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Before you buy

How to refresh a room on a budget

What makes a room look tired is mostly the walls, the light and the fabrics, not the furniture. Where a cheap refresh starts, how much paint it takes, and what it cannot fix.

A room rarely looks tired because of the sofa. It looks tired because of yellowed walls, a stained ceiling, bare bulbs, blinds that do not close and clutter on every surface. Each of these has a refresh that costs tens of dollars, not thousands. A cheap room refresh fixes all of that on a small budget, without renovating.

Before the refresh: stained ceiling, wallpaper border, broken blinds.
A tired living room: yellowed walls with a peeling floral wallpaper border, a brown water stain on the ceiling, a brass ceiling fan, a brown sofa, a burgundy recliner, broken vertical blinds and an orange laminate floor.
A $200 refresh: paint, curtains, a paper lantern and a used rug.
The same living room with warm white walls and a white ceiling, a white paper lantern instead of the ceiling fan, white curtains hung high, new cushions and a knitted throw on the same brown sofa, and a cream rug with a diamond pattern on the laminate.
A $5,340 renovation: moldings, floors, shelves, new furniture.
The same living room with wall moldings, a crown molding, a brass globe chandelier, a light oak herringbone floor, built-in walnut shelves, a large abstract painting, a curved cream sofa, a leather lounge chair and a round stone coffee table.

What to paint first

Paint is the cheapest way to refresh a room, because the walls are most of what you see. Paint the ceiling first, then the walls, so drips from above land on walls that are still to be painted. Take down old wallpaper borders, fill the nail holes and sand the filler flat before you start. A water stain comes back through ordinary paint, so it needs a coat of stain-blocking primer first. A warm white or a soft colour hides old patches, and a white ceiling makes the room lighter.

How much paint a refresh needs

For a room of 4 by 5 metres with a 2.5 m ceiling, the walls come to about 41 m² once a door and a window are taken off. Two coats make 82 m², which is about 8 litres of wall paint. The ceiling is 20 m², so two coats take another 4 litres. Add a roller, a tray, a brush for the edges and masking tape, and the paint side of the refresh comes to around $100.

Refresh the window and the light

The window is the second cheapest refresh. Curtains hung close to the ceiling and wider than the window make a room look taller. Let them reach the floor, not the windowsill. A paper shade over a bare bulb costs around $15 and changes the whole light in the evening, and warm white bulbs keep that light soft.

Refresh the fabrics, not the furniture

New cushion covers, a throw and fresh bedding refresh old furniture without replacing it. A used rug is the cheapest floor refresh, as long as it is big enough for the front legs of the sofa. New cabinet handles are a ten-minute refresh with a screwdriver, if they have the same hole spacing as the old ones. Clearing the clutter costs nothing.

A sample refresh budget for a living room

Put together, the refresh of an ordinary living room of 4 by 5 metres comes to under $300. Prices are typical for a DIY store and a secondhand marketplace; paint is the biggest line of the refresh, and the sofa, the floor and the furniture all stay.

What it costs

  • Wall paint, 8 litres$70
  • Ceiling paint, 4 litres$30
  • Stain-blocking primer$15
  • Roller, tray, brush, tape and filler$25
  • Two curtain panels and a rod$45
  • Paper lantern shade$15
  • Three warm white bulbs$10
  • Four cushion covers$25
  • A throw$15
  • Used rug, about 160 × 230 cm$35
  • Clearing the clutter$0
  • Total$285

What a refresh cannot fix

A damaged floor, a cracked ceiling or furniture that is falling apart. That is renovation, not a refresh, and it costs thousands, not hundreds.

What to measure

Walls
Add up the length of all the walls and multiply by the ceiling height. Take off about 2 m² for each door and each standard window.
Ceiling
The length of the room times its width.
Window
The width of the frame plus 15–20 cm on each side for the rod, and the height from the rod to the floor for the curtain length.
Seating area
From the back of the sofa to the far edge of the coffee table: the rug should reach under the front legs of the sofa.
Cabinet handles
The distance between the two screw holes, centre to centre. New handles with the same spacing go into the old holes.

The numbers that decide it

  • 10–12 m²what one litre of wall paint covers in one coat
  • 2 coatsover a darker colour, over patches and on anything that has yellowed
  • +10%on top of the calculation, for touch-ups and the second can
  • 1.5–2×the window width: how wide the curtains should be together, so they fall in folds
  • 2700–3000 Kwarm white bulbs for a living room or a bedroom
  • $200the whole refresh of the room in the photos: paint, curtains, a paper lantern, a used rug

Before you buy

  • Start the refresh with paint, before buying anything that stands against the walls
  • Buy all the paint for the refresh at once, so the colour matches from can to can
  • Get a stain-blocking primer if there is a water stain or smoke marks overhead
  • Measure the window and the wall above it before ordering curtains
  • Measure the seating area before looking for a rug: the front legs of the sofa stand on it
  • Check the hole spacing of the old handles before buying new ones
  • Keep the old handles and shades after the refresh, in case you want them back

Questions

How much paint do I need for a room?
For a room of 4 by 5 metres with a 2.5 m ceiling, about 8 litres for the walls and 4 for the ceiling, with two coats and a little spare. Measure your own walls before the refresh: the method is above.
What refreshes a room most for the least money?
Paint, the core of any cheap refresh. The walls and the ceiling are most of what you see in a room, and a few litres of paint change all of it in a weekend.
Can I refresh a room without buying new furniture?
Yes. New cushions or a slipcover, a rug under the front legs and better light around it make an old sofa look far less tired.
When is a cheap refresh not enough?
When the floor, the ceiling or the walls are actually damaged. A refresh hides wear, not cracks, damp or a broken floor.