Problem: Your creative sense says your home décor needs a boost—these blank walls are just so boring—but your bankbook says art just isn’t the budget.

Solution: You can create a “wow” factor without getting woozy over the cost of an interior decorator, says Michelle Williams, interior designer and founder of Michelle Williams Interiors, a Chicago-based design firm. Here are some of her low-cost, high impact tricks: Tear out pages from coffee table books or world atlases, and display them in colorful mattes and picture frames. This works especially well in bathrooms, home offices, laundry or mud rooms—basically any small space that you don’t want to spend a lot of money on. For larger spaces, try grouping a series of a series of pictures together as one unit. This creates a focal point in the room. But before you start hammering nails into your walls, test different layouts by laying all of the frames down on the floor until you find an arrangement that you love. Then, measure the wall to find the right proportions.  In the kitchen or dining room, use vintage (or modern) dishes as art work. In fact, dishes work so well that you can even try using them to create a unique bedroom headboard.