Decorating on a budget

The time is fast approaching for moving into Halls of Residence for freshers and for moving into new houses or flats for second, third years and postgraduate students.

Moving home is exciting, a new place, possibly with new people and for many first years, the first time living away from your parents. But whether you’re a first year undergraduate or a mature postgraduate, everyone thinks about decorating their new space. When moving into rented accommodation the first thing I want to do is put my own stamp on the place, I need to make the space available (however small or big) feel like mine, and balance that with renting guidelines and budget.

Particularly for those of you moving into unfurnished or part-furnished flats and houses, finding the right furniture on a budget is a difficult task. However Southampton offers hundreds of practical solutions.

Firstly there is, obviously, Ikea. Home to cheap and ingenious flat-pack furniture Ikea is the natural destination for students looking for bookcases, sheets, side tables, lamps etc. However, while Ikea can be good value for money, there is better out there if you are willing to look. For instance Portswood is full of charity shops like Sue Ryder, which stock huge amounts of furniture, and will deliver it to your new place for a small fee. Additionally there is the often forgotten about British Heart Foundation store by Debenhams in the centre of town, not only will they deliver new furniture, but they will remove things you want to get rid of for free (something to consider when moving out).

The problem I have found however, is that often it is difficult to find furniture to match my favourite colours or the other pieces I already have. For instance anything in Ikea that isn’t the classic clinical white is often infinitely more expensive. Second hand furniture suffers from the same problem, it may be an outdated style or in need of some fixing up. However, we are students, disposable income is to be saved for nights out, and most importantly, food, so buying the furniture that already matches what you want is not an option, nor is it sensible.

That’s where decorating comes in. Go for the cheapest pieces and then fix them up yourselves. For this, I rely heavily on Pinterest for inspiration. There are hundreds of tutorials on how to breathe life into dying furniture. My favourite place to go for paint and decorating ideas is Olive and Ted’s interior decorating store, right at the bottom of Gordon Avenue in Portswood. They stock a range of paints designed to emulate French buttermilk paint used in the 1800’s, the best bit being that you can put it on anything and it will go on no problem. 

The grey paint replaced the unattractive orange wood of this old bedside table rescued from my garage at home – I am gradually finding replacement drawer handles, two down, four to go! 

The image above is from my new privately rented flat, which is full of old furniture from my parents garage, second hand pieces and some new things from Ikea. When moving into a new place (particularly if you are a postgraduate moving into an unfurnished flat) don’t be afraid to beg borrow or steal from family and friends.  

We covered these bookshelves in fabric from Ikea, breaking up the otherwise overly clinical white. 

I like grey, it goes with everything, and with a little patience a £10 bookcase can look however you want.

My previous flat wasn’t spared from my erratic decorating tendencies…

A mobile made from old records, fabric, playing cards and fake flowers. While not to everyone’s taste, I loved the colour it brought to an otherwise entirely cream room. 

If decorating a rented room with posters or art, stay away from sellotape and blu-tack! They are horrible to remove and often take the paint off the wall or leave a greasy mark which needs to be washed off. Instead opt for double sided craft tape or glu-dots which are less likely to damage a wall. If you want to create a photo-wall, buy one large clip frame (Ikea sells them for not much money at all) and then use craft tape to stick a collage of photos inside. Then you need only use one small picture nail to hang the finished piece, rather than lots of pieces of blu-tack. Picture nails are easy to remove and the tiny holes they leave are pretty unnoticeable, and can very easily be covered with a tiny dab of paint. 

The start of my picture wall, bringing together holiday and graduation photos with minimal wall damage and tiny cost (the photo frame on the left is from Poundland and the clip frame from Amazon was only £10).

My next project is to paper-mache the shelves of another bookcase (I have six bookcases in my flat) with newspaper. I guess my feeling is that even though we are students living in short-term rented flats and houses, there is no reason not to make it feel like home and putting your own stamp on furniture is a great way to do that.

P.S. It is also an awesome way to procrastinate. 

Emma