Low Cost Home Makeovers - 11 Handy Tips. (2) Colours

I was recently invited to Grand Designs Live in Birmingham, to talk about home makeovers and how to keep costs down, whether you're selling your home or want to enjoy living in it. To follow is a summary of the suggestions I made, with lots of 'Before' and 'After' photos as illustrations.

COLOUR -could you work with some of the existing colours in the house or should you change them?
• Check all the existing colours in your house. Include tiles, floor coverings etc. If you add a new colour, will it work with all of these or would you have to change them?
• Completely changing the colour scheme in a house can be very costly, especially if flooring, tiles and window decorations are involved.
• Don’t mix two different colour schemes
• If you do want a new scheme, buy the art and fabrics first, then choose wall colours and flooring, then accessorise
If the makeover is for selling. purposes..
Use existing colours wherever possible to keep the budget down

Before - the homeowners thought they had to replace the sofas to help sell the house...

After - My preference was to just make them work!
 

Exterior view - you wouldn't like to see the following colours in a house like this... 



Before

Before



After - with calmer colours

After - much warmer

CLICK HERE to see the above house in detail

 

Before - don't mix colour schemes - pink and gold don't work together

 

After - the most cost effective change was to replace the pink

CLICK HERE to see the above house in detail

Before - this was the entrance to a house mainly decorated with golds

 

After - so we made it work

 

Before - in the same golden house as above, this  scheme didn't work...

 

After - so we warmed it up

 

 Next - Room Use - how do you use each room and do you need to change this when you're planning a makeover?