Modifying one’s living space can be a scary prospect, mostly due to the fear that it will cost a lot more money than you care to spend. This isn’t an unusual position to be in, but we are here to tell you that spending a lot of money isn’t always necessary. Here are some wallet-friendly ideas to help get you started.
What’s the first thing someone sees when they come into your home? Other than your smiling face, it’s going to be your entryway and as we all know, first impressions matter. That saying is true with people, but also with our homes, which are an extension of who we are. Your decision on a front door will be a key component of how your guests will gauge your home.
Consider replacing it with a fancier upgrade or even just a fresh coat of paint. This will dramatically change the look of your home and even enhance your property’s “curb appeal.”
Other components that will enhance the aesthetics of your homes exterior include:
- Trim
- House Numbers
- Gutters
- Outdoor Lighting
- Walkway
The simplest way to rejuvenate these areas is to give them a fresh coat of paint or powerwash them. Dingy paint can often go unnoticed because you naturally adjust to the color over time. Give them a new appearance with a good cleaning or a new paint job.
Outdoor lighting can also impact the look of your home. You can use lighting to highlight positive attributes of your outdoor decor. Great light placement will draw the eye away from undesirable areas, and in turn, minimize the work to achieve that fresh/updated look.
Now that the outside is taken care of, it’s time to look within. You can give your older cabinets a facelift with brand-new hardware. We aren’t talking about replacing your cabinets: that’s incredibly expensive! Replacing the handles and any other exposed hardware can go a long way to sprucing up older looking wood. There’s also the option we mentioned previously: paint them! Adding a coat of paint can be a time-consuming project, but overall, it’s inexpensive and will add value to your home. A trendy option is to use white paint, which will brighten up the room and give it a different feel.
Speaking of brightening things up, replacing your kitchen lighting or adding a nice fixture over the dining table will certainly brighten your eating area at a relatively low cost. When looking into lighting solutions, you may want to see what options there are for LED lights. These are initially more expensive but last considerably longer than traditional bulbs, use much less energy helping to reduce your electric bill, and add a beautiful and bright option to your dining room.
If you have a half-bath that gets a lot of foot traffic, especially when you have guests over, consider jazzing it up with a bold paint color. This can make a relatively drab and small room look larger than it does. If painting it isn’t your thing, check out some creative wallpaper designs to separate the room from the rest of the house. Because the room is small, it offers an inexpensive way of experimenting with fresh and fun ideas that would otherwise be costly in larger areas of your home.
When most of us buy a home, we get the faucets and fixtures that come in our kitchen and bathrooms and don’t give them much thought. There are thousands of innovative options out there to give your kitchen or bathroom that extra shine. Modern faucets have much more functionality than the traditional items your builders threw in at cost. Whether it’s to add an attached hose to your kitchen faucet or a larger, shinier, and more appealing bathroom faucet, the choice is yours, and they aren’t as expensive or difficult to install as you might think.
Heading into the bedroom and looking at your bed, you might not have a headboard. While it isn’t something that you think is necessary, a headboard helps to tie the bed into the overall space of a bedroom. Instead of buying one, which can be costly, try making one out of salvaged materials such as fencing, old doors, or window shutters. Make the project unique to you and your interests! The possibilities are endless, and this is an easy project you can have a lot of fun completing.
Don’t forget to add that extra something to your other rooms. These can be any sort of architectural interest such as a chair rail, picture molding, shiplap, crown molding, new backsplash, or baseboard. These additions aren’t very expensive when added one room at a time, and once you have completed your upgrades, your home will feel more like… well, a home!
There are a lot of little things we can do to our homes to make them not only more pleasing to the eye but also more valuable in the long run. Simply adding a fresh coat of paint, upgrading the lighting, or adding new fixtures can go a long way to making your home a better place to live. These small changes won’t cost too much and will add value to your home when it comes time to put it on the market.
