breeze blocks will save you a hundred quids worth of monitor stands and give you somewhere to put your coffee too.

you can either put the monitors away from the wall or very close to it, if you have 'em a bit away from a wall you risk doing a bit of extra comb filtering at the bottom end. if you have 'em close you'll have to roll a bit off the bottom to get a flat response mind.

drapes are cool, you can space them a few inches from the wall you'll get better absorbancy.

check a book, "the master handbook of acoustics" if you are bored one day...