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You are here: Home / Decorating / Easy, Budget-Friendly Ways to Lighten Your Decor for Spring

Easy, Budget-Friendly Ways to Lighten Your Decor for Spring

April 25, 2017 By Karen Cooper Leave a Comment

Hello, friends! I’m back from Salt Lake City and am ready to get back to DIYing!!  As you might remember, last Monday, I posted about how I lightened up my living room decor for spring with just a few new touches.

Lighter living room transformation for spring - thediybungalow.com

Click on the photo to see how I lightened up the decor in our living room for spring!

Today I want to share my favorite tips for easy, budget-friendly ways to lighten your decor for spring. I’ll start with small ways to lighten up and then move through the list to some big changes!

1.  Change the pillows.

One super-easy way to lighten up a room is to change the accessories in the room. More specifically, an easy and budget-friendly change you can make is simply to change the pillows in a room.

Family room yellow teal and green colors - thediybungalow.com

I always crack up at that insurance commercial where the woman buys more pillows with the money she saves – because I kind of love new pillows! But just look at how much they brighten up our olive green sectional in our family room!

The best thing about buying some new pillows to refresh a room is that they are generally relatively inexpensive. You can find adorable pillows at Target or other “big box” stores, and Home Goods always has on-trend pillows and in every color!

In my living room, I bought new pillows for the couch and I don’t think any of them was more than $20!

Navy and white couch with new pillows to lighten my decor for spring - thediybungalow.com

2. Add flowers.

A great way to brighten up a room is with flowers. And even if you don’t want to buy live or cut flowers for your home (if you have allergies or you just kill them the moment they come into your house!), you can buy good-looking faux greenery and flowers for not much money.

Faux flowers in front of the DIY fireplace screen - thediybungalow.com

Click on the photo to see how I turned an old window screen into a fireplace screen!

Those forsythia branches have been all over my home!

I love fresh flowers, too.

Dining room with fresh flowers to brighten decor for spring - thediybungalow.com

Click on the photo to see my dining room makeover!

Especially daisies. They make me smile! Trader Joe’s has great prices on fresh flowers, FYI.

3. Choose lighter fabrics.

In winter, I throw a blanket or quilt over every chair and sofa in our home, because I’m always cold!

Throw over back of couch in winter - thediybungalow.com

But once spring rolls around, I put away the heavy quilts and blankets. A vintage wooden ladder is a great place to store them in the spring.

Vintage ladder to hold blankets and quilts in spring - thediybungalow.com

You can also replace heavy curtains with lighter-weight ones or lighter color ones. Lighter curtains means more light coming in, which means brighter rooms. Or change the slipcover on a chair or sofa for a lighter look.

4. Paint a piece of furniture a bright color.

Sometimes, just painting one piece of furniture a bright color can lighten the whole room. Check out how dark this storage chest was when I bought it:

Vintage chest at consignment store - thediybungalow.com

Now check it out after I painted it a bright blue:

Vintage chest after chalk style paint - thediybungalow.com

It’s nice to have something bright on the porch given the dark floors and the dark brick on the walls! And this project took less than a quart of paint, so it’s budget-friendly.

5. Paint the walls.

Paint is a great way to lighten a room. At about $25 for a gallon of paint (depending on brand), you can transform the look of a room for not much money!

Using paint to lighten decor for spring - thediybungalow.com

Click on the photo to see how I brightened the kids’ bathroom with a gallon of paint!

If you don’t want to paint the whole room, try an accent wall or the trim. Just painting the trim in our kitchen white made it so much brighter!

Brighter kitchen with white trim - thediybungalow.com

Click on the photo to see the darker “before”!

You could also plant an herb garden in your kitchen:

Farmhouse herb garden in vintage tool box for spring - thediybungalow.com

What do you do to lighten your decor for spring in your home?

Easy budget-friendly ways to lighten your decor for spring - thediybungalow.com

Do you love spring cleaning, too? If so, check out my cleaning posts here! (I love spring cleaning!)

You might also like:

  • Lighten Up Decor for Spring
    Lighten Up Decor for Spring
  • Five Ways to Refresh Your Decor
    Five Ways to Refresh Your Decor
  • The Number Three
    The Number Three

Filed Under: Decorating Leave a Comment

About Karen Cooper

Hi! I'm Karen. I call myself a “recovering lawyer” - I traded in my power suits for power tools and a life of DIY adventures. Join me for DIY, home decorating, repurposing and upcycling, and organizing projects and tips as I transform a 1929 Tudor bungalow into our home. I believe in merging old and new to make a house a home.

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Hi! I’m Karen. I call myself a “recovering lawyer,” because I turned in my power suits for power tools and a life of DIY. This blog is all about DIY, home decorating, repurposing and upcycling, and organization. I believe in merging old and new to make a house a home.




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About Karen

A "recovering lawyer," I turned in my power suits for power tools and a life of DIY. I believe in merging old and new to make a house a home. Read More…

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