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admin 8 January 2009 home trends 446 views One Comment Print This Post

Times might not be as tough on the East End as they are in the rest of the country but that doesn’t mean that design budgets aren’t affected by the economy.

For now, profligate spending in the home design arena seems to be a thing of the past. For those who might want to freshen up a room without breaking the bank, The Press spoke with some experts on the best ways to redesign on a dime.

The good news is that even those with limited budgets can still change the look of their interiors, and maybe even be able to afford some expert styling help in the process.

Staging Places owner Leslie Tarbell Donovan, an accredited staging planner, makes her living re-staging homes using existing furniture and inexpensive accessories. Her clients include those who are interested in sprucing up homes that are either for sale, for rent or are in need of a design touch-up.

An expert in re-creating a space without a lot of extra expense, Ms. Donovan said that most of her clients can re-image a room just by utilizing their current resources and a little ingenuity.

“It’s all about editing what you already own and enhancing,” Ms. Donovan said during a recent interview. “You can transform a room with what you already have on hand and adding a few key pieces.”

Ms. Donovan said that when she first begins to stage a property, she immediately takes inventory of what is in the entire house before removing the contents of the individual rooms and putting them back together. “I like to keep the bones of the room while taking a few pieces and putting them in new places,” she said.

Something as simple as changing the color of a room, adding different accessories like throw pillows, or rearranging the furniture can make a big impression, according to Ms. Donovan. “It’s been said a million times but it’s true, paint a wall a different color and you can change the entire look of a room,” she said.

Other inexpensive changes that make an appreciative difference that Ms. Donovan recommends are the use of area rugs to create intimate gathering areas, such as reading areas, or to create or purchase new light fixtures or lamp shades.

In order for a good looking, yet inexpensive, redesign to work best, people who already own a few key quality larger pieces to begin with have a leg up on those who purchase poorly made basics, according to the pros.

Designers Suzanne Caldwell and Maria Greenlaw, who co-own Design House in Southampton, maintain that focusing on quality from the start of interior design ends up saving money in the long run. “Cheap is always more expensive in the long run,” Ms. Caldwell, who is American Society of Interior Designers accredited, explained. “Poorly constructed furniture doesn’t last and wear and tear shows quickly.”

The team from Design House also suggested that people who are on a budget should tackle a few small projects at a time in lieu of renovating or redecorating large areas in a house all at once. “Focusing on one or two quality pieces is usually much more doable for someone on a budget,” Ms. Greenlaw said. She added, “Also thinking in phases is a good idea.”

Changing the look of fabric-covered pieces with new upholstery or slipcovers, hanging new drapes or adding new accent pillows all make a big impact with not a lot of investment, according to the Design House team.

Ms. Caldwell and Ms. Greenlaw told of a recent job they completed where a simple change of the window treatments in a room made a world of difference.

“We just completed a project where a client was considering reupholstering her entire living room because she had the same floral fabric on two sofas, two loveseats and the curtains,” Ms. Caldwell said. “But all we really needed to do was change the curtains and it became a whole different room.”

Other ways to save on a redesign include finding less expensive—though still good quality—items that closely resemble high-end articles, according to affordable design experts Mary Bennett Behringer and her partner Patty Bennett of Bennett Interiors in Southampton.

“Something we are very good at is finding five different alternative things that are comparable to something high end,” Ms. Bennett Behringer said, though she cautioned that limited budgets usually signal more of a time investment. “Different solutions are out there, but they do take more time. The bottom line is you can get a similar look for less money, but it will be a little more time and a little more looking.”

27east.com