Let’s face it: winter can be long and boring! Sure, it’s fun to have a snowball fight here and there, and it’s nice to build a snowman every once in a while, but aside from that, the majority of winter days are spent indoors, sitting around doing indoor things. Like playing board games, building puzzles and watching movies. It’s no wonder that people go a little crazy after awhile! To keep the crazy at bay, keep productive and fix up your house with these 6 home improvement projects that are perfectly okay to do during the winter:
1.Give Your Walls A Pop Of Color
Since you’re stuck inside staring at your walls all day you might as well give them some new life. It doesn’t take much to paint a room or two, or even just a wall or two, but a bold pop of color can make a world of difference. Splash some color on your walls when you’re feeling especially bored and unproductive, and if that doesn’t get rid of the itch, throw some crown molding up while you’re at it. Changing your walls is an inexpensive and fairly easy way to change the look and feel of your home without all the mess and headache of a complete renovation.
But, you ask, isn’t painting indoors without proper ventilation dangerous? Contrary to popular belief, painting indoors without opening every window won’t hurt you, so long as its an environmentally and waterborne paint, which has very little fumes. And most every paint these days is both those things. Furthermore, the dryness of the colder months will speed drying time, cutting the duration of fumes in your home in half.
If you’re really worried about it, wear a respirator when painting, and leave the room immediately after putting on the finishing touch.
Make It Fun: Gone are the days of painting a room one color and leaving design to wallpaper. It’s time to embrace the new trend of using painter’s tape to create a unique design of your own and using bold colors to bring it to life. Taking this approach will elongate the task and put your creative juices to work, further keeping the stir crazy at bay.
But say you do want to use wallpaper…Wallpaper is no longer an outdated fashion trend, and is making a comeback like leggings and Fedoras. If you do want to use a wallpaper, there are many subtle yet fashionable options online and in stores. There are also a lot of easy to apply options, such as self-adhesive wallpaper and removable wallpaper.
One Last Trick: Crown molding can add a feel of elegance and class to any room, and can be done from anywhere between $500 and $800. Another thing you can do, if you don’t want to go with a project that big, is to replace your standard baseboards with ones that are at least 5 inches wide.
2.Give Your Kitchen A Facelift
Renovating your kitchen doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. You can add a backsplash in less than 10 minutes if you want (we did, with old ceiling tin!), or, if you do want a project on your hands, you can add a true backsplash with tile picked up at an antique store, flea market or even the Re-Store store.
But why stop at the backsplash? With a bucket of paint and some polyurethane, you can paint your floors; with some old brown paper bags and some polyurethane, you can create paper bag floors; or, if you want to get legit, you can buy some tile or stone and retile your floors entirely!
Another thing you can do is paint your cabinets. Sanding them down and applying a couple of coats of paint and a protective coating is an afternoon project, but can really make your kitchen look like new.
3.Brighten Up Your Rooms
Part of the reason the winter months are so dreary is because the days are shorter and the nights are longer. All that dark can really get a person down. Combat the fatigue brought on by longer nights with some new lamps and light fixtures. Get some with adjustment features so that you can turn them up at the darkest points of winter, but keep them soft when dusk hits. Lamps are one of my favorite accent pieces too, as there are so many different options, and there truly is one to fit every unique style and flavor.
4. Spice Up Your Doors
Doors aren’t typically a feature that many people think about when renovating their homes, but they actually have a great impact on the look and feel of a room. Whether you want to start with your front door, your closet doors or the door leading into the guest room, sand away any chips, scratches and visible wear and put a fresh coat of paint or stain on them. Or, if you want a door with an entirely new architectural and design feel, a lot of antique shops and flea markets sell old doors for a fair price.
When shopping for a door, make sure that the one you choose fits in your existing doorway if you hope to install it yourself. Or, say you want a bigger door, or French doors, installed; a contractor can come in and cut, trim and reshape the door to size, or even resize your doorframe, in a day’s work.
5. Update Your Bathroom
Bathrooms are fun to update because it’s a room that guests’ don’t see very often, and therefore, is a fun room to experiment on. To see how you can renovate your bathroom for less than $1000 (with projects ranging from $5-$500), check out our blog post on the subject. http://www.libertypaintandconstruction.com/#!8-Steps-To-A-Complete-Bathroom-A-Makeover-For-Less-Than-1000/c1kzq/56535b140cf29e70f223d8ae
1.Get Creative With Your Flooring
Flooring is another great space that most people tend to overlook. They throw some generic tiles down and cover it with a rug and call it a day, but when I see a floor, I see another canvas to get creative with. Check out these posts to see how you can update your flooring to make it an eye-catching feature of your home: Inexpensive Upgrade: How To Paint Your Floors http://www.libertypaintandconstruction.com/#!Inexpensive-Upgrade-How-to-Paint-Your-Floors/c1kzq/5604176e0cf25fa7fe15f713 and Your Simple 4 Step Guide To Restaining Your Wood Floors http://www.libertypaintandconstruction.com/#!Your-Simple-4-Step-Guide-To-Staining-Your-Wood-Floors/c1kzq/563af0810cf28330832dc858
You don’t have to be bored and unproductive this winter; with these indoor renovation projects, you can turn your home into a whole new house while your neighbors are watching Home Alone for the umpteenth time and wondering when the heck this winter is going to end!
