After you have painted your formal living room and replaced the lighting, you should take a look at your windows. Dark blinds will give it a feeling of cold. You want to invoke the use of sunlight through nice sheer drapes or lighter blinds. Faux wood blinds can be purchased for $50 from Target. Sheer draperies can be purchased for $25 on up from Target as well. Select draperies that match the color of the walls you painted. Sheer white drapes will provide a soft feeling, but they will need to be cleaned on a continual basis in order to look fresh.

The flooring in your formal living room is another area that is of importance. For a small budget, you probably won't be able to replace the carpet or install wood floors. Instead, rent a carpet scrubber for $25 and scrub that carpet until it looks new again. For a wood floor, give it a nice re-finish. You can pick up a wood floor refinisher and polish for about $50. After you have cleaned up the floor, you need to purchase rugs that match the overall look of the room. A nice rug will run you anywhere from $50-$500.

The walls are another area of importance in the formal living room remodel. Your furniture in a formal living room should never touch the walls, though it can be close. The way you place your couches, piano, and lighting will have a different impact on the complete living room remodel. A piano in a corner looks much better than one in the middle of the room. Couches should also be placed near the wall to create a feeling of openness.

The total cost for a new paint job, new lighting, cleaned flooring, and drapes will cost about $620 and that is to have a professional painter come to your home. Feel free to splurge a little on the lighting or the new rugs, this price is just for the bare minimum.

How to remodel your formal living room for under $2500

Here are some tips to help your remodel your formal living room for under $2500. Start by looking at the walls. Can you expand the size of your formal living room a few feet? If you cannot expand the total room, try taking out a closet that comes back to back with the formal living room. If you can get rid of a closet in your hallway, you can turn it into a nice shelf or nook in your formal living room. To do this you are looking at spending $250 if you do it yourself or $500 to have a professional builder do it.

New paint is a must-have in any formal living room remodel. Take a few paint samples from the Home Depot and decide which colors look the best with your carpet or wood floor, furniture and the style you are going for. If you have a molding, consider using two different colors, one for the top and one for the bottom. Feng Shui is a popular method used in many formal living rooms. It is the Chinese art of correct placement. One wall in your formal living room should be a warm color such as light green, light blue or pale yellow. Dark colors are thought to be too harsh and are only for outdoor use, however with molding dark colors are ok for only the bottom half of the formal living room. The other walls in your formal living room should be white or a lighter shade from the wall you painted. The ceiling in your room will also be white. You can purchase a 5 gallon bucket of paint from Lowes for $25.00 for basic white. Take a look at their miss-tint section; you may be able to get pretty decent colors for a cheap rate. The total cost to re-paint your master bedroom with paint and supplies will be $150.00. If you opt to hire a professional painter, you are looking at a cost of about $400.

Lighting is one of the biggest features in a formal living room. Take a good look at your existing lighting fixtures and replace them with recessed lighting. Recessed lighting is a great way to accent certain pictures on your walls and provides a dramatic effect to your entire formal living room. To have an electrician come and install the recessed lighting, you will be spending roughly $400 - $600, depending upon the size of the room and the complexity of the job. Even with recessed lighting, you should consider purchasing a couple tall lamps. The Home Depot has a wide variety of floor lamps and a nice matching set will run you about $220.

Replace the current picture frames with shadow boxes. Many formal living rooms have too many pictures cluttering the walls, decide on 3 or 4 nice pictures and hang them in shadow boxes with lights inside or positioned under one of the new recessed lighting spotlights. Shadow boxes with lights can run from $100-$500, depending upon the size of the shadow box.

The furniture in your formal living room should create a feeling of warmth or a romantic atmosphere. If you have a piano and nice bookcase or china hutch, re-stain and re-seal the wood. You can do this yourself for $50 or you can hire a professional to come and do this for about $200.

To have all of the above remodeling done to your formal living room, you are looking at a total cost of $2400. That is to have the professionals come and do many of the projects. The extra money you have should be invested in nice furniture or rugs for the formal living room.

How to remodel your formal living room for under $3000

Here are some ways to remodel your formal living room for under $3000. Start by taking a good look at the flooring in your formal living room. If you prefer carpet, you can install new carpet for around $2000. A nice change to a formal living room is hardwood flooring. For a 20x20 foot room, the cost to have a professionally installed wood floor will run you about $2500. You can install wood floors yourself for around $1800, but you need to know how to prepare the floor, glue it, and finish it when completed. It is much easier to hire a professional for your hardwood flooring project.

Every room can be given a fresh new look with a nice coat of paint. You can paint your formal living room on your own for about $150. A professional can come in and paint for around $400. For a formal living room, you should be focused on creating a relaxing environment that is open and warm. Softer colors will help you achieve this goal. Stick with the whites, pales, and avoid the dark, harsher colors.

Molding is another addition you should include in your formal living room remodel. You will need to obtain all the proper measurements and cut the molding to the appropriate sizes. The molding should run along the baseboards, ceiling and directly in the middle or ¼ the way up the wall. The molding preparation and installation will cost you about $300 if you do it yourself. If you hire a professional to take care of your molding project, you will spend roughly $500.

The windows are another area that needs attention in your formal living room remodel. A professional window installer can replace the old window with a nice, fancier window for about $500. If you opt to keep the same windows, paint around the trim and give them a good clean up job. Your goal should be to include as much sunlight into the room as possible. New windows with a design will only add to the warmth of the room. Decorate the windows with nice sheer drapes instead of blinds because they will allow more sunlight to enter the room. Sheer drapes can be purchased at Target for about $50.

If you have a barren wall, consider building a bookcase to it. A bookcase can be built on your own for about $500 or you can again, hire a professional to do this for $800. The bookcase can be used not only for books, but to place decorations in. The walls in your formal living room should be kept simple. If you selected one wall to be a different color from the other walls, that wall should have one picture on it only, while the other walls can include 2 or 3 different pictures. Try and keep the pictures all in the same frames and avoid overkill by adding too many pictures to the wall.

If you haven't purchased a piano, now is the time. A formal living room remodel is not complete without the installation of a piano. Pianos often complete the overall look of your formal living room and are used by many decorators to set the decorating tone for the rest of the room. A nice piano can charge you thousands of dollars, but you are able to pick up one for about $1500. Keep an eye out for garage sales too. If you happen to find an older piano, be sure to have it refinished. You can refinish the piano yourself for about $50.