DIY on a tight budget

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi

We really need to decorate some rooms in our house, especially the living room which hasnt been touched in 9 or 10 years. The problem is that we have very little money to do it!

What tips and advice can you give me? What would you buy cheaply and what would you try and spend a bit more money on? Does anyone have suggestions for the best DIY places to get value for money? Any ideas would be great.

Our living room is wallpapered and we could really do to replace the carpet as well (although whether we go for carpet again or some other flooring is debatable). The furniture and curtains are fine and the paintwork is wood stained so that makes it a bit easier.

Hoping someone has some ideas for me because I really dont want to look at the grubby faded wallpaper any longer!

ormus

strip the wallpaper off and emulsion the walls. 10/20 quid.
laminate the floors is often cheaper than carpets and looks ok. small room cost about 100 quid for the wood.
my very large lounge was less than 200 quid.

Steve_Groves

I would just stick down any loose paper and paint straight over it if possible. But but quality paint and now the cheap home brands because in my opinion they take more coats. Especially if you consider you are only looking at £40 to paint the room in quality paint.

Buy you decorating sundries from somewhere like toolstation.com and not from B&Q etc. You will save a small fortune that way.

HTH

YORKSHIRELASS

Yes I did think about getting rid of the wallpaper but we tried this in my sons bedroom and never managed to get the walls completely smooth. I would love to get a plasterer in and get the walls reskimmed but this is definitely out of my budget.

ormus

very few walls are completely smooth! white/cream paint hides lots of sins.
hang pictures over the bad bits!

mkirkby

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

Hi

We really need to decorate some rooms in our house, especially the living room which hasnt been touched in 9 or 10 years. The problem is that we have very little money to do it!

What tips and advice can you give me? What would you buy cheaply and what would you try and spend a bit more money on? Does anyone have suggestions for the best DIY places to get value for money? Any ideas would be great.

Our living room is wallpapered and we could really do to replace the carpet as well (although whether we go for carpet again or some other flooring is debatable). The furniture and curtains are fine and the paintwork is wood stained so that makes it a bit easier.

Hoping someone has some ideas for me because I really dont want to look at the grubby faded wallpaper any longer!

Try posting a request on Freecycle (http://www.uk.freecycle.org/) or freegle (http://www.ilovefreegle.org/). You might get lucky and find someone near you who wants to get rid of some paint/wallpaper that matches what you are after.

andrew-b

Is it for you or for resale..if it's for resale then it's always going to be easier/cheaper as you won't get so hung up on colour choices etc
Personally i wouldn't skimp on the paint and resale or not would stick to Dulux/Crown ..whilst it is a bit more expensive than DIY-store own brands it's worth it IMHO. Don't be tempted by "once" products or "pink paint that dries white" ..gimmicks that will cost you more! Magnolia or white are cheaper than other colours and you can buy in bigger tubs and make savings by buying in bulk...perhaps boring but you can add colour with accessories and easily change colour scheme without having to redecorate everytime.

Isn't really one place to use but shop around and take advantage of sales events at B&Q/Homebase etc. If there is paintable wallpaper...leave it up and repaint..especially if it's a paper with a thick pattern and you have no idea what's lurking beneath else you may be faced with plastering costs or costs of lots of filler plus lining paper.

I would stick to fitted carpet (fitted by a pro) as it is much nicer/warmer/homely IMHO..but don't skimp on the underlay. Could you live with the carpet though..would a good deep clean be good enough? Or even a big rug? Maybe replace the underlay if it's lost it's bounce? If you went for other floor types you also have to consider skirtings. A bead around the edge to cover expansion gap around laminate/wood doesn't look as nice as removing skirtings then replacing after - either way they are added costs.

ormus

yes theres always added costs in projects, but they can be small if you do it right.
ie a pack of 8 x skirting is about 25 quid from wickes.

andrew-b

True but then add on any making good of adjacent walls (easier to get taller skirtings), then additional paint costs/time on top plus fixings (not much i know but surprising how quick the costs accumulate if you've got lots to do). Guess it depends too on what tools you have...if you've got the tools (or can borrow), patience and time then replacing the skirtings is no big deal. However i reckon carpet can still be cheaper than laminate plus new skirting and i wouldn't want laminate anyway for practical reasons (dog rushing in and not stopping until collides with wall etc). OH carpeted out the whole of our old flat with reasonable quality carpet for a few hundred quid at most including underlay and fitting - we took it with us as parent-in-laws want it.

elsien

I'd go with getting the paper off, lining it and then painting. Purely because when I moved into my house I painted over the existing paper, and it took 4 coats before the pattern stopped showing through.
And there's no patterns to match up if your wallpapering skills aren't all they could be.

BargainGalore

I go with stripping old paper, make good any holes, use line paper and then some cheap wallpaper you can paint over and repaint, shouldn't costs much more than £30 for a modest size room