How to Get Out of a Decorating Rut Without Spending a Dime

I'm sharing some simple changes I made in my dining room that gave it a new look and feel without spending any money. Get all my no-cost decorating tips here!

white ironstone and embroidered grain sack

Hello and welcome to Thrifty Style Team! We're a group of thrifty loving bloggers who get together to share our budget conscious home decor and DIY ideas once a month. You'll find links to everyone's projects below but here's a sneak peek.

You might find it hard to believe, but even home decor bloggers (people who spend a lot of time decorating and fluffing their homes) find themselves in a decorating rut from time to time! Recently I was finding my dining room uninspiring, and found that discontent was creeping in. I found myself scrolling FB Marketplace and Craigslist for new furniture pieces even though what I have more than meets our needs.

Rather than spending money buying new thing, I made just a few simple changes that gave my dining room a new look and satisfied my desire for something different.

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How to climb out of a decorating rut without spending any money

Idea #1: Move your furniture

How many of us move into a home, set our furniture in place, and then never move it again? I was guilty of this in our dining room. The black hutch had been on the smaller wall on the right and the large yard sale French chalkboard on the main wall ever since we moved in to our home nearly 5 years ago! You can see the former furniture placement in my cozy Fall home tour from a couple years ago.

If your furniture placement is working for you, then there's no reason to make changes. But if you find yourself disliking your space, complaining about your furniture or spending time looking online for something different, just stop. Take a big, deep breath and consider your options. Before you spend a dime on new pieces, try moving things around. Sometimes even shifting a piece of furniture a couple feet can make a big difference in how the space feels!

In our dining room, I simply swapped the black hutch and the chalkboard. Now the hutch gets more of a direct view when you enter our home, and my collection of pretty dishes really shines. As well, I can see the hutch when I'm working in the kitchen and the whole space just feels fresh and different.

black vintage dining room furniture with blue toile seat cushions

Idea #2: Consider a fabric change

I'm not going to spend a long time on this update because I wrote an entire post about updating the fabric on my dining chairs with a pretty blue toile fabric that I found for a song. Maybe you could swap curtains with another room in your home. Or turn something you already have into a simple table runner (just tearing a piece of fabric like a sheet or canvas drop cloth will give you a custom runner that fits your table and has nice frayed edges).

I had purchased this blue toile fabric awhile ago and had another project in mind, but recovering my chairs turned out to be a better option and definitely lightened the look of my black dining chairs!

stack of blue toile recovered chair seat cushions

Idea #3: Swap out your collection

If you've followed me for any length of time, you'll know that I love blue and white dishes and have collected quite a bit of transferware. My dining room hutch is normally filled with the blue and white dishes. I even made a blue and white plate wreath this past Spring using my vintage dishes.

I still love those dishes, but I was really wanting to highlight my collection of white ironstone. Plus, I got a new hutch and plan to move my blue and white transferware into that one (watch for that post in the next few weeks!).

Simply swapping out the dishes in my hutch gave the room a different look and feel. I have a lot of white ironstone that I've collected from thrift stores and yard sales over the years, and it was fun to display it all in my black hutch where it can be seen. Some of the pieces were being used in other rooms, but I gathered it all together (and actually couldn't display it all together because I have so much). I love the look of a concentrated collection - all that means is displaying your collection together in one place. Maybe it's a set of shelves or a bookcase or a hutch like I've done, but you'll appreciate your collection so much more when it's displayed en masse! Try it!

white ironstone collection in black hutch

Idea #4: Hang something up

The walls on either side of the hutch looked rather bare now. I have a set of white shutters that have hung on many different walls in our past two homes. They were a curbside find and got several coats of white spray paint way back when. They were currently just being stored in my office. I pulled them out and dusted them off, then had Mr DIY hang them for me, one on either side of the black hutch. I hung some white platters that look like ironstone, as well as some mini wreaths on the shutters and love this updated look! That wall needed something extra, and this no-cost decor option was the perfect solution!

white shutters with platters and mini wreaths in vintage dining room

black hutch, white ironstone, shutters and white platters

Do you have any old shutters or vintage windows you could hang? What about artwork that isn't being used? Think about something you're not currently using that you can pull out of storage and put to a new use in your space! If you're storing it, it probably means you still like it, so why not give it a new use.

Idea #5: Paint something

I think a lot of my desire of wanting a change in our dining room is that there's a lot of black. I want the room to feel lighter and brighter. Recovering the dining seat chairs was a step in the right direction, and if you read the post on how I recovered the chairs, you'll know I'm also considering painting my dining chairs and table to lighten it up and get rid of some of the black.

Do you have a piece you could paint? Maybe you want to go lighter or darker, or you would love to introduce a vibrant color in your space that will help you to really love it! Consider chalk paint as it's easy to use, inexpensive, doesn't require any sanding and dries quickly! You can read my Chalk Paint 101 post here to learn more about it. Chalk paint is my go-to paint when I want to update furniture and decor, and I've painted hundreds of items. You can see all my chalk paint furniture and decor pieces here.

And how does the chalkboard look now in its new location? I love it on this wall and can't believe I never considered it before! I hung a woven basket (see similar here) and filled it with some lavender stems and lambs ears and it's such a nice touch. I like the clean, uncluttered look.

ornate white chalkboard, vintage black dining chairs and striped table runner

fake cake with wood flowers, black hutch and ironstone

fake cake on stand, blue plates on wall and white shutters as decor

I unset the table for a bit of a breather (funny story...we recently had some teenage interns over for dinner and one of the young guys told me our house looked haunted! At my look of horror, he quickly went on to say that he meant that everything just looked so neat and set up and the table looked ready for guests because the dishes were on it but we didn't eat there 😐 So I figured maybe the table needed to be unset for awhile...you know, to banish any ghosts! 👻👻

close up of fake cake and white wood flowers

A simple runner and my easy DIY fake cake on a white cake stand as a centerpiece is pretty simple (for me!). I'll be sharing more about these gorgeous wood flowers in my fall decor posts, coming soon!

white chair with blue toile seats and mini cloche with mini blue transferware creamers

dining room with black hutch, white shutters, ironstone and striped table runner

I hope these home decor tips are helpful as you think about your own home, what you don't love anymore, and how you can change things up and get a new feel without spending any money!

If you do follow one of my suggestions, please pop back here and let me know in the comments or send me a message! I love interacting with you and getting feedback motivates me to keep sharing helpful ideas for your home!