Home Is A Feeling – 7 Little Known Ways To Decorate Your Home For Free

Decorating your home for free is process of pouring love into those nooks and crannies… check out these seven tips. But first let’s chat about What is Home?

Home is a feeling.

Home.

What does the word “home” mean to you?

For me? Home is a feeling…not a “look” or aesthetic.

Home is an emotion you feel when you walk in the door after a long day.

Home is a hug waiting to greet you.

Home is a place to let your guard down.

Home is a place to take off your mask…these days both literally and figuratively.

Home is a feeling.

I think I subconsciously learned that, home is a feeling, as a little girl growing up under the graceful wing of my Mom.

Home is a bunch of nouns hemmed in and held together by the greater Momma bear noun that is “home.”

What I have come to land on is this:

Home is a place that stands for what you stand for.

Home is strength in the bones of grief after heartbreaking loss.

Home is forgiveness in the wrinkle of hurt after a hard hit to the heart.

Home is wisdom in the face of confusion when a vision blurs and crumbles.

Home is safety in the blanket of a pandemic when everything you know changes.

Home is grace in the eye of upset when raw emotions rise.

Home is change held together in the wave of transformation as you begin something new.

Home is hard to let go of when you have to leave and soft to enter when you come home.

Home is gentleness and love when you need it most.

Home is all these and more… when built on the rock.

“The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

Matthew 7:25 NIV

Friend…you may not have the best memories of your home growing up…I get that.

Regardless, we have a choice on the homes we are building now.

Even if we have been living in them for years, each home has a figurative welcome mat inviting us in, to begin afresh with a “new build” mentality when we need it.

The first step?

Figuring out how you want it to feel – for yourself and anyone else who steps inside.

Because?

Home is a feeling.

Whether you are literally moving into a new home, setting out to begin a fresh chapter OR you already love your home but want a few simple ideas to hit the refresh button for an update.

This is for you.

In either scenario, you can move into a fresh thought space of what you want your home to represent and stand for. Are you ready to build that feeling?

Oh good…I have a few ideas for you.

Here are 7 ways to decorate your home for free, to be used as jumping off points to capture that feeling and give yourself a refresh in spirit and home.

We are going to re-think what we already have to help us decorate for free and also be willing to look at a few pieces through a different lens.

Let’s call it the “home-advantage.”

We all have it…things in our homes and items within our reach that we can use right now to hit the refresh button.

I hope this post inspires you to leave the feelings of comparison on Instagram and helps you to see with new eyes what you already have.

Appreciating and decorating with what we have in our homes right now (or what is outside on the sidewalk, left for the trash-men…more on that at the end of this post) will help you breathe in that “home is a feeling” experience of gratitude.

Watch out, the feeling is contagious.

Seven Ways to Decorate Your Home For Free

1. Put Your Pretties On Display In Your Bedroom

Put your pretties on display in your bedroom.

Grab a bowl and lay your favorite clutches, or small handbags inside.

Place a favorite necklace on a neck form or use a tall vase you already have to hang your necklace on. (Amazon and Michael’s both sell similar neck forms.)

You can see more images of this bookshelf in our bedroom and how I have it styled in this post along with inspiration for rearranging furniture for a free refresh.

The above bookshelf stood in our basement for the last 13 years which brings me to “How to decorate your home for free” Tip #2.

2. Rearrange Your Furniture.

Last Spring we started a shiplap project that quickly spiraled into me rearranging our entire first floor. As in, I changed the game on the entire floor and how we use our home.

The result?

Rearranging the furniture was a game-changer and it turns out the home team WON.

We love the new way our home flows and by flipping the script on what always was…gave way to a more refreshed space to find rest just before a period of time peeked behind the curtain of a lot more time spent at home.

Enter quarantine.

You can see more pictures of the rearranged furniture and how our home flows now in this post.

3. Shop Your Cabinets & Closets.

Shop your linen closet and vanity drawers.

Put your favorite fluffy towels on display. I have these folded in half, length wise and then folded into thirds.

Pick a platter or a tray from your cupboard and place your perfumes and products on the tray for easy access and decor.

If you missed the blog post where we painted the cabinets and gave our master bathroom a BIG facelift on a budget you can see the process of the bathroom makeover along with source information and pictures here.

4. Bring The Outside IN.

From driftwood and sea shells that wash up on the beach in the Summer, to flowers from your yard in the Spring and pinecones that you find in the Fall and Winter…you can use them all to decorate your home.

Obviously, flowers can be placed into a vase.

And?

They can also hung upside down from a nail, hook or in this case, from a piece of wall art.

Leaves work too. 🙂

Shells, shells and more shells…give me all the shells.

One my MOST favorite activities of all time, no matter the season…is to collect shells.

