How to Upgrade Interior Lighting on a Budget
Share this post or pin it for later!
*This post may contain affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my small business…at no extra cost to yourself!
Lighting makes such a difference in how the interior of your home looks, but it can also be expensive to change out. I’m sharing three creative ways to upgrade your interior lighting on a budget, to make creating a space that you love a bit easier on you and your wallet!
When we bought our home a little over three years ago (wow…that’s crazy to even type), there were a lot of things I wanted to change about it. As I’ve mentioned before, though, we bought it pretty much as turnkey, so there wasn’t a lot of money left over in the budget to do a bunch of projects. We had planned to have the interior painted as soon as we moved in, so knew we’d be paying for that. I sneaked in a couple more projects for the painters…as one does, but other than that, our budget was spent!
Luckily, being a blogger and creative, I have a lot of opportunities to get creative with things in our home, lighting being one of them. If you’ve followed me for long at all, you know that pretty much nothing is off-limits as far as DIY goes, if I feel comfortable with the outcome. Of course, there are projects that go awry—I’m dealing with the aftermath of one in our master bathroom currently, but that’s for another day. Even though not all projects work out as planned, luckily, all the lighting that we’ve switched out in our home, has!
While I haven’t changed out all the light fixtures throughout the house yet, I have made some serious strides. I feel like I’ve done enough that I feel good about sharing the three ways I’ve been able to upgrade the lighting, while sticking to our budget.
The caveat to all of this is that I’ve done this over time. While there were a few fixtures that I knew I wanted gone ASAP, there were others in the house that were totally fine waiting. Truth be told, one of the ways I’ll be sharing with you is to transform your current light fixtures. I’ve done this with several in the house but will eventually change them out for a proper upgrade. Until then, anything goes!
Whatever your budget looks like (we’re all working with something different), I think it’s important to take your time, live in your home a while, and really let your personal style settle in a bit before you make any sort of major changes. All this coming from the girl who had black floral wallpaper hung within a month of moving in. Obviously…do as I say, not as I do.
Okay, okay…now I’ll get to the good part…
This is usually my number one, numero uno, premier way to do anything in our home—basically, in life. I evaluate whatever it is that I want to look different and decide how I can make it better with easy DIY—emphasis on easy. I’m not your go-to girl for learning how to add millwork to an entire room, lay new flooring, or tile anything. I do want to be your first stop on any journey to making things look the best they can with a little bit of elbow grease and lots of creativity. Hope we can be friends in this!
When it comes to lighting, you have a few options to transform. You can paint, use one of my favorite products-Rub ‘n Buff, and change out shades. It really is that simple and absolutely does the trick! I’ve done a little bit of all three of those in our house and still love the results.
Bathrooms are super expensive to redo, and I think we can all agree on that. We’re not sure how long we’re staying in our current home, so it’s not at the top of our list to make any major changes to any of the bathrooms. That doesn’t mean that they can’t look better, right?
Our master bathroom has two light fixtures above the mirror. Honestly, we could have changed these out relatively inexpensively, but I didn’t really mind them…or at least the idea of them. They could be better, though, so I spray painted them matte black and switched out the shades to be seeded glass. I love the way they look, and it was all done for less than $60—that’s a fraction of what even one new light fixture would cost!
In our guest bathroom, the light fixture wasn’t as good looking as our other bathroom, but it still wasn’t bad. I used Rub ‘n Buff over the entire fixture and then switched out the bulbs to a clear round style with Edison filaments. If we end up staying in this house longer than we think, I’m sure we’ll redo this bathroom…including the light. It works for now, though, and looks a lot better!
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I love to thrift! I think it is the number one way to have a beautiful and unique home without spending a lot of money. This doesn’t mean that I don’t ever buy anything new, but I normally try to find what I need secondhand first and then fill in with the items that I really want, by buying new.
It is possible to find entire light fixtures at the thrift store or secondhand stores, but also to find items to use to update your existing light fixtures with—namely baskets! I have a whole blog post about how to use baskets in your home, that you can read here.
Baskets add a ton of warmth and texture to a space, and this is made even more evident when you add light behind them! I’ve used baskets to give a new look to the light on our living room ceiling fan, as well as created a new bespoke pendant light fixture in our entryway, using an extra-large vintage basket I found at a pop-up sale. You can read all about the DIY Basket Light Pendant here.
I also found two vintage light fixtures on Facebook Marketplace (for free!), shortly after we moved in, that are perfect in our laundry room! I rewired the lights and added a fresh coat of black paint, making them even more unique and fun. I love the scalloped edge—it’s very popular in current design, which is just a bonus to this fun swap out. You can read more details about that project here.
Obviously, you could go this route for switching out all the light fixtures in your home and still do it on a budget. It might take a little longer and cost a bit more, but it’s doable! Just like everything else, I like to mix in new with the old, so there are plenty of lights in our house that we’ve bought from the store, in addition to the ones I’ve transformed or thrifted.
Shortly after moving in, I was desperate to get the lights changed out above our kitchen island and above the dining table. To me, they were the ones most glaringly “not my style”. I sourced a budget-friendly light fixture option for both spots that I still really like!
The pendant above our dining table is the perfect mix of texture and open design. I love the woven rope look, but especially like that the light isn’t solid, so it doesn’t take up a lot of visual space. Our dining nook is small, but also is surrounded by windows. I want to take full advantage of the light coming in and the open design of the pendant allows for that! The one thing I’ve always wanted to change is the color of the chain and the metal work on the light. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get bored enough to give them a makeover with some Rub ‘n Buff. I haven’t had the desire enough yet to do it.
I knew exactly what I wanted the pendant lights to look like above the island in the kitchen and was able to find them for a great price at IKEA! The price has increased a bit, but when I bought them, I was able to get all three for around $75—not bad for the size of them! This included the wiring, but not the bulbs. All said, I paid around $100 to change everything out.
* Not the best picture, but if I turn the light off…everything is dark and you can’t see anything! Ha!
Recently, I had six of our can lights switched out to semi-flush mounts. I like can lights, and know that they serve a purpose, but they’re not overly stylish. I had three switched out in our upstairs hallway and three in our basement—and love them! I have loved schoolhouse lighting style forever, but the actual Schoolhouse is pricey! I found a couple of great dupes on Amazon for a fraction of the price, and they are great looking in person! You can find the look for less lights here and here.
I mentioned earlier that there are still light fixtures in our home that I want to switch out. The changes that I’ve made so far, though, make me so happy! I’ve truly customized our home’s lighting and have done it all while keeping within our budget.
Updating your home’s light fixtures can totally be done without spending a lot of money. Transform the ones you can, thrift or shop secondhand for lighting or to make updates to the lights you have, and look for stylish lower-cost options for the ones you buy new! These three options will allow you to have a unique home and lighting on a budget.
Are you inspired to start changing out some lighting in your home? Or maybe you’ve gotten creative with some already! I would love to see—post your interior lights in your Instagram stories and tag me! You can find me on Instagram at @hilaryprall.
Want to set a pretty table for Thanksgiving, but don’t want to spend a lot of money? Shop your local thrift store! I always make it a fun challenge to myself to look for the perfect decor for holiday tables when I’m shopping secondhand. I thought I’d share mine with you this year, to help inspire you to do the same.