It's a perennial question for those of us on tight budgets: how do we make life feel more luxurious without spending too much money? Whether you're more interested in fashion, food, travel or interior design (or all of the above), there are always clever tricks and recommendations out there to enable you to live the most expensive-looking life on the least possible amount of money. When it comes to interiors, try and identify the small things you use every day, the linens, the drinking glasses, the hand soap, the stationery, and just make it a little better - every time you come back to one of these things, it will bring you a little joy.
Focus on the things you touch
When interior designers advise on where to spend and where to save at home, a frequent tip is that you should splurge on the things you touch: for example, in a bathroom or kitchen, the taps and handles should be your focus. You might not be able to afford high-end kitchen cabinets or bathroom sanitaryware, but a solid well-made tap or the knob that opens the cupboard will bring you a little sense of luxury every time you touch it. In a living room or bedroom, make sure the fabrics you come into contact with feel good, and you don't have to spend a lot of money here provided you choose your materials carefully.
Try a trim
If you're making up curtains or cushions, or upholstering a chair or headboard, employing a trim will make the entire thing feel more luxurious. Buying inexpensive fabrics such as linen and ticking, but trimming them with something beautiful, is a regular interior designer trick, and is certain to bring you joy whenever you notice it. You can also use it to line the edges of your walls. Our favourite high-end sources include Samuel & Sons and Houlès, but if you're prepared to do some scouring, you can also find some brilliant trims on Etsy for a fraction of the price.
Stick to organic materials
There's a particular conception of luxury that revolves around silks, damasks and velvets, but textiles do not have to be ultra-expensive to feel good. Always check the composition of the fabrics you're buying: pure cotton and linen for your bedding, for example, are very affordable materials, but they look and feel wonderful on your skin. We're huge fans of H&M Home and John Lewis' linen bedding, for example, and La Redoute's AM.PM version is an interior designer favourite. There are plenty of affordable sources for stylish, inexpensive fabrics in this vein for curtains and upholstery - we love Merchant & Mills for casual linens in stripes and plains; Tinsmiths for cheery patterns; Ian Mankin for stripes; and Romo for their charming ‘Kemble’ gingham.
Monogram something
Once you've got your organic cotton towels and hemstitched linen napkins in place, consider getting your initials embroidered onto a few choice pieces. A monogrammed towel can bring a sense of elegance to even the dreariest bathroom, and with a bit of ingenuity it can be an affordable luxury. If you can manage a bit of a splurge, The Monogrammed Linen Shop, which stocks the utterly marvellous creations of Yves Delorme, is the way to go, but a rummage through Etsy can also yield some stylish results. Once you've got the monogramming bug, you may find it hard to stop - napkins, bathrobes and slippers are all excellent candidates.
Eat at a table
A little formality goes a long way if you want a sense of luxury. While there's absolutely a time and a place for eating on the sofa in front of the TV, it is a bit redolent of the beginning of a Sandra Bullock movie, where she's still looking ‘terrible’ in her tracksuit and ordering Chinese takeaway. What you want is to be Sandra Bullock at the end of the movie, and for that you'll have to get off your sofa and eat at the dining table. Before you do that, set the table. Yes, we mean placemats, napkins, and ideally a tablecloth on there, and preferably some candlesticks and a little vase of flowers too. Eating is something to be celebrated and enjoyed, and that has a luxury all of its own.
Drink out of something beautiful
It doesn't cost the earth to buy a few beautiful pieces of china or glassware for your morning cup of tea or evening cocktail, but it can vastly improve the experience. A beautiful china tea cup can help you to notice and appreciate what would otherwise be a routine part of your day, and a colourful Murano water glass can perk up this most boring of drinks. You don't have to buy a full set; just allow yourself the ones you need from day to day, and build up a collection as and when.
Give a little love to your laundry
A favourite passage from the seminal 2013 novel Crazy Rich Asians mentions the practice, at the protagonist's grandmother's house, of ironing all the clothes with lavender water to make them smell wonderful. We can't think of anything more luxurious than this, and fortunately it won't break the bank to improve your laundry processes. First of all, ironing will always make things feel nicer. If you don't iron your bedding, may we recommend that you try it? It's a treat. And when you do, try using a linen water to scent the finished result. Mixing a tiny bit of your favourite essential oil with some distilled water can make a lovely spray to spritz your sheets with before you apply the iron, or try a good quality rosewater. The Laundress' heavenly ironing water, which you can add directly to your iron, is expensive but seriously luxurious.
Consider scents
While we're on the subject of things that smell nice, our go-to little luxuries are always a good scented candle, hand soap, or bath oil. Scented candles and essential oil diffusers can make a genuine difference to how you feel when you walk into a house, and the smell is always one of the first things we notice when we visit a new house or a hotel. Musty or fusty smells on entry have a distinctly depressing effect, and must be banished as a matter of priority. A good reed diffuser is the best way to do this, providing 24 hour scent that can easily spread through a few rooms. Make sure your soaps are on form as well, they'll inject a note of luxury to punctuate your day. Our Deputy Editor reports a regular frisson of delight from his Neptune hand wash, while this writer's Santa Maria Novella bubble bath has the same effect.
Create a tableau
One of our favourite pieces of advice from interior designer Rita Konig revolves around creating little scenes at home. A side table or sideboard is always a good candidate for creating a little collection of lovely things: in the living room a vase of flowers, a match striker, and a decorative coaster can be all you need to make an appealing corner; in the bathroom a patterned facecloth, a tub of bath salts and a beautiful soap can be just as lovely. Our favourite ‘scene’ will always be the drinks tray: a few stylish glasses, some good-looking bottles and an ice bucket are infinitely welcoming.
Use pretty stationery
Yes, Post-its are fine, but when you're leaving a little note for yourself, or writing one to someone else, some really good stationery – beautiful notepaper or even, dare we say it, a monogrammed notecard – makes the whole thing better. Imagine you need to leave a note for your neighbour saying ‘I have your parcel’, and you do it on a charming postcard from your favourite museum shop instead of a scrap torn off your latest utility bill. Think of the joy you could bring to your life (and your neighbour's), and invest in those notelets.
This story originally appeared on House & Garden UK.
