Cheat Your Way to an Expensive Looking Home

Most of us take pride in our homes. We want the spaces that we spend the most time in to look and feel good. We want our homes to look stylish and sophisticated, and there is no reason why we should not be able to achieve that, even if our budget is more beer than champagne.

In actual fact, there are many home decor hacks that you can use to cheat your way to an expensive looking home on even the most modest of budgets. You will find some of the best of these ideas below.

Cut the crap

Probably, the easiest, and least expensive, way to cheat your way to an expensive-looking house is to remove a lot of the stuff from it. No home is going to look as stylish and sophisticated as it possibly could when it is filled with too much stuff for the space.

Clutter makes your home look dark, dingy and uncared for, even if you do put a lot of time and effort into the space. So, take some time to go through your clutter and get rid of the stuff you don’t need and the stuff which does not enhance your life or the appearance of your home. Curate a small collection of things you do love and that do look great, and your home will immediately look more expensive as a result.

Go neutral

A really easy way to instant. By making your home look more elegant, and therefore expensive, is to simply paint the walls in a nice neutral color like off-white, cream, or eggshell, This will give it a clean, fresh appearance which instantly lifts the space and makes it feel like an Insta home.

Or dramatically dark

If neutrals aren’t quite your thing, you could also think about painting your home in dramatic dark shades such as aubergine or even black. This makes the spade feel much more opulent and dramatic, which makes people think of old stately homes and European mansions.

Use peel-and-stick wooden panels

If you love the luxurious look of wood-paneled walls that make the place seem warm, cozy, and expensive, then you will be delighted to know that you can buy pine wall planks that you can simply peel and stick onto the wall to create the effect you are looking for. Less expensive than other wooden planks, while still being made of real wood, not only do you have money on the cost of buying these planks, but also on installation because you can do that yourself too. So, why not transform your home into a cozy cabin space right now?

Spend more time on lighting the place up

Think about the most luxurious, expensive homes you have ever visited. They all feel light and bright, or if they have a darker color scheme, you will notice that they have just the right light ambiance to set the correct mood. 

That being the case, you can cheat your way to a more expensive feeling home by simply investing more effort into lighting. Good lighting can transform a room and make it feel instantly more expensive. 

So, invest in a statement chandelier or pendant lights, and consider adding dimmer switches for added ambiance. Make sure you have lots of nice scented candles and accent lights too, and learn which kind of lighting suits which situation and you can bet that people will feel like your home is more expensive than it is, and you will be able to enjoy it more too.

Contrast the doors

Another really simple way to cheat your way to a more expensive-looking home is to simply paint the interior doors in your home a different color to the rest of the room. If you have, say white walls, then painting the doors in a rich black or mushroom gray will instantly give the room the appearance of something that has been custom designed for you because so few people take the time to choose unique colors for the doors in their homes, focusing in instead on the walls and soft furnishings.

Add crown molding

It’s almost too simple, but you should definitely consider incorporating molding, wall trim, or other similar, easy-to-install architectural details into your home if you want it to appear more expensive to the average person.

With a wide variety of DIY options available or the option to enhance your existing crown molding, these simple touches can bring a touch of sophistication to your space that is surprisingly striking because most people simply do not take the time to decorate the space where the wall meets the ceiling.

Don’t let the knobs nobble you

When trying to create a more expensive look for their home, one thing that a lot of people forget to do is to change out the fixtures and fittings like door knobs, drawer pulls and faucets, which can instantly make a room look more shabby if they are old and a bit beaten down, and merely make a home look average if they do not have a designer touch.

Changing the hardware on your cabinets and drawers is, then, a simple and affordable way to update your kitchen and make it seem more sophisticated. Instead of choosing standard handles and doors choose bronze ones or gold plated ones or ones that are shaped like flowers or animals or have a cool abstract design just to show that some thought and effort has gone into the room, and to give it a more interior-designed feel to it.

Stick on a new kitchen countertop

Just like you can now buy peel-and-stick wooden wall panels, you can also buy peel-and-stick kitchen countertop covers which are one of the best cheats in this post. For as little as 20 dollars, you can cover your old, worn countertops with a new version that looks just like granite or marble or quartz and refresh the spade almost immediately. Since it’s so cheap, you can revamp your kitchen way more often than you otherwise might be able to, and your friends will be so envious of you!

Add a floral flourish

Nothing says expensive and tasteful like a large bouquet of flowers, so if you can do so, get to a local flower market and pick up a big bunch of roses, geraniums and whatever else you like, then arrange them into bowls that you can place around the room. Not only will your home seem more sophisticated, without you having to spend much at all, but you will also have a house that smells amazing and is more colorful than ever too.

And a flourish of foliage too

Adding plants to your home not only makes it feel more expensive because rich green foliage, especially when there are lots of it, is undoubtedly luxurious, but it can also improve the air quality in your home, so that you can breathe easy, too. Choose low-maintenance options, such as succulents, peace lilies, and fens, to keep your space looking fresh and green even if you aren’t exactly the most experienced gardener or plant owner, and place them in high-quality, yet sophisticated pots such as Japanese print pots and cool geometrics.

Bed down in style

Your bedroom should be a place of comfort and relaxation. Investing in high-quality bedding, such as Egyptian cotton sheets paired with Velvet ivory gold pillow cover will not only enable you to feel comfier in bed, but it will also make your home seem more luxurious too. Buy the best thread count you can afford, be sure to make the bed every day, and you will need to do very little else to have an elegant bedroom you can be proud of.

Choose the right art

Hanging artwork on your wall can help to make the place look more sophisticated, but only if you choose wisely. You do not have to spend a lot of money, and prints are just fine, but you should try to pare down the number of colors, shapes and styles that you have on your gallery wall so that they are all cohesive, Ideally, they should also have a similar color palette to the room that they are in and be professional framed in a simple way.

Texturize

Adding texture to a room can make it feel more expensive. Consider adding a plush rug, woven throw, or velvet pillows to create a cozy and sophisticated feel in each room using fabric. Even better, if you can layer up textures, like layering a woven rug on top of a faux fur one, for example, or layering throw pillows with blankets, as another example, then the space will look even more plush and inviting, which will instantly make people think that your space is expensive, even if you just spent a few dollars at Home Depot.

As you can see, there are a huge number of things you can do to cheat your way to an expensive looking home without having to spend the entire contents of your bank account. So, what are you waiting for? Time to revamp your home!