Whether you recently bought a new home and are now thinking, “What did I get myself into?” or you’ve lived in your home for years and want to give it new life, fixing up a home can be time consuming, costly and a real headache. Luckily, we’re experts in this area, and have figured out a few ways to give your home the facelift it needs, without all the pitfalls that come with such a big task.
When people think of a home reno, they think of knocking out walls, new additions, and highly involved reconstruction projects, but the truth is, renovating your home can be done in small, not so complicated, steps. Small projects, such as cleaning out a linen closet, reorganizing a laundry room or retiling the bathtub, can really go a long ways to making your home the oasis that it should be. In this blog post, we are going to share with you 10 home improvement projects that you can do in a single weekend that will add value to your home.
1. Paint
Whether you’re feeling ambitious and opt to paint your entire house, or if you want to keep the project small and decide to paint only the trim and a few walls, a fresh coat of paint can be just what your home needs to give it new life. An accent wall is an easy way to add character to your home in an hour’s time, and a fresh coat of paint can give your cabinets a new-like quality without all the work (or cost!) of installing new ones.
2. Change Your Kitchen and/or Bathroom Hardware
This project is so simple, but it creates such a huge impact on the look and feel of a room, it’s laughable. We recently spray painted the light fixture in our bathroom, added a new mirror beneath it and changed the bulbs from fluorescent to clear, and voila—our bathroom went from dated 80s to retro-chic.
Hardware can mean anything from light fixtures, to faucets, to mirrors to cabinet knobs. While you could buy the hardware brand new from places like Lowes or Home Depot, it’s much cheaper (and more fun, in our opinion!) to browse antique malls or flea markets for those one of a kind pieces.
3. Reorganize A Closet
Open up any closet in your house—what do you see there? If you’re like us, you probably see an unorganized mess (unless you’re in my clothes closet—that place is immaculate ;) ). Even though you don’t see a closet unless its doors are left open, just knowing that it’s a mess can really weigh on you—especially when it comes time to put something new in that closet, or worse yet, to find something in there. Organize your home closet by closet by installing closet organizing systems that are either store bought or home made. Even those little Ikea bins (you know, the cloth ones) are great for adding much needed organization to an otherwise hectic space, and they fit nicely on most shelves.
4. Add Some Curb Appeal
This doesn’t mean you need to add a huge front porch, or create a brand new façade to your home—doing something as easy as painting your front door an eye-catching color, or repainting the shutters, can really improve the look of your home. Add fresh numbers to your door or mailbox. Plant new flowers. Trim the shrubs. Just cleaning up your front yard can make a world of difference.
5. Turn a Closet Into a Mudroom
If you have a hall closet in your home, chances are you use it to hang coats, and that’s it. But a hall closet can be so much more with the right hardware! Place some shoe racks on the ground, add some hooks to the sides, designate an area for a storage bin, and suddenly your hall closet isn’t just a coat closet, but is a place for backpacks, shoes and sports equipment—or, in other words, it’s a makeshift mudroom.
6. Update Your Lighting
While some light fixtures should be changed out by professionals (think large, gaudy chandeliers), others are surprisingly simple to change out yourself. A new light fixture can really tie together a room, and if you choose the right one, it can even be a statement piece. We’ve changed out all the light fixtures in our home, and you can really see our personalities shine through in each piece that we chose.
7. Spruce Up Your Walkway
Do you currently have a bland, cement walkway leading up to your front door? Or do you not have a walkway at all, and just follow a beaten path? Creating a new walkway out of stone or brick is fairly easy to do, and can add charm and character to your home that it lacked before.
8. Replace the Showerhead
Not only can a new showerhead give a bland bathroom a spa-like feel, but also, the right one can change the way you view showers forever! Plus, if you go with an efficient model, it’ll cut your water usage and save you money.
9. Add Organizational Systems to the Insides of Your Cabinets
Honestly, we didn’t realize we needed these until we had them, but now that we do, I can’t imagine life without them! What are “them,” you ask? A pullout drawer for our spices (way better than a spice rack), lazy-Susans in the corner cabinets for snacks, pullout drawers for pan lids, hooks for the pans themselves…Things like these can really add function to your kitchen and ease to your life, and are very simple to install!
10. Pressure Wash Your Home
Sometimes, all your home needs to look new again is a good pressure washing. Pressure wash the driveway, all walkways and the exterior of your house to remove years of dirt, mold and grimy buildup. Don’t have a pressure washer? Most hardware stores will rent one to you for a fair price.
