As we become more of a home-based society, many more of us are pouring money into our houses with DIY renovations.

Do it yourself home improvement projects are both rewarding and usually will give you a good return on investment should you decide to sell or refinance your home. But you wont need to tear down walls, add closets or buy all new furniture to upgrade or change the decor in your house. Often it's the little things that count. Small changes in lighting alone can alter the look and feel of your home or even just one room with minimal financial investment and time.

Consider going country with your lighting!

Listen, unless you're ready to spend a lot of money on renovations (in which case you'll be changing light fixtures anyway), you can get a lot of bang for your buck with carefully selected decorative lighting. And if a more comfortable, home-y feel is what you're after, there's no better way to achieve your goal than to look to the current trend of country decorating!

The reason why this style of decorating is so popular these days is because garden or farmhouse inspired rooms ground us in old world values. A space where our organic bodies feel 'in touch', our psyches feel 'safe', and stress levels drop. After all, what is more peaceful than spending a few hours in the garden, a weekend at the country home, or a week at the summer cottage?

Bring country decorating home to the city with country inspired lighting!

You could drive around for hours looking for antique lighting, shop ebay for other's used lighting, or you could buy new lights from many lighting stores that will give you the same rustic, relaxed, retreat.

Think punched tin, replications of candle chandeliers, small lamps that depict a cowboy or horse scene. You get the idea. Be as tacky, playful or downright country as you like.

And, for under $200 and 20 minutes of replacement installation, you'll find that you've just transformed a city-worn room into your own personal country haven.

Ten years ago, Martha Stewart brought pendant lighting back into style using upturned garden cloches hung from chains over bare bulbs. That can take some real hunting in the antique shops!

Thankfully pendant lighting is now available in many shapes and sizes. And, you don't have to stick to dull or boring. Pendants are available to look much like the old, color-glass, hand-blown garden cloches or as punched tin - both are very 'country' looks.