Tip: One of the easiest tips on lightening up a space! Couch makeover!

After reading many posts on Hometalk over the years and seeing what a difference a single change in a room can make, I was hooked and had to try it for myself. This makeover tip is the easiest thing you can do to brighten up a room. We have a cottage/mobile home by the ocean as a second home and though it was in tiptop shape and decorated nicely, it had a city feel with all the dark browns, taupes, and greys in the living room and bedrooms. I wanted to feel differently when I walked into the living room and those colours were just not helping me feel like we were at the ocean!

One tip I read that has made a huge difference is to use drop cloths to cover furniture or make drapes. They are light beige, almost like a pale sandy beach, and when I bought a large sized drop cloth at Home Depot and laid it over the dark brown and lighter brown couches, it created instant light in the living room! It helped me change other things in the room to create a light, airy feel, but this was the easiest thing I did. Do try it if you feel like a room or area in your home needs some light. It cost me all of $30 for the drop cloth and I had enough to cut in half for each of the two couches. I do still have to hem one of them before I wash it again or it will fray quite a bit, but if you don't sew, you can use hem tape to finish off one of the edges. All other edges are already hemmed. How great is that? :)

We have put the dark brown couch/futon in a small bedroom, since these pics were taken, but it is still covered with the light drop cloth and we bought a comfy reclining love seat to take its place. Guess what? It's also dark brown!! LOL Yep, it will get a light cloth put onto it too, somehow.