If you want to get work done on your house this winter, but don’t want to do it yourself, or don’t know how to do it yourself, give us a call at 619-770-9437 or email us at [email protected] for a FREE ESTIMATE.
1.Give Your Walls A Pop Of Color
Since you’re stuck inside staring at your walls all day you might as well give them some new life. It doesn’t take much to paint a room or two, or even just a wall or two, but a bold pop of color can make a world of difference. Splash some color on your walls when you’re feeling especially bored and unproductive, and if that doesn’t get rid of the itch, throw some crown molding up while you’re at it. Changing your walls is an inexpensive and fairly easy way to change the look and feel of your home without all the mess and headache of a complete renovation.
But, you ask, isn’t painting indoors without proper ventilation dangerous? Contrary to popular belief, painting indoors without opening every window won’t hurt you, so long as its an environmentally and waterborne paint, which has very little fumes. And most every paint these days is both those things. Furthermore, the dryness of the colder months will speed drying time, cutting the duration of fumes in your home in half.
If you’re really worried about it, wear a respirator when painting, and leave the room immediately after putting on the finishing touch.
Make It Fun: Gone are the days of painting a room one color and leaving design to wallpaper. It’s time to embrace the new trend of using painter’s tape to create a unique design of your own and using bold colors to bring it to life. Taking this approach will elongate the task and put your creative juices to work, further keeping the stir crazy at bay.
But say you do want to use wallpaper…Wallpaper is no longer an outdated fashion trend, and is making a comeback like leggings and Fedoras. If you do want to use a wallpaper, there are many subtle yet fashionable options online and in stores. There are also a lot of easy to apply options, such as self-adhesive wallpaper and removable wallpaper.
One Last Trick: Crown molding can add a feel of elegance and class to any room, and can be done from anywhere between $500 and $800. Another thing you can do, if you don’t want to go with a project that big, is to replace your standard baseboards with ones that are at least 5 inches wide.
2.Give Your Kitchen A Facelift
Renovating your kitchen doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. You can add a backsplash in less than 10 minutes if you want (we did, with old ceiling tin!), or, if you do want a project on your hands, you can add a true backsplash with tile picked up at an antique store, flea market or even the Re-Store store.
But why stop at the backsplash? With a bucket of paint and some polyurethane, you can paint your floors; with some old brown paper bags and some polyurethane, you can create paper bag floors; or, if you want to get legit, you can buy some tile or stone and retile your floors entirely!
Another thing you can do is paint your cabinets. Sanding them down and applying a couple of coats of paint and a protective coating is an afternoon project, but can really make your kitchen look like new.
3.Brighten Up Your Rooms
Part of the reason the winter months are so dreary is because the days are shorter and the nights are longer. All that dark can really get a person down. Combat the fatigue brought on by longer nights with some new lamps and light fixtures. Get some with adjustment features so that you can turn them up at the darkest points of winter, but keep them soft when dusk hits. Lamps are one of my favorite accent pieces too, as there are so many different options, and there truly is one to fit every unique style and flavor.
4. Spice Up Your Doors
Doors aren’t typically a feature that many people think about when renovating their homes, but they actually have a great impact on the look and feel of a room. Whether you want to start with your front door, your closet doors or the door leading into the guest room, sand away any chips, scratches and visible wear and put a fresh coat of paint or stain on them. Or, if you want a door with an entirely new architectural and design feel, a lot of antique shops and flea markets sell old doors for a fair price.
When shopping for a door, make sure that the one you choose fits in your existing doorway if you hope to install it yourself. Or, say you want a bigger door, or French doors, installed; a contractor can come in and cut, trim and reshape the door to size, or even resize your doorframe, in a day’s work.
5. Update Your Bathroom
Bathrooms are fun to update because it’s a room that guests’ don’t see very often, and therefore, is a fun room to experiment on. To see how you can renovate your bathroom for less than $1000 (with projects ranging from $5-$500), check out our blog post on the subject. http://www.libertypaintandconstruction.com/#!8-Steps-To-A-Complete-Bathroom-A-Makeover-For-Less-Than-1000/c1kzq/56535b140cf29e70f223d8ae
1.Get Creative With Your Flooring
Flooring is another great space that most people tend to overlook. They throw some generic tiles down and cover it with a rug and call it a day, but when I see a floor, I see another canvas to get creative with. Check out these posts to see how you can update your flooring to make it an eye-catching feature of your home: Inexpensive Upgrade: How To Paint Your Floors http://www.libertypaintandconstruction.com/#!Inexpensive-Upgrade-How-to-Paint-Your-Floors/c1kzq/5604176e0cf25fa7fe15f713 and Your Simple 4 Step Guide To Restaining Your Wood Floors http://www.libertypaintandconstruction.com/#!Your-Simple-4-Step-Guide-To-Staining-Your-Wood-Floors/c1kzq/563af0810cf28330832dc858
You don’t have to be bored and unproductive this winter; with these indoor renovation projects, you can turn your home into a whole new house while your neighbors are watching Home Alone for the umpteenth time and wondering when the heck this winter is going to end!
If you want to get work done on your house this winter, but don’t want to do it yourself, or don’t know how to do it yourself, give us a call at 619-770-9437 or email us at [email protected] for a FREE ESTIMATE.