10 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR HOME LOOK EXPENSIVE - DESIGN HACKS

Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name's Kristen, and today I'm gonna be sharing with you 10 decorating tips to make your home look more luxurious and expensive. I just finished up an apartment makeover for my friend, and his one request was, make my home look expensive. And I think there's so many amazing, easy ways to accomplish that without breaking the bank. So I'm sharing some of my designer tips with you today so that you can achieve that same look in your home. If you enjoy watching and find this video helpful, make sure you give it a big thumbs up and hit that like button. And I wanna give a huge thank you to Walmart for sponsoring today's video. Let's go ahead and jump right into it. Let's talk about window treatments, because everyone has windows in their home, large or small, and window treatments can make or break your space. They can also be the thing that adds a luxurious touch and feel to a space instantly. So one thing that I think you should consider doing to add this lux feeling in your space is actually layering window treatments. Using more than one type of window treatment on one single window. You'll notice this done all the time in high-end hotel design and high-end residential design. As soon as you hang your drapes high and wide from your window, your space is gonna look large and tall, and it's gonna frame out your window really nicely and add this soft, luxurious touch. But you may not want to be opening and closing your curtains every day for privacy. So having this second treatment that's actually the more functional treatment on your window is going to work wonders. So these two different window treatments serve two different purposes, functionality and style. So you can layer your curtains with Roman shades, roller blinds, wood blinds. You could even layer them with a sheer drape so that you have light filtering and privacy, as well as maybe a blackout feature with a curtain. I've done this in my living room because these windows are used every single day, and I wanted functionality and design to be considered. I layered a light-colored roller shade so that we can have privacy, but also light diffusion in here, as well as heavy drapes that are hung really high to frame out the windows. If I just had the roller shades, it would look a little bit bare. So layering the two really helps to create this luxe, soft look. Now, one rug type that you'll notice in almost every high-end design, large or small, is a good runner. Runners are very overlooked, and I think they make such an impact to small spaces, like hallways, kitchens, bathrooms, and entryways. Runners are an absolute must. I get a lot of my gorgeous runners from Walmart because they have some of my favorite brands at such a great price. How cute are these three runners? I already know they're gonna look great in the house. I also got my favorite carpet tape from Walmart. This is my favorite go-to tape. I use it in every single makeover. Shopping at Walmart is so easy. I love that you can just shop online and get everything delivered to your door. They actually have some of my favorite brands, Savave, as well as Lalloy rugs, which are my go-to vintage-style inspired rugs. This is such a pretty rug. It's the Lalloy Winter Printed Rug in a 2 1⁄2 by 9 1⁄2 length. I love the color and the pattern on this. If you're going for a transitional design or vintage-inspired design, Lalloy rugs like this are such a great price for the look that you're getting. So you get this authentic style in more of a modern, durable way. This is super low profile, so it's great for a hallway like this. But if you're looking for an extremely soft, cozy rug, you need to check out this rug. I think I might get it even in a larger size for my family room because it's so soft. This is Lalloy's CloudPile technology. It's the softest rug I've ever felt. And this is the Margot Antique Sage color. It's such a great rug. I highly recommend it. And lastly, I got this gorgeous jute rug. I love the mix of the jute fiber color as well as the cream ivory. No matter where you put a rug down, make sure it's adhered to the floor so it's not a tripping hazard and it stays exactly where it should be. I use this carpet tape every time I lay down a rug. It sticks to the bottom of your rug and the floor. So it really holds everything in place. I've even used this on outdoor rugs. So I typically just tape down the corners and everything stays in place really well. It's pretty much just a large double-sided piece of tape that doesn't leave any residue behind and it hasn't ever damaged my floors or anything like that. So it's the final step I always use when putting down a rug. It's even great when you're layering rugs so that everything stays in place. So Walmart is the place to find stylish, affordable pieces. I love that they have two-day shipping as well because when I have a decorating idea, I wanna get it done quickly. I've linked all three runners and my favorite rug tape down below in the description box so you guys can check them out as well. If you're styling any flat surfaces around your home, always remember to stack your decor. This is such a designer trick and it goes a very long way. Anyone can do it and it will instantly make your space look designer and luxurious, even if you're using very affordable decor. It's all about stacking two or more decor pieces and this is all about stacking things that are different sizes and different shapes. I like to start with some kind of base, which is usually stacked books or a tray, something large and wide that's gonna hold your stacking arrangement. You can then layer on top a candle and then maybe also have something on the side, which could be beads, it could be your candlewick cutter, it could be a little canister of matches, or it could just be your coasters. Having this little arrangement of three stacked on top of each other creates an instant luxurious decorative touch. This is something that you'll notice on every designer coffee table, every designer surface. A lot of decor pieces are layered and stacked. This is, of course, something that you can do with items that you already have, so you don't have to worry about going out and buying other things. Use what you have and put them together. I find that large furniture pieces like sideboards, cabinets, dressers look more expensive, but they also are more expensive. So my favorite go-to way to create the look of an expensive large furniture piece is actually putting two small furniture pieces together. This works for dressers, sideboards, storage cabinets, glass cabinets, anything that