My Mom, daughters and I spent Memorial Day weekend, last Summer collecting these pieces of drift wood and shells from the windy beach.

It was too chilly to spend all day on the beach so we retreated inside and spent the day making these driftwood shell crosses. You can see more pictures and steps of the home-made cross in this post.

Free decor in my daughters room and a sweet reminder of a special weekend spent in our favorite place.

And of course…bringing the outside inside in the form of branches work magic in a space that needs a little color and life. Simply clip off a branch or two and let it take center stage in your space for a few days.

5. Decorate With Books & Book Pages

We are still in love with the book wall I made during the Summer just before this room became our home-school room / home office.

I used book and magazine pages I already had and hung them on the wall to display meaningful words where my eyes can rest and breathe in a good reminder.

You can read the full tutorial here and see more pictures of the process of how I made this FREE book wall art decor in this post and on my Instagram Highlight here.

I have been having so much fun adding a little sprinkle of seasonal decor for each holiday. For Winter, I gently hung a strand of twinkle lights over the books along with a small pine wreath over the farmhouse wood frame.

Right now, I have added a touch of pink to give it a little extra love for Valentine’s Day decor.

Aside – this is about the extent of my Valentine’s Day decor. A few new heart pencils from the Dollar Spot, a heart wreath, mini flag and blush pillows on the white sofa and we are ready for the month of love.

Adding in these tiny touches evoke the feeling that we are ready to be moving forward into a new season.

I also love laying books flat and placing a small object on top like a cake topper. Sort through your old books and have fun turning them into free decor for your home.

6. Frame A Handwritten Note or Recipe

This is a hand-written note from my Mom, given to Shawn and I after we renewed our wedding vows in 2007.

The rock is a rock from Deer Creek, pulled from the creek we stood next to as we renewed our vows. Her letter pictured here, reminds us of the importance of building our home on the solid foundation of rock.

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.”

Matthew 7:25 The Message

My dresser has a small frame that holds a piece of scratch paper scribbled by our Pastor with one of the most important lessons I have learned in life.

You can read about the meaning of this special framed piece of paper in this post.

The kitchen floating shelves hold a gold frame on the top shelf, displaying an old recipe card in my grandmother’s handwriting that evokes the feeling of family when my eye catches it in the hustle and bustle of the day.

And last but not least….

7. Find The Freebies.

AKA – don’t judge a book by its cover.

I would not necessarily consider myself a “dumpster diver.” However, if you set something at the end of your driveway for the bulk trash pick up or leave it on your sidewalk with a sign that says “FREE.”

Well then….I am going to take a little looksie.

And odds are…it has a good chance of coming home with me.

I have written about this A LOT over the past year.

Here is the time I called my neighbor who has a pick up truck to come pick me up (I was on a walk) when I happened upon this white lattice gem that I turned into an outdoor succulent plant wall.

This gem was on the sidewalk of a business that had just closed permanently and I had no idea what I was going to do with it when we brought it home. It turns out brining this lattice home breathed energy into an outdoor area that had been neglected for a few years.

Then there was the time I found this old window on the sidewalk, left for trash in front of a nearby home.

The girls and I enjoyed breathing it back to life…but we weren’t quite sure what to do with it or where we would hang it.

Turns out, we love it here.

You can read the process over pressure post here about this trash to treasure restoration project. The lessons we learned while unearthing this beauty was special. Process OVER Pressure is such a more enjoyable way to live.

Thank you old window for reminding me of that.

And the latest FREEBIE find that I am decorating my home with?

This Chair.

I coulda, shoulda, wish I woulda taken a picture when I found it at the end of the driveway of the home that discarded it for bulk trash pickup. It was under a large garden hose and another piece of broken furniture.

I carefully lifted the broken furniture laying on top and moved the garden hose and picked this baby up and carried her home. I announced to Shawn that I had just picked up a “new chair” to which he was confused about and then I showed him this beauty.

He was not impressed (and I think also, not amused that this chair was currently cluttering up his garage.)

Don’t worry babe.

This beauty was not staying in the garage…she had a bright future under that peeling finish.

An hour of sanding later…here she sits.

If you follow me on social media, you saw me sanding her yesterday and I asked you in a poll if you think I should paint or stain her.

Votes are literally stuck at 50-50 stand still. And that is O.K.

Because for now?

I am going to let her rest here in her all natural beauty to remind me that things do not need to be fancy or expensive to be beautiful.

Lord,

Thank you for the way you gently teach me. Please continue to fan the flame inside me towards the person you want me to be.

Help me to boldly see beauty that is not always easily seen at first glance but to trust your process in the un-becoming and creating anew.

Lord thank you that we can each build our homes on the rock and live confidently in the truth that your attention to detail can be our strength in the process.

Amen.

Living on a prayer,

Heather