The approaching holidays often encourage us to try to update our home, just a bit, for the inevitable visitors. You might be tempted to buy some new linens, vases, or knickknacks from a big-box store. I propose you consider something a tad more challenging, and much longer lasting: Original art.

Every home makeover show includes the creation of questionable, cheap “art” to hang on the mark’s walls. Original artworks, even hastily constructed, formulaic paint splotches, make a room feel pulled together and personal.

So if you’re not rolling in money right now, you needn’t despair. But you also don’t need to get out the paint rollers and make a mess. The country - your city or town - is teeming with artists anxious to sell (or even barter) their work. Many have online presences, and I’ll list some below, but I encourage you to talk to friends and friends of friends and find some local artists to patronize too. This needn’t be through galleries; art colleges usually have holiday shows featuring student’s art under $100. The cheapest way to buy is to find the artist you like, go to their studio, and ask if you can buy directly from them. Ask to see drawings and watercolors. Find some photographers you like. Works on paper are usually cheaper than works on canvas.

When you are working directly with artists, do be sensitive about prices. Artists who are signed to gallery representation or are currently in art shows may not have the latitude to offer lower studio prices, so it is best to establish this upfront. Alternately, galleries can take significant commissions on sales (up to 50%), and artists may rely on increased profits from direct sales to offset a very small profit on works sold through a gallery.

Poke around the following links and find some lovely stuff that’s far less expensive than your weekly grocery bill.

20x200: You’ll want to sign up for the mailing list to buy from Jen Beckman’s online gallery. She releases limited editions of photographs and prints by different artists on Tuesday and Wednesdays at 2 pm. The 200 $20 prints often sell out immediately, so be quick with your trigger finger, and you can amass a collection of significant artists for Starbucks’ change.

Tiny Show Case: This online gallery curates a very of-the-moment selection of small prints that would look happy in an Domino Magazine photo shoot but it also includes some less pop-oriented and thoughtful landscapes.

Duane Keiser: Duane Keiser is known as a pioneer in the painting-a-day blog world. He paints one small painting within an hour every day, or hereabouts, and lists them for sale on ebay. His paintings are small, intimate, and lovely. Prices usually start around $100.

Two artists following in Keiser’s footsteps are Abbey Ryan and Jeff Hynes. Their daily paintings are similar to Keiser’s in size and scope, and both painters are sensitive and competent.

Many other painters have started to work this way. Hynes has a list here. The Daily Painters Guild (some of the best of this bunch), The Daily Paint Works, and Daily Painters websites collect dozens of painters (of varying quality) working in this mode and price range.

In the early 1970s, before our neighborhood was designated a National Historic District and modern construction was forbidden, a builder demolished a bungalow and built an underground house. Not much of it was truly underground. The house was sunk into the ground, and then dirt was piled up about six feet all around and so densely planted that it was hard to see the structure from the street. The Underground House was under-appreciated by adults in my neighborhood, but beloved by children. It was magical.

Evening walks were often rerouted to accommodate my request to walk by the underground house. In the summer it was practically invisible, but in the winter, you could glimpse some glass and even peer into a lit window. Underground living seemed fantastic, even before I’d read The Hobbit. What could be cozier than retreating to a burrow?

Our local underground house was demolished two years ago, just when underground houses began to receive positive press—except for a tent, they are perhaps the most environmentally-friendly dwelling humans can construct. Since they are built partially underground, they are cheaper to heat and cool than conventional homes. Energy savings can be up to 80%, and with solar elements, it’s easy to live completely off-grid.

This building technique isn’t just for the geodesic dome crowd. Like the newly-hip tree house and yurt, underground living is chic again. This month’s Cookie Magazine shows an elegant, modernist version of (partially) underground living in London with an indoor pool, and child-friendly features like a slide, in addition to steps, to descend to the lower level. Older underground homes provide environmentally conscious living for the historically conscious crowd. Centuries-old, and brand-new cave dwellings in Andalusia, Spain are attracting savvy Europeans looking for a low-maintenance second home, and these modern troglodytes were recently profiled in The New York Times.

