When you get the urge to start making changes to your home, your imagination can often run away from you. Your home is a blank canvas to be styled, painted, primped and perfected. Once you start thinking, your mind can easily drift to a thousand miles a minute picturing the new gallery wall for the entrance hall, the upgraded tech for the kitchen and even the changes you could make to the outdoor space in the back of the home. By this point, though, your bank balance is whispering to you and all your giant ideas go up in smoke.

Here’s the thing: Grand gestures are beautiful. They are! We know it and you know it. However, grand gestures are also usually expensive. By all means, have a gallery wall, but hit the budget stores for the frames and upcycle them with fabrics and gems for a personal touch. Have the garden lawn replaced with artificial grass but visit here and see the fence caps that can add that finishing touch. It’s important to make changes every now and then, sure, but you should ensure that these changes that you’re making are going to have a big impact on your space. You deserve to have the sort of home that’s going to make you feel good and make you feel like you’re achieving something beautiful. You just don’t have to break the bank with an entire renovation to do it.

Firstly, you have to choose your room to start with and make sure that the changes that you make for this room will actually matter. So, changing the kitchen sink and faucets, for example, can make your entire kitchen look upgraded, but all you’ve done is a minor change. Updating the main living spaces are the first way to make an impact, so don’t be afraid to do this early. You could even choose to change the backsplash on your tiles and know that you’re making a good difference with it. Reupholster the seating around the kitchen island or change the lighting over the dining table. These are seemingly small adjustments, but they have the biggest impact on your guests and even on yourself. The satisfied feeling that you get when you know you’ve completed your updates is second to none.

When you move into the lounge space, thing about the cushions and the curtains instead of the entire window shape or the seating furniture. Focusing on what you can do to enhance is going to be far friendlier on your wallet than it is on anything else. Pops of bold color in a fairly neutral color scheme can have the same impact, it’s just about choosing the colors that are really going to stand out. The best bit is that you can make all these small changes and really upgrade the appeal of your home, and you get to spend an awful lot less money than you think! Make it about marrying your home wishes and your budget, and you can’t lose.

But how do you design a house that you love while keeping your children – and their many toys – in mind. See these simple tips for organizing your children’s toys.

Photo Credit: Gallery wall, plants