soft furnishings on a budget - 5 top tips to save money

I visited a client recently who has just spent the last year renovating her home. Finally the builders have left and she is faced with the reality of having over spent by more than 20% on unforseen building costs, leaving her with a much smaller budget than she'd hoped for to furnish her dream home. She wanted to discuss with me the options for her window treatments and I thought that my advice may be of interest to others.

1. Curtains require more fabric than blinds and cushions, so if the fabric of your dreams is rather expensive, it may be worth considering using a contrasting plain fabric for drapes and saving your favourite fabric for a blind or cushions
2. When using bold prints avoid unnecessary, fussy headings, valances or trimmings. Let the fabric speak for itself whist saving on make-up costs
3. Dress up plain, inexpensive fabrics with contrasting borders, trimmed edges or clever heading details to add interest
4. Good quality soft furnishings are often worth re-making into something new. They'll need to be freshly cleaned and in excellent condition though, as any signs of wear may show. As well as shortening curtains that are too long, it's also possible to lengthen pairs by adding contrasting borders to the tops or bottoms for example
5. Remember that soft furnishings in an inexpensive fabric can be made to look wonderful if they are expertly made up. However, an expensive fabric will never look good if the workmanship is not up to scratch. You get what you pay for and it always pays to have your soft furnishings professionally made.

My client was pleased to hear that the curtains from her last home, which we'd made for her only two years ago could be remade to fit two new windows and provide fabric for a few cushions. With clever use of fabrics elsewhere we able to dress all of her windows, staying on buget, without compromising on the quality she had grown to expect from us.