How to make your home look luxe for less

Boujay vs budget, we asked an expert to share the ways you can make your home look fancy when your finances are restricted.

In an ideal world, we would all have a world-class interior designer at our disposal to create a space that exudes comfort, luxury and sophistication.

But moving into a new home is a costly exercise. By the time you’ve sorted the loan, paid the removalists and loaded everything into your new space, you can be left with little in the wallet for the finer things.

Principal designer of Stylkea Kylie Hughes is what you might consider an interior design pragmatist. She’s realistic with her approach to decking out a home and appreciates that most people need to balance their interior design aspirations with other commitments like finances.

“An Italian sofa might be an amazing investment, but so is going to Italy and experiencing the culture and observing Italian design inspirations at the source,” explains Kylie.

“My guiding tenet for interior design is to create a home that reflects your personality. That means not only designing beautiful, functional spaces that reference your style preferences but doing it affordably. That means mixing new and second-hand pieces, shopping around for a cheaper version of something you love, or perhaps even making it yourself. This isn’t a compromise - this means that you’re thinking like a designer and creator, not just a consumer.”

New homes offer our inner interior designer a blank canvas and a great opportunity to thrust your creative and luxurious flare within your own boundaries. To help you get started, Kylie shares five affordable and DIY-friendly tips:

1. Large art printsHave you ever noticed how fancy homes seem to have a colour palette or theme that carries through every room? To help create the same effect, Kylie suggests purchasing a large art print to serve as a statement element, but also something that can spark your style inspiration for the rest of the home. If you find an impactful piece, you can use its colours and texture to replicate in other features around the house. This helps to connect the styles to one another, enhancing the luxurious appeal.

“As well as being an affordable hero piece, a large art print can serve as the focal point that brings together the room’s colour palette and style of furniture and décor. You can even save on framing by gluing your print to an MDF board or buying your print and frame from a big box retailer like Kmart, Big W, IKEA or Target.”

2. Add gentle lightingOutdated light fixtures or fluorescents can easily impact your home’s style factor. Luxurious homes always seem to have a sultry glow about them, so try swapping out the standard lights in your home for ones that create a greater sense of ambience.

“Bright, overhead lighting is great in an operating theatre, but no good at home. To create a sense of opulence, you want sources of light that pool gently onto the surfaces they illuminate. A well-positioned lamp or two can transform a room into a luxurious haven. Likewise, candlelight creates a sense of intimacy.”

3. Touches of greeneryWalking into decadent homes, you’ll almost certainly see freshly cut flowers or beautiful greenery that punctuates the corners of every living area.

“A well-kept plant communicates that the room is alive and lived in. It adds another layer of texture through its foliage and the pot or basket that it sits in. If you don’t have a green thumb, you might consider a mix of real and high-quality fake plants. Succulents are very much on trend and nearly impossible to kill.”

4. Create your own hero pieces Many of us are on the hunt for a French Provincial armchair or an ivory Persian rug, but the reality is if you spend all your money on these expensive pieces, you’re statement furniture is probably going to be sitting in an empty room on its own.

“My design business is based on helping people create the furniture they’ve always wanted. For example, instead of spending thousands on custom cabinetry, I show people how to make built-in flat-pack shelves look like bespoke cabinetry or how to create a customised console by adding legs and handles to a cube storage unit. Gumtree and second-hand stores are also great sources of affordable furniture and décor inspiration. In fact, I rarely buy new pieces these days—I would rather save an item from landfill and put my own creative stamp on it.”

5. DeclutterThere’s nothing less luxurious than a space full of clutter. Luxury and decadence these days is all about minimalism and clean spaces.

“Decluttering will not only save you money, it might actually make you money when you sell the things you don’t need. I’m not proposing that you clear every surface and colour-code your bookshelves - a home should feel lived in - but luxurious spaces are ordered and deliberate. Some of the usual offenders include TV remotes, magazines and books and paperwork.”