Photos by NATALIE CAUDILL/DMN

Decorator Tomi Pratt's favorite element is the corbel, which she uses under fireplace mantels, kitchen cabinets and countertops.

Sure, designer Tomi Pratt loves the million-dollar budgets with which she sometimes gets to work. But she brings just as much enthusiasm to projects with limited budgets.

It stems from her basic philosophy of interior design and the home. "Everybody deserves a nice house," she says. "Everybody deserves to have pretty things."

Her bag of tricks includes lots of ways to stretch the ultimate value from each dollar.

"I'll do a lot of things with paint," she says, when it comes to making every expenditure count. "I take a lot of the old furniture and have it refinished, faux finished, to make it work." She also uses all kinds of elements. A favorite is the corbel. But then there's trim, beads and fur, all of which, she says, used on draperies, cornices, pillows, ottomans or chairs, can pep up a room.

Tomi Pratt refinished this large cocktail table for $300. 'It was Oriental, brown with flowers on it,' she says. 'We had it painted black, scored it and aged it.'

For a recent client on a very limited budget for what they wanted to achieve, Ms. Pratt started by refinishing a large cocktail table.

"It was Oriental, brown with flowers on it," she says. "We had it painted black, scored it and aged it with brown woods streaked through it, so it looked like it was aged. It only cost about $300 to do the table. It would have cost $900 to $1,000 to buy a new table that size."

The client also eliminated the formal dining room, turning it into a study, but again, recycling much of what was there. The original bright, gold-and-ivory chandelier is now black and ivory. The breakfront got new life as a curio cabinet. They removed gold trim from the dining room table and moved it into the breakfast area.

Ms. Pratt used a corbel under the fireplace mantel.

A kitchen redo that includes new appliances, granite countertops, newly painted original cabinets and an iron grate in the skylight framing cost $18,000 instead of $50,000 to $100,000.

"You can faux-finish them and make them blend into a fireplace or wherever you want to put them," she says. "They can even go under kitchen cabinets or a countertop to give it dimension, to give it some character. I use them all the time, even in a contemporary setting, as a transitional piece."

Even the kitchen redo relied on a combination of splurge and cosmetics. The splurge came from new appliances and granite countertops. But cabinets remained in place. They sported an updated look thanks to new pulls and paint that replaced a whitewashed look with a taupe stone color

The result? A modern, up-to-date kitchen for $18,000 instead of the $50,000 to $100,000 it could easily have cost.

The original cabinets were updated with new pulls and paint that replaced a whitewashed look with a taupe stone color.

Hanne K. Klein is a Dallas freelance writer.

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