In My Opinion . . .
I don't care how old you are or at what point you are in your decorating venture, spend as much as you can.
Okay, if you're done hyperventilating I'll explain what I mean.
You know what they say, hindsight is 20/20. When you are decorating, spend as much money as you can afford on quality and classic design for the larger long term pieces.
I'm referring to furniture mostly. But if you're buying artwork to hang on the wall, do it nice! Can't afford an original, then by all means buy the $20 print, and put it in a decent frame with a matting if matting is required, and be done with it. Here's my experience doing just that. Talk about sticker shock!
If you want to adorn your walls with posters ( rock stars, movies or whatever) get some of those inexpensive poster frames that allow you to change out the poster when your mood or interest changes.
There are frameless ways of hanging posters too. It's an acrylic or glass cover behind which you put your poster, and it has clips that go on all the sides, that have tension cord that goes through them on the back to hold it all tight. They're cool because you get to see the entire poster with no frame bordering it.
Besides, you never know when that poster from when you were 10 years old is going to be a collector's item. So don't fill it with pin holes or stick tape on the corners!
Okay, back to furniture. Buy furniture that isn't too trendy, or could easily be updated in the future. By updating, I mean painting, changing hardware or adding molding for accent.
Say you love the new contemporary furniture trend in which furniture is clean lined and with no ornate accents or fancy hardware. Take a look at it. If styles change could you add a piece of trim to the top, or put molding around the front of the drawers or the doors?
If it's a chair, could you add a slipcover and a skirt to it sometime down the road to hide the modern straight legs if you wanted to?
Is it built well, preferably from solid wood not pressed board? Often times you're better off, especially if you're on a budget to search out some second hand furniture or even antiques that need to be refinished. They are usually built better than all but the most expensive furniture today.
For example, you might pay $1200 for a bed that is well built and a name brand (without the mattress) . Or you could go to a second hand store and purchase a bed, dresser, mirror and nightstand for the same money that may or may not need to be refinished.
Wall paint treatment:
I'm painting the walls a nice shade of blue with white clouds sponged on. It's so-o-o-o easy and looks great. I'll tell you what paint colors I used and how I did it.
Here are a couple pictures of how it turned out. The one on the right I darkened so you could better see how I did my clouds.
Paint:
Kilz 2 primer
Behr Flat Enamel (Yes, flat enamel! Isn't that cool?)
Get the paint chip card that has Gentian Blue, Blue Glass and Aniqued Blue. I painted the wall Blue Glass 2B42-1. It is a perfect match for a blue sky.
All three of those blues can be used for a multitude of things for this red white and blue theme. The Antiqued Blue goes really well with the red I chose below for accent pieces.
For the clouds, I used "off the shelf" Olympic Interior latex eggshell, White 72402. A quart goes a long way for this project.
American Tradition Semi Gloss in Suntan 741-2 for the trim.
American Tradition Satin or Semi Gloss in Algerian (red) 853-2 for accent items.
Tools:
Plain paint roller for the Blue Glass.
Sea sponge for the White.
Angled trim brush for the trim.
Painters tape if you like to tape stuff off
Technique:
I was painting over one concrete block wall and three new sheet rock walls so I primed all the walls and the trim with Kilz 2 my favorite primer of all time.
The walls were painted Blue Glass with a regular paint roller. Two coats were applied although one would have been enough.
I am one of those "overkill" type of people. If one coat is good, two must be better. And I don't plan to redecorate this room any time soon! So I gave it two coats for durability and cleanability.
I put some of my white paint in a roller pan, and added some water to make it fairly thin. After putting on some disposable latex gloves, I dampened my sea sponge, dipped it into my watered down paint, wrung it out, and started sponging onto the blue wall.
I tried to keep clouds in mind as I sponged, making my areas of white haze go in drifts across the wall like clouds would be. I made them very thin, so you could see the blue through them. I actually went back in several places and added more white, because you could barely see them.
I don't like to tape stuff off as it takes too long, so I just used the angled trim brush to paint my door and trim Suntan (which is actually a white - go figure!). But if you want to use the tape, be sure and let your walls dry at least a day. Then tape off your trim and paint.
Remove the tape as soon as you are done painting. If you let the paint dry onto the tape, you're likely to remove trim paint along with the tape, and if you let the tape stay on the wall too long, you may also take some wall paint with it.
Paints dry fast enough these days that you can get both your coats of trim paint done in just a few hours, and then you can remove the tape and be done with it. But if you have to stop mid stream, remove the tape, and retape it the day you get back to the project.
These paint colors and this paint technique turned out so well, now I'm tempted to rip the wallpaper off the bathroom walls and do it in there. My clouds look better than their clouds!
Now instead of my office being in a cave (it's in the basement), I feel like I'm working in the clouds! I am going to paint my dropped ceiling tiles in the same technique.
Sticker Shock
I found a nice print in a catalog for $35, or I could buy it matted and framed for $195 in a frame that I didn't particularly like. So I ordered the print alone, took it to Michael's Arts and Crafts and spent an hour picking out the perfect mat and frame. (Here's where the sticker shock comes in)
They worked up my quote of around $600 for the mat and frame!!! What Ever! I guess I have really expensive taste! LOL
I told the clerk I wasn't interested in spending $600 to frame a $35 print, and he just couldn't understand my hesitance. So off to Pier One I went and found a perfectly "fine" frame for $50. I still have it hanging above my fireplace to this day. It looks perfect.
But I truly was shocked, and I know how expensive frame stock is. They didn't have the prices marked on their frame stock so a customer had no idea what they were in for. Well, that was a couple years ago. Hopefully they have solved that problem and mark their prices.