wood was in perfect condition. There were a few scuffs on the black metal base. It would perfect as my dining table. I was prepared to pay $200nz for it, I got it for $120, as it was rather large for the average house. A tin of black car spray paint hid the scratches, and it looked like new.
Another great place is the recycle building depots. When houses are demolished, or alterations undertaken, the old items are sold, or given to these depots. They are the perfect place to find almost new, or old character parts for your home.
You will need to take a tape measure with you.
Here is where you will find doors, windows [modern aluminium, or old stained glass], basins, mirrors, chandeliers, and the kitchen sink! I have seen beautiful wooden panels, from a manor house, marble columns from a bank, and pulpits from a church. It’s exciting, because you never know what treasure is going to be there.
This also a good place to dump anything that you can’t sell. Find a less expensive alternative. Try to think outside the square. How else could you get the effect you want? Ask the advice of the professionals, and creative friends. Most experts give free advice, in the hope that you will buy their products, or use their services. Paint a feature wall, not all four walls. Make the paint go further with a decorative paint technique. For small areas a small test-pot will suffice. If your bathroom needs updating, changing the tiles is a lot cheaper than changing the bath. Buy a new set of towels in an exciting colour.
Old tiles can now be painted over successfully, use special tile paint. I would only recommend resurfacing a bath if it was an antique claw-foot. I picked up a nearly new bath for $20 from a garage sale, so why bother. If your kitchen cupboards are in good condition put new doors on for a fraction of the cost. Or can you repaint the doors yourself, or get a professional to re-lacquer them?
If you find some expensive curtain material that you like, but can’t afford the number of metre require you could-
• Buy cheaper fabric for the main curtain and have a leading edge to each curtain, or tie-backs and valance in the expensive fabric.
• Make a Roman Blind instead, they use about a third of the fabric in a curtain.
• Make fake curtains that don’t draw, with cheaper ones behind.

Project-
To change this dark, north-facing kitchen into a modern, light and inviting space.

We kept the cupboards, but changed the doors to a lime-washed oak. Pale green tiles replaced the dark red tiles on the wall. The new, white bench –top replaced more red tiles. The appliances, taps and sinks were changed for white ones. Light green speckled vinyl was laid on the floor. The microwave was built into the new oven housing. The door leading through to the utility room was widened and turned into an arch. This let in more light, and made it easier to use the dishwasher that was out there.

The new kitchen is much lighter, and a pleasure to work in. The cost was much less than had we taken all the cupboards out.

Carpet looking threadbare? Could a large rug be the solution? Or are there some beautiful floorboards hiding underneath. Even concrete can be painted to look attractive.You could do a fake tile effect by painting lines. Pint the whole floor in patches of a similar shade, don’t try for an even look.Paint the lines, mark them in pencil or chalk, then paint them by hand so the lines are not totally straight. Choose a shade of grey or brown, black is too dominant. Sponge on several more colours.
Or do a splatter or sponge effect. Remember to use a sealer as the top coat so it lasts longer. Walls concrete block or in bad shape? Consider hanging material over them. Dust clothes and calico are very inexpensive, and could be dyed. Pleating the material looks great, but costs more. Fix it onto a batten with a staple gun, or use metal clips, set at intervals along the wall. For small areas stick tin foil onto the wall, either smooth or scrunched-up. Try the less shiny side for a more subtle look. Space blankets [found in camping stores] are stronger and larger. Can’t afford bedroom cupboards? Buy and old screen and staple material over the frame, or paint it. Hang your clothes on dowling and hide them behind the screen. Need more shelves? Breeze blocks or bricks with planks of wood are a quick, and stable, alternative. They could also be used for a coffee table. For an interesting effect, put a colour wash or stain on the wood, and spray the bricks with car paint. Wood crates can be painted or stained to make coffee tables. If they have a lid, they can also be used for storage. They can be transformed by gluing and stapling padding and material around the outside. The same can be done with old blanket boxes, I found an ugly plastic covered blanket box at the refuse centre. It looked so bad they gave it to me. I stripped the covering off, and was pleased to find that it had a sturdy wooden frame, and the lining was intact. I wrapped wadding around, then material left over from my curtains. I made them secure with my glue and staple gun, nothing was sewed. I hid the joins with braid. It only took a few hours, and the transformation was astonishing.

The blanket box was covered in left-over curtain material.

An old headboard can be changed the same way. Or make a new one, pay an expert to cut custom wood to shape, and attach the supports. Glue down the padding, glue and staple the material over the top A small fibre-wood tables can be bought very cheaply, cover it with a cloth, then a second smaller one for a really elegant look.

This was a cheap fibre-board table. It was covered with a double cloth made of left-over curtain material. The flower arrangement is simple enough to copy.

We made this bedroom more exciting with swags over the bed and windows.

Need some ornaments?
Clay ornaments and vases cane be integrated into your colour scheme with a decorative paint finish, and a top coat of gloss polyurethane or varnish.
Decoupage can also be used. Cut up wrapping paper into small pieces and use wallpaper glue to stick several coats over the object. Finish with three coats of gloss polyurethane or varnish.

This was a cheap, clay duck that I picked up at a car boot sale. I sponged it to co-ordinate with the room.

Remember doing paper-mache at school? It’s easy and fun, and the family could help you. Settee looking tired?
Would a few scatter cushions update it? A throw of material[calico or dust-sheets are cheap and can be dyed, a mohair blanket is luxurious and can keep you warm at night] to hide most of it? Loose covers? The sad fact is that they are usually not worth recovering, unless they are a family heirloom. The cost of the fabric and labour is usually more than a second hand one.
fake tiling with a stencil Doyou Testpots for sponging Roman blins instead of curtains Fake curtains and blinds that don’t draw Dress fabric instead of curtain fabric Lining or nets instead of curtains