Now that you now how easy updating your home can be, get to work! Send us before and afters of your weekend project, or, if you know of an easy update we didn’t mention, leave a note in the comments section below!
When people think of a home reno, they think of knocking out walls, new additions, and highly involved reconstruction projects, but the truth is, renovating your home can be done in small, not so complicated, steps. Small projects, such as cleaning out a linen closet, reorganizing a laundry room or retiling the bathtub, can really go a long ways to making your home the oasis that it should be. In this blog post, we are going to share with you 10 home improvement projects that you can do in a single weekend that will add value to your home.
1. Paint
Whether you’re feeling ambitious and opt to paint your entire house, or if you want to keep the project small and decide to paint only the trim and a few walls, a fresh coat of paint can be just what your home needs to give it new life. An accent wall is an easy way to add character to your home in an hour’s time, and a fresh coat of paint can give your cabinets a new-like quality without all the work (or cost!) of installing new ones.
2. Change Your Kitchen and/or Bathroom Hardware
This project is so simple, but it creates such a huge impact on the look and feel of a room, it’s laughable. We recently spray painted the light fixture in our bathroom, added a new mirror beneath it and changed the bulbs from fluorescent to clear, and voila—our bathroom went from dated 80s to retro-chic.
Hardware can mean anything from light fixtures, to faucets, to mirrors to cabinet knobs. While you could buy the hardware brand new from places like Lowes or Home Depot, it’s much cheaper (and more fun, in our opinion!) to browse antique malls or flea markets for those one of a kind pieces.
3. Reorganize A Closet
Open up any closet in your house—what do you see there? If you’re like us, you probably see an unorganized mess (unless you’re in my clothes closet—that place is immaculate ;) ). Even though you don’t see a closet unless its doors are left open, just knowing that it’s a mess can really weigh on you—especially when it comes time to put something new in that closet, or worse yet, to find something in there. Organize your home closet by closet by installing closet organizing systems that are either store bought or home made. Even those little Ikea bins (you know, the cloth ones) are great for adding much needed organization to an otherwise hectic space, and they fit nicely on most shelves.
4. Add Some Curb Appeal
This doesn’t mean you need to add a huge front porch, or create a brand new façade to your home—doing something as easy as painting your front door an eye-catching color, or repainting the shutters, can really improve the look of your home. Add fresh numbers to your door or mailbox. Plant new flowers. Trim the shrubs. Just cleaning up your front yard can make a world of difference.
5. Turn a Closet Into a Mudroom
If you have a hall closet in your home, chances are you use it to hang coats, and that’s it. But a hall closet can be so much more with the right hardware! Place some shoe racks on the ground, add some hooks to the sides, designate an area for a storage bin, and suddenly your hall closet isn’t just a coat closet, but is a place for backpacks, shoes and sports equipment—or, in other words, it’s a makeshift mudroom.
6. Update Your Lighting
While some light fixtures should be changed out by professionals (think large, gaudy chandeliers), others are surprisingly simple to change out yourself. A new light fixture can really tie together a room, and if you choose the right one, it can even be a statement piece. We’ve changed out all the light fixtures in our home, and you can really see our personalities shine through in each piece that we chose.
7. Spruce Up Your Walkway
Do you currently have a bland, cement walkway leading up to your front door? Or do you not have a walkway at all, and just follow a beaten path? Creating a new walkway out of stone or brick is fairly easy to do, and can add charm and character to your home that it lacked before.
8. Replace the Showerhead
Not only can a new showerhead give a bland bathroom a spa-like feel, but also, the right one can change the way you view showers forever! Plus, if you go with an efficient model, it’ll cut your water usage and save you money.
9. Add Organizational Systems to the Insides of Your Cabinets
Honestly, we didn’t realize we needed these until we had them, but now that we do, I can’t imagine life without them! What are “them,” you ask? A pullout drawer for our spices (way better than a spice rack), lazy-Susans in the corner cabinets for snacks, pullout drawers for pan lids, hooks for the pans themselves…Things like these can really add function to your kitchen and ease to your life, and are very simple to install!
10. Pressure Wash Your Home
Sometimes, all your home needs to look new again is a good pressure washing. Pressure wash the driveway, all walkways and the exterior of your house to remove years of dirt, mold and grimy buildup. Don’t have a pressure washer? Most hardware stores will rent one to you for a fair price.
Now that you now how easy updating your home can be, get to work! Send us before and afters of your weekend project, or, if you know of an easy update we didn’t mention, leave a note in the comments section below!