Maybe you’d like to refurbish your home, but your budget tells you that just isn’t going to happen this year. That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with the same old look for yet another season! There are lots of ways to brighten your living space without taking out a home equity loan or breaking into your retirement savings!

Here are a few inexpensive and easy ways to update your home.

Break Out the Paintbrush

Painting the entire house, inside and out, is a significant project, but you can reinvigorate your home with just a little paintbrush effort! For example, a newly painted front door is a fresh look every time you stroll up your sidewalk.

You can also paint some of your interior doors, or just the door frames. Your baseboard and window trim make additional targets for your creative paintbrush! You get a rejuvenated appearance without all the taping and drop-clothing required for a full inside paint job. If your ceiling is a bit faded, you might try painting is a bright white. It’s astonishing how much light that lends to a room.

On a similar note, if your floor tile or bathtub seems a little tired, it’s amazing what some grout cleaner and a fresh bead of caulk will do to revive it.

Brighten Your Life

Sometimes all a room needs is just a little more light, either natural or artificial. A strategically placed floor or table lamp can bring forth the liveliness you’ve been looking for! Generally speaking, multiple light sources make a space gentler, softer and more relaxing than a single overhead fixture. Occasionally a new fixture cover is all that’s necessary to make an overhead light more appealing.

If you already have floor and table lamps, how about treating them to new lampshades? Even a subtle change such as less solid curtains can bring more light into a room!

Here’s another secret for making a room bigger and brighter: a generously sized wall mirror. Identical mirrors across from each other more than double the effect.

Upgrade Hardware and Fixtures

If your kitchen and bathroom haven’t been updated for years, you’re missing out on the attractive and functional fixtures that are now available! New faucets and showerheads will enliven their room, and you can add to the effect by matching them with replacement knobs and handles for your drawers and cabinets. Even the hardware upgrade by itself can be transforming! New handles and pulls bring a fresh look to your bedroom dressers and dining room credenzas as well.

There can hardly be an upgrade that’s as fun and simple as swapping out your light switch and outlet covers! Don’t limit your shopping to the hardware store. Specialty shops and craft fairs feature unique examples with everything from patterns to nature scenes.

Renew Soft Furnishings

New carpeting or flooring might not be in the cards anytime soon, but what about sprucing up your entryway with an area rug? Or enlivening your existing carpeting by laying a rug on top of it? You can create contrast with patterns vs. solid or short pile vs. plush.

Another possibility is a stair runner. It’s especially effective in highlighting a central, visible stairway.

Accent pillows make for another easy upgrade that’s painless to your checkbook. Contrast them with the upholstery by varying color and texture. Also, new comforters or throw blankets make a bedroom brighter and more interesting.

Don’t forget the bathrooms. Matching towels, bath mat and shower curtains are a simple way to make the sometimes-forgotten room worth noticing!

Vivacious Vignettes

An interior design vignette is a group of decor items that make a statement. If might be a glass menagerie in a shadow box, a wall collage or a group of geometrically shaped objects on a coffee table. The best vignettes consist of items that are varied yet all adhere to one theme. Diversify the sizes and the textures of your pieces, and allow for some space so that they don’t look cluttered.

Another affordable home decor winner is metallics! You can cluster metallic items vignette-style, or they can be spread around the room. You don’t have to limit yourself to one type of metal! While that’s a perfectly acceptable choice, mix and match metallics have been (and will continue to be) a fashion trend.

Low-Risk, High-Reward Design Updates

Sometimes an assortment of small adjustments can transform a living space almost as much as a major remodel. And they come at a smaller cost and with a lower risk! Go ahead and try a few of these changes. If, while in the process, you think of something different you’d rather have, it’s easy to pivot to a slightly modified design update vision!