No-Buy Designer Secrets: Make a Room LOOK Expensive

Working on a small budget, but want a high end designer look in your home? NO BUY and inexpensive secrets interior designers use to make a room look more expensive.

Yes, we all see beautiful rooms and homes on social media and want to replicate the same look in our home.

They look sophisticated and high end…probably because an interior designer created the look. Likely at a budget we wouldn’t be able to afford.

So how do you create a high end look in a room or throughout your home, when you have a limited budget?

As a single working mom, after decorating three apartments and 4 houses, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve!

My budget was always limited and my tastes high end. I call that having champagne tastes on a beer budget LOL! (Shop my Home)

Contains hand selected products, with affiliate marketing links where I may earn a small commission if a purchase is made. {full disclosure here}

What Makes a Room Feel High-End

First, let’s first talk about what interior design visual elements make a room feel elegant and sophisticated.

Typically what sets a high-end designer room apart is how the decor, color and texture moves your eyes around the room.

You SEE all of the beautiful details from the front to the back of the room, on the ceiling and floor.

As an example, here is a dining room from my FAVORITE designer that greatly influenced my own interior design style.

A fun story behind this room is that I saw it under construction on a private tour!

What I want you to notice is how your eyes moves around this room.

I was invited to walk through this show house in Atlanta, as part of a Design Blogger’s Conference.

Suzanne Kasler is my FAVORITE designer (shop her designs here) and designed the dining room in the show house.

Her specialty is designing REALLY soft and sophisticated rooms. My love of pale blue walls came from her!

Interior designers are trained to layer fabrics, textures and colors to create rooms that are visual interesting. They make your eyes travel throughout the room.

Porch Daydreamer

Your eye goes to the stunning chandelier, the gorgeous artwork, the objects on the table and mantel, to the console in the corner, and to the gorgeous high-gloss ceiling.

It’s all anchored by white walls with a pops of a pale grayed blue fabric at the windows and on the upholstered chairs.

Of course Suzanne Kasler’s room spared no expense, but it can be used as a guide!

So how can you create the same look at your home? It’s a simple formula that I’ll share here.

How Interior Designs Make a Room Look High-End

• A mix of upholstered, stained, and painted furniture
• Interesting artwork and accessories
• Beautiful wall colors
• A rug that anchors the space
• Statement light fixtures
• Gorgeous window coverings

Guess what? All of these things can be found on consignment, antique markets, at Home Goods, Facebook marketplace, at a garage sale, and on Amazon.

Find a room you love and find “like” items that mimic the color, style and shape to create a sophisticated look in your home. 

Of course paint is your friend! Painting the furniture that you currently have a beautiful new color is the BEST way to add visual interest.

8 No-Buy Ideas to Trade Up Your Home Decor

1. Choose monochromatic color scheme: walls and drapes are the same color.
2. Hang drapes at the ceiling and to the floor.
3. Choose artwork that is unique and group pieces together to fill a wall.
4. Mix three patterns in a room: small/solid, medium, large patterns.
5. Group objects in uneven numbers and put them in a tray and stack books to fill vertical space. 
6. Mix up furniture finishes for texture: upholstery, stained, metallic and painted furniture in one room.
7. Use plants or fresh cut flowers and throws to soften hard lines, add texture, and color. 
8. Paint furniture to look like the Pottery Barn Wood finish.

Or if you have a small budget and like the same look, you can find them at HALF the cost on Amazon (shop here). Look at all of these “Paris Apartment” items I found!

Interior Designer Tricks That Just LOOK Expensive

There are some little designer tricks that make a room look pulled together and high end.

What I’ll be sharing is OUTSIDE of the BIG TICKET items. These are budget friendly items that are easy to incorporate into any room.

Get the Look for Less Home Decor

Click the links for ideas!

• A NEW paint color
• Drapery panels (my affordable fav)
• Inexpensive framed artwork
• Rugs that look expensive (but aren’t)
• Beautiful Pillow Covers
• Designer knock-off lamps
• Coffee table books
• Cabinet hardware
• Trays (marble)

Luckily, most everything can be found at affordable prices and just require a little practice to get it right.

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Using Designer Tricks for a High-End Look

Now that you know about these tricks, you will start to see them in rooms you love! Take note and just mimic what looks good to you.

Let’s look at some examples from around my home, so I can point out what I’ve done.

Not that I do everything perfectly, but it is a good place for me to help you understand and see the concepts in a real home.

Also, I’m not an interior designer but a homeowner like you!

You can see from the dining room I’ve done MOST of the things I am suggesting.

It’s also a very similar color to the beautiful room I showed you from Suzanne Kasler 🙂

The one thing that REALLY stands out in this room is monochromatic color palette.

