How to Decorate Your Home with Extremely Low-Cost Framed Prints

The cheapest way to hang nice-looking framed prints in your home is to buy them at a yard sale or thrift store. I was able to get the three prints in my living room, which have similar frames (gold wood) and styles, as well as the four prints in my bedroom (which also complement each other and have gold wood frames) at yard sales.

Another option is to buy a print inexpensively at a yard sale, thrift store or online discount merchant. Then buy a frame in the correct size at a thrift store or yard sale and insert the print. Local Goodwill stores in my area display a “secret number” each week and every item in the store with the number on its tag is discounted by 50 percent; many times framed prints are assigned the secret number.

Instead of buying an expensive print and taking it to a frame shop, paying hundreds of dollars to have it matted and framed, you can spend as little as $10 for a great looking framed print whether bought together or individually! Recently, I bought a framed poster (with scratches on the glass) for $6.99 and a separate 20 x 30 frame that fit the poster (which contained a print I didn’t like) for $6.99 — they each were tagged with the secret number. I put the pretty poster inside the pretty frame and got it all for about $7 (see photo above).

The downside is you usually have to be patient enough to check thrift stores and/or yard sales for several weeks after you buy a print before finding a frame you like that’s the right size — but the money saved is well worth it.

I’ve been doing this for years and it’s the only way to go. Decorating with inexpensive prints allows you to change them often, too. (If I paid hundreds of dollars, I’d feel compelled to keep the framed print for 10 years!)