The perfect porch makeover for under £50

How I gave this tiny space a new lease of life and this porch makeover is still going strong 18 months later.

Before & After

I dream of one day having a beautiful boot room but for now, I have this cupboard-sized, inside porch area which needs to house the whole family's coats and shoes (quite a task when your housemates own what seems like a thousand pairs of trainers between them!) so I need to make the best of it!

As is often the case with the home improvement projects I share, the space in question has been earmarked for a future change. I'm not sure we'll ever have the budget or inclination to undertake the grand plans I've cooked up, but it seems silly to spend lots of money decorating, just in case so it was time for a budget porch makeover.

Stick-on floor tiles

Although the space for the budget porch makeover is tiny, it is certainly handy to be able to shut the door on it, so I decided to leave the structure as is (for now) and focus on cosmetics instead. The floor is tiled with thick, slate tiles which have seen better days! Removing them and retiling wouldn't be a huge job, but I decided it was a bit too much cost and effort for what is hopefully a temporary measure, so I was looking for more of a quick fix. I decided to try Floor Pops, self-adhesive floor tiles, which you literally peel and stick. This seemed too good to be true especially when I saw the price (£13.99 per pack of 10). At that price, I thought it was worth a punt so ordered a black and white design and only needed one pack (this tells you everything you need to know about how small the floor space is!).

I previously wrote a step-by-step on using stick-on floor tiles which you can read here so I won't go into the details too much now, but my top tip is to make sure you really clean the surface that you want the tiles to adhere to.

Progress pics below...

Old tired inside porch area with fitted shoe cupboard

Stick-on floor tiles being stuck to black tiled floor

Floor pops installation on black tiles

Black and white stick on floor tiles claire douglas’ porch

Floor pops installed on tired black slate tiles

White fitted cupboard and wall mounted radiator in small inside porch area

Small inside porch area being decorated by Claire Douglas

As you can see from the above pics, the stick-on tiles greatly improved the space. The floor now looked fresh and clean and the pattern worked well as you can be a bit bolder in small areas.

Perfect Pigeon for the porch makeover

I used my favourite colour-match paint for the walls, cupboard doors, and the front door. I used scrubbable, hardwearing emulsion on the walls, shoe cupboard, and special paint for the front door, all purchased from Decorating Centre Online. I matched the paint shade to Farrow & Ball's Pigeon, a gorgeous greeny-grey, using DCO's colour-matching service. You can get 10% off the DCO website with discount code Clairescourse10

Cupboard Door Handle Swap

The previous handles were a bit naff, so for this budget porch makeover, I made a quick trip to Homesense and picked up some super cute, brass bee-shaped handles which were only £5.99 for 4 - bargain! The new handles made such a difference and really elevated the look of the cupboard.

Mirror Mirror

As the space is so small, I added a mirror on the wall opposite the front door. This gives the feeling of more space when you walk in and helps bounce light around to make the area feel lighter.

Ta - dah!

Thanks so much for reading about this budget porch makeover. I'd love to keep you up to date with future DIY, decorating, interior styling and upcycling projects, if you would like to receive my (not more than weekly & no spamming I promise) emails then please subscribe (scroll down to the box at the bottom of the page).

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