But, really, few of us are about to go and build, or buy, an underground house. The concept, however, seems worth introducing to your kids (perhaps you’re raising the new suburban developer!). You can do this the glam way; travelers can stay in caves in Spain, Italy, and Turkey. Or you can suggest the concept through play or housekeeping.

I propose two budget options:

• Underground house. Build an underground house of your own, but a very tiny one, for some treasured toys. Mound some dirt over a box or some cans to make a cave. Children might start adding light-shafts, windows, or create a warren or rooms.



• Root cellar. You can also exploit the constant temperature underground by building a root cellar, the traditional (and green) alternative to chunking the old fridge in the garage. Unlike the spare fridge, the root cellar is the perfect place to store winter vegetables, which you might have grown yourself, or, in your unbridled enthusiasm for a good deal, bought 30 pounds of at Costco. A root cellar can be elaborate, but an old trunk, lined with some newspaper and buried up to the lid in your backyard, works quite well in the cooler months for the modern family. The beer won’t freeze, and the turnips won’t mold. If all that digging seems extreme, you can also use a corner of your basement, but choose the damp one, and be sure the vegetables get some ventilation.

Enthusiastic, or whimsical? Check out the plans for a hobbit hole at Stormbear.

I think that parents often forgo wallpaper in because pasting up wallpaper seems much more difficult than simply painting a wall. The process actually isn't difficult - cleaning the walls is perhaps the hardest part - and it doesn't create the fumes and mess of paint. Wallpaper also seemed to have been neglected by serious designers for years, but no more. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of boutique design firms producing fantastic paper. You can even make your own wallpaper paste to make sure you know just what's going onto your walls, and save on your budget, too. (More on that later.)

Friday marked the opening of an exhibition of children’s wallpaper and books at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. The museum holds the largest collection of wallcoverings in the country, and this exhibition pulls out some of the most whimsical. Check out a few on their website for inspiration.

Here are some of great papers, all available online, and all reasonably priced.


Graham-Brown’s "Frames" paper is popular for children’s rooms, and inspires filling in the frames with original on-the-wall doodling. This site also carries a variety of other papers, and child-friendly wall-decals.


Rose and Radish carries Cole and Son’s “Woods” paper, first issued in 1950, which would be lovely for a child’s room.


Flavor Paper carries all sorts of fantastic patterns, hand-printed in New Orleans’s ninth ward, including this pop scratch-and-sniff (yes, it smells!) banana paper. The site also offers other less Warholesque options.


There are some great reproduction cowboy, atomic-age, and animal prints at Design Your Wall.

There are also a few sites that sell wonderful rolls of vintage paper, perhaps your greenest choice. Vintage paper falls into the same price range as new paper. Try Second Hand Rose, Rosie’s Vintage Wallpaper, and Hannah’s Vintage Wallpaper.

Cooper-Hewitt’s website also reminded me that you don’t have to paper a whole wall to reap the benefits of paper. Their site shows one paper whose images are meant to be cut out and pasted into scenes, or designs, of your choice, like an wall appliqué.

You could make wall appliqués out of anything - pictures from an old book, magazines, fabric, or cut from wallpaper. Simply glue them up with some wallpaper paste.


Or, if you’re clumsy with scissors, you can buy them from Brooklyn-based Romp. You’ve probably seen a picture of their giraffe wallpaper decal. I think there is a law that every story about a child’s room in any interior design magazine has to show their giraffe.

Finally, here’s an easy, effective, and non-toxic wallpaper paste recipe. There are a lot of recipes on line, but this one caught my eye because it includes an ingredient intended to act as a preservative, which many others don't mention. It's from care2.com.

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour (wheat, corn, or rice)


• 3 teaspoons alum


• water


• 10 drops oil of cloves (natural preservative)

Directions
Combine the flour and alum in a double boiler. (If you don’t have a double boiler, set a smaller pan inside a bigger one that contains enough water that can be brought to a boil without overflowing.) Add enough water to make a consistency of heavy cream; stir until blended. Heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened to a gravy texture. Let cool. Stir in the clove oil. Pour into a glass jar with a screw top. Apply with a glue brush.

Makes 1 cup. Shelf life: Two weeks, refrigerated.

Have you had any success stories or challenges with wallpaper?