How to Decorate Like Vern Yip

By eHow Home & Garden Editor

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Vern Yip is best known as a guest designer on the home decorating show Trading Spaces. He was trained as an architect and interior designer, and is based in Atlanta, GA. His theme as a designer, both in his own practice and on Trading Spaces, is affordable decorating. Vern Yip is enthusiastic about "cheap-chic" techniques in decorating.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Step1

Start with one or two good quality pieces. Not every item in the room needs to be cheap.

Step2

Refinish large pieces of furniture, like a sofa or dresser, which would be expensive to replace. Use slip covers to give new life to an old sofa which still has a good structure. Paint is an inexpensive way to refinish an old dresser that has good design elements.

Step3

Edit a room that has too much in it. Too many items in a room tends to cheapen the overall appearance.

Step4

Decorate a room with lighting. You change the entire mood of a room with lighting, and it doesn't have to be expensive.

Step5

Paint a room to completely transform the atmosphere. Choose a color that contrasts with items in the room. If the artwork is very colorful, for example, then choose a neutral wall color.

Step6

Use more than one shade of the same color. Paint the ceiling one shade of green and perhaps the walls another. Decorating with paint is one of the best "cheap chic" secrets according to Vern Yip.

Step7

Create your own art with complementary colors. Buy a canvas and paint at a craft store. Paint with colors you've already used in the room or pull from other colors in the room. Create a collage by gluing important photos in frames.