7 Things to do NOW to Make a Room Look Better

1. Use a monochromatic color scheme matching the walls and drapes.
2. Hang drapes as high up as possible on the wall and to the floor to add visual height. 
3. Don’t use mass produced artwork. I LOVE Etsy for finding new artwork. 
4. Use the same finish on artwork frames and group different pieces together to fill the walls.
5. Mix three patterns in each room among the fabrics and/or rug.
6. Blend a variety of furniture finishes: metal, painted, stained, and upholstered.
7. Have fun on the coffee table with stacked books and accessories in various colors and heights. 

What makes it extra sophisticated is that the walls and drapes match. It gives the room a luxurious feel and softness.

The most affordable way to create this monochromatic look is to use heavy blackout ivory or white drapes that match the walls.

• Buying Guide: White Curtains and Drapes

Read my review: Pottery Barn York Sofas

Making this change in my family room traded up the entire look of the room and gives it a very high-end designer look.

If painting the room a new color, BUY THE DRAPES FIRST and then match the paint. (Seriously Cool Ways to Find Paint Colors)

If you live in an apartment with white walls, this look is for you! It’s much easier to find a paint color than it is to find drapes to match a wall color.

You can see my rooms have something to draw your eye from side to side plus top to bottom. That’s what makes a room interesting.

It’s a great budget saver to buy inexpensive prints in standard sizes and frame them with a white mat to highlight the artwork.

Another fun way to add visual interest is to find inexpensive flea market antiques or unusual objects to fill bookshelves or cabinets.

This cabinet used to be white and have china in it! Now it looks like I filled it with my souvenirs from my world travels.

Most items were inexpensive and yes, some were picked up on my world travels 🙂

To add another layer of visual interest, I added old books in beautiful linen color sleeves. There are so many easy ways to create a designer look inexpensively.

Here’s another high-end look for less! I found these Serena & Lily look-a-likes on Amazon (shop here).

How-to Arrange Home Decor Like an Interior Designer

Here is an example of grouping objects together on a table to create vignettes.

It goes beyond just grouping items in uneven numbers, but also varying heights too. Look back at the coffee table now and you’ll see this.

Low, medium, and high objects together make it interesting vs. just a bunch of stuff on a coffee table!

In the foyer, this little corner has a lot of visual interest doesn’t it?

How-to Add Style to a Small Space

1. Paint the furniture a fresh new color and added new hardware to trade up the look.
2. Mix different finishes together: woven, metallic, and painted.
3. Group objects together in a tray of varying heights: High, Medium, Low (here’s a video example).
4. Hang a variety of artwork together to frame the space.
5. Stack books and boxes for height.

Another place I love to use trays is in kitchen and bathroom!

It clears clutter and anchors objects together on a kitchen island and bathroom counter. (make a small bathroom look bigger)

In kitchens, place common items in glass jars to organize them for a neat and tidy appearance. In these kitchen pictures, there is a lot to see!

Your eye moves around the room because there is interest from floor to ceiling and across the horizontal spaces. 

Yes, my kitchen pretty much looks like this most days because I’ve decluttered the counters.

How-To Make Your Kitchen Look More Sophisticated

1. Group items in various heights and textures in a tray on the island.
2. Fill walls with artwork grouped in colors that complement the room.
3. Combine textures between the fabrics in the room and furniture.
4. Use a mix of cabinet hardware: pulls, knobs and cup pulls to make the cabinets look more high end. 
5. Place faux flowers for a pop of color and texture. 
6. Use glass jars for a cohesive look on counters: k-cups, sugar packs, tea bags, pasta, cereals, etc. 

How-To Use Arwork for a Designer Look

If you have a large blank wall, go for a gallery wall. Yes, that’s still a great designer trick that never goes out of style.

The way to keep it sophisticated is to make sure the frames are all the same finish.

Also, use various sizes but keep the frames in the same general style. Here all of my frames are squared off and straight lined.

I spray painted all of the frames the same color to add sophistication to this very large gallery wall in my bedroom.

Tutorials for creating gallery walls and how to hang pictures:

• Easily Update Picture Frames with Spray Paint!
• Create a Gallery Wall That Looks Like a Designer Did It!
• How-to Hang Artwork Evenly in a Row

Of course I practice what I preach! Here’s the last example and note I didn’t use a “bed in a bag” where everything matches.

Why does this bedding look sophisticated?

1. There are three sizes of patterns in the pillows
2. Throws at the end of the bed add a pop of color and texture.
3. Furniture is a variety of  finishes: painted, metal, and upholstered.
4. Artwork is grouped on the wall.
5. Accessories are grouped in threes and of varying heights.

Do you see it now 🙂 By going through the various rooms in my home you’ll start to see how I’ve utilized the designer tricks I’m teaching you.

You’ve got this and can use these strategies to trade up your own home decor!

Some other helpful decorating posts you may enjoy:

• How-to Start a Room Makeover
• 6 Decorating Mistakes to Avoid Now!
• How-to Pick the Right Paint Color

My mission is to be helpful, so I hope I’ve done that! I’d love if you would join the Porch Daydreamer fan club, so you never miss a post.

Please consider following me on Pinterest and Instagram for daily inspiration.

Until next time…

PORCH DAYDREAMER

Tracey