has a completely flat side so that you can put two pieces together and get a large look instantly. You can save a ton of money this way and get the look of a very luxurious piece on a budget. I even finished off my friend's cabinet with a little decorative box on top that helps hide that seam down the middle so that it looks like one seamless piece. So if you're seeing those gorgeous large sideboards and huge coffee tables, and you wanna get that same look on a budget, push multiple items together, and that will give you that exact same look for less. If you wanna make your dining room look more expensive, look more designer and lux, make sure that you coordinate the size and shape of your dining table with your light fixture. If you're hanging a chandelier above your table, make sure that it matches that same overall shape of your table. If you have a round dining table, make sure that you have a light fixture that has an overall round shape to it. It will really help frame out and style that dining room so much better, and it won't look so odd. I see a lot of rectangular dining tables paired with round light fixtures, and that pairing seems to look a little odd and sometimes comes off a little bit cheap because the light fixture looks too small for the table. I would actually double up on your light fixtures and hang two of them. That's gonna help balance it out a little bit, and it's gonna create that length that you want over top of a rectangular dining table. So if you're picking a new chandelier or picking a new dining table, think about what is on top or below it and coordinate those shapes together. Now, typically more expensive custom drapes are very wide, so they maintain that ripple even when the curtain is shut, and that is hard to accomplish if you have small, narrow curtain panels. So one little designer hack you can do to accomplish that width is actually doubling up on your curtain panels. So instead of just hanging one panel on either side, you hang two on either side of your window. That's gonna create extra width, extra fabric, and once the curtains are pulled shut, you can still maintain that ripple and texture, and I think that works wonders. Again, you don't need to get expensive custom curtains to achieve this look. You can do this with the most affordable curtain option. It's just about adding more fabric in there. Now, every expensive designer space that you see and maybe admire was very well planned out, and you can do that exact same thing in your home as well. Planning is the key to success when it comes to creating a luxurious designer look. I find when things look good beside each other on paper, they tend to look good in real life beside each other, so I do this for every single project. I just use Photoshop to plan out my spaces by just dragging and dropping images of all the furniture pieces and all the decor that I wanna work with in that space to make sure that it all looks good together. That's really where you can see if things clash, if the shapes seem a little odd together, maybe the finishes and fabric is a little weird. That's when you can really tell. So you can plan all this out beforehand and not make those mistakes when it's too late. Now, if you've been wanting to hang some wall art around your home, maybe one large art piece or a gallery wall of some kind, consider using matted frames. I find that matted frames look more expensive and just give you this high-end finished look as opposed to frames with no mat. So if you're getting any photos printed or posters printed, you can actually save a little bit of money because you can downsize your print if you put it in a frame that has a mat. I find matted frames actually brighten up your art as well. They kind of add a little bit more contrast and they just create this uniform look in your home. If you're hanging a bunch of different artwork, maybe there are different colors or different styles, you can create some kind of uniform look to your gallery wall with the matted frame so that everything looks very similar, but it's also different at the same time. There's even some great frames out there that have more unique mats in them that are maybe asymmetrical or large mats that really shrink your image size so that you have more white around the outside. It's just a different style. It adds this really clean look to your home and it's something you can try out if you wanna go for something a little bit different. Now, something that every space needs, large or small, is a little pop of green. Every room could use some life through plants, branches, stems, flowers, trees, some kind of green element in every space will absolutely bring it to life. You can do this with faux greenery, faux florals. There's so many incredible options out there now that look extremely luxurious and will add such a designer touch to your space. So bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms, hallways, entryways, every room could use some greenery and it will add that designer touch without putting in much effort at all. Sometimes room designs don't look as luxurious if they don't have enough soft elements in them. If everything is hard and solid and shiny, it's not gonna give a very warm, cozy, inviting feeling. So I think every room needs some soft furnishings, pillows, throw blankets, rugs, curtains, ottomans. This is why runners and kitchens work so nicely because they add that soft detail in a very hard, solid space. Also, throw pillows on sofas. If you have a leather sofa or something a little bit more modern looking, adding throw pillows really softens the look of those pieces and makes them feel more approachable, welcoming, and comfortable. So you can add soft furnishings and soft decorative details in almost every room of your home and it's actually gonna elevate your space even more. All right, so that's it for today's video. I hope you guys enjoyed watching and I hope this gave you some ideas that you can start implementing into your home. Let me know down below in the comments which one of these decorating tricks do you think you could really use in your space? And if you missed the last makeover project, definitely go check out the apartment makeover. There's a ton of ideas in there that are really gonna help you elevate your space as well. If you enjoyed watching and found this video helpful, make sure you give it a big thumbs up and hit that like button and make sure you guys are subscribed to my channel so you don't miss the upcoming videos. Click that red subscribe button down below and make sure you guys have your notifications turned all the way on so you're first to see the next video. Love you guys so much and I'll see you in my next one. Bye.