Decorating your home is easily one of the most expensive things you can do. Forget holidays and new cars, it's paint pots and antique furniture that can really drain your bank account. However, it doesn't have to be this way. It's actually pretty easy to make your home look and feel expensive without spending a lot.
One person who excels at making her home look straight out of a boutique hotel is content creator Betsie B. You'll likely have seen her carefully curated bed or kitchen pop up on your TikTok FYP or interacted with an image of her cushion adorned sofa on Instagram.
While working in traditional 9 to 5 job, Betsie began sharing content of her style on a private account but was soon encouraged by her boyfriend to go mainstream with her posting, and she soon developed a large following dedicated to her eclectic home and style.
Her carefully decorated home filled with colourful patterns, bountiful textures and high-street finds is proof you don't need to bankrupt yourself to have the home of your dreams.
We spoke to Betsie for her six best tips on making your home look and feel expensive without breaking a budget.
Easy and affordable ways to make your home look expensive
Go big or go home
Whether it comes to certain elements of decoration, it's easy to think small and delicate pieces can make your home look more elevated. However, Betsie suggests her rule for many decorative elements, particularly rugs or prints Betsie, is to go big or go home.
"I think the bigger the better when it comes to rugs. When you have lots of different things in a room, such as different textures and different patterns [use] something that sits underneath all of it to bring it together. If it covers majority of the floor, I always think that's a way to kind of tie everything as one and make it look more luxurious," she explains.
And while love a carefully curated gallery wall, sometimes one simple print can do a lot of the heavy lifting.
"Large prints often have impact. They don't always have to be super expensive," she adds. "Desenio do pretty large prints and [they] adds a lot to a space."
Consider your framing
And it's not just the print, but the frame and mount it's in too. Betsie uses a clever method to elevate her prints as she frames them in non-reflective glass frames.
"The two cowboys [print] I have in my bedroom, that's on non-reflective glass, so it looks like a painting," she reveals.
The framing technique costs similar to your standard frame, but makes a much more dramatic impact on your wall.
You don't need to use a vase for a vase
While vases don't have to be expensive, the cost of displaying your lovely flowers can add up. Betsie suggests considering alternative vessels, such as a water jug which is currently on her kitchen table.
"I just use that as a vase because it looks nice," she said. "I think you can be experimental with what the flowers are going in anyway, just to add a little bit of something different."
Warm lighting is a game changer
Rule 101 of decorating and making your home feel expensive is to turn off the big light and go crazy for lamps. Betsie feels similar and reveals she has a lot of rechargeable lamps to create a warm feeling in her home, "They're everywhere. On the coffee table, I've got a little rattan one in the kitchen. They are all very warm lights."
And the bulb itself is important too. She recommends using the Philips Smart LED bulbs which allow you to change to colour of your light without removing the bulb.
"Our living room light, every time we turn it on, it's like almost a warm like peachy colour," she reveals. "In the evening, it makes the room very golden, warm and cosy."
How you make your bed is more important than the bedding itself
If Betsie is known for one thing on TikTok it's the making of her carefully curated bed and she argues the way you make it is far more important than actual bedding items themselves.
"If you just throw your duvet over and leave your pillows a little bit askew, it's not going to look as good as if you actually take the time every day to make it properly," she adds.
Making your bed with carefully folded covers and taking the timing to place your cushions will elevate any bedroom and give it that hotel bedroom feeling.
Aesthetic clutter doesn't work everywhere
Betsie is a big fan of the 'aesthetic clutter' trend, where a carefully designed chaos can make a room feel rich and elevated. However, the one place she advises this won't work is in your bathroom, where she prefers the room to be "stripped back" and suggests only bringing in a piece of artwork, a faux plant and a really good towel.
Follow Betsie on Instagram and TikTok
Lydia Venn is Cosmopolitan UK’s Senior Entertainment and Lifestyle Writer. She covers everything from TV and film, to the latest celebrity news. She also writes across our work/life section regularly creating quizzes, covering exciting new food releases and sharing the latest interior must-haves. In her role she’s interviewed everyone from Margot Robbie to Niall Horan, and her work has appeared on an episode of The Kardashians. After completing a degree in English at the University of Exeter, Lydia moved into fashion journalism, writing for the Daily Express, before working as Features Editor at The Tab, where she spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Talk Radio. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of Gilmore Girls and 00s teen movies, and in her free time can be found with a margarita in hand watching the Real Housewives on repeat. Find her on LinkedIn.
