A Beautiful Life | High End Home On Any Budget

Hello, it's so great to be back after a wonderful long weekend spent with family & friends, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving and it was awesome! Today, I'm sharing my second installment of "A Beautiful Life" and writing on how to create a high end look for your home without breaking the bank. We're currently in the process of updating ours and I have lots of fabulous and practical advice to share with you. For each category listed, you'll find inexpensive tips on how you can do it for less!



Clean and happy home // Prior to starting a decorating project... I love giving our home a fresh coat of paint, shampooing the carpets, cleaning our upholsteries and re-sealing our kitchen floor grout + back-splash if need be. We typically do this every couple of years, and for us, it's definitley worth the extra money. Even when we were renting we replaced the kitchen lino, added new kitchen cabinet knobs, repainted and added our own drapery. It makes all the difference!

Paint old furniture // This is a tried and true favourite! There's nothing like painting an out of date dresser a gorgeous creamy white and adding gold or brass hardware. I'm always amazed at the result! For my projects? I use Benjamin Moore paint and Restoration Hardware knobs. My favourite is their traditional violet glass knob. Perfect for a bedroom or vintage armoire. Plus, talk about affordable!

Wallpaper // Adding gorgeous wallpaper to a feature wall gives instant appeal and definitley lends a more high end look. We're hoping to add a wallpapered wall to either our dining room, or around the fireplace. However to keep costs down we'll be choosing a stencil instead of going with traditional wallpaper. The plan is to paint our room white and then add a sheer metallic grey damask stencil to our feature wall. I can't wait, I've seen it done and it looks amazing!

Pillows // We just bought all new pillows for our couch and I love them. They add instant luxury and coziness. However, they can also get ridiculously expensive, our trick? We bought several neutral ones from Ikea and then added two high end pillows for a final touch of pizazz. Totally worked and we saved money as a result. Fab, right?! 

Frames // I love scouring flee markets for gorgeous frames and then either painting them white, or covering them with a silver or gold leaf treatment. So easy and it looks like you spent a ton of money on fancy, schmancy mirrors!

Curtains // They can get so expensive, especially if you're looking for something luxurious and that will create a statement. We currently have very simple ones from Ikea, in white, and we're planning on doing a dip dye treatment to give them a more custom look. From what I can tell, the treatment looks ridiculously easy and I know it will add the perfect amount of drama to our living room!

Art // I love framing beautiful fabrics, typography, black & white photos, vintage postcards or even old handwritten letters. Skies the limit, you definitley don't have to spend a ton of money to create a gallery wall in your home. My favourite trick? Is to mix frames & mediums, here's an example of a wall I love!

Investment piece // When it came to choosing our furniture we went for a good mix of high & low. I believe, every room needs at least one great investment piece as it instantly elevates the look of the entire space. For us, that meant a high end coffee table and a designer sofa (ours is a dark greyish colour). Both of these items do so much to give our home a more high end feel.

Can you tell I'm really home obsessed lately? We've really been getting into it over here! But how can you not? It's so much fun! I'll see you a little later this week for a favourites/wishlist type post. Otherwise, I'm taking it easy and currently on antibiotics, ugh, my cold turned into a terrible infection with some very scary complications. So lots of rest for me!! xo