QUICK AND EASY HOME IMPROVEMENT IDEAS

Your home is your sanctuary, a place where you can relax, unwind, and express your personal style. Whether you’ve just moved into a new house or have lived in the same space for years, there’s always room for improvement. However, transforming your home doesn’t have to be something that breaks the bank. Get ready to be inspired and make your home truly shine.

1. Declutter and Organize

Declutter and organize your space before diving into any significant renovations or enhancements. A clutter-free environment looks visually appealing and creates a sense of calmness in the mind. Begin by sorting through each room in your house and removing items you no longer need or use. Use practical storage solutions such as baskets or shelves to keep things organized.

2. Fresh Coat of Paint

One of the simplest yet most impactful ways to transform any room is with a fresh coat of paint. Choose colors that reflect your personality and create the desired atmosphere in each space. Lighter shades can make smaller rooms appear larger, while bold colors add character to larger areas.

3. Upgrade Lighting Fixtures

Good lighting can completely change the ambiance of a room while enhancing its functionality. Replace outdated light fixtures with modern designs that complement your overall aesthetic vision for each space.

4. Curtains and Blinds

Window treatments play an important role in home décor as they provide privacy while adding style to any room. Try swapping out old curtains or blinds with new ones that match your desired color scheme or design theme.

5. Update Hardware

Sometimes, the small details can make all the difference when transforming a space on a budget. Replace old cabinet handles, drawer pulls, and doorknobs with new, stylish options.

6. Create a Statement Wall

Give a room an instant facelift by creating a statement wall. This can be achieved by applying wallpaper, using bold paint colors, or even installing decorative wall panels.

7. Revamp Flooring

If your budget allows for it, updating the flooring can completely transform the look and feel of your home. Replace worn-out carpets with hardwood floors or opt for cost-effective alternatives like laminate or vinyl flooring that mimic the appearance of more expensive materials.

8. Add Greenery

Incorporating houseplants into your living space adds beauty, improves air quality, and creates a calming atmosphere. Choose low-maintenance indoor plants such as succulents or snake plants if you don’t have a green thumb.

9. Maximize Storage Space

Utilize every inch of your home by maximizing storage space in creative ways. Install shelves above doorways, use under-bed storage containers, or invest in multi-functional furniture pieces that provide hidden compartments for additional storage.

10. Update Bathroom Fixtures

Transforming your bathroom doesn’t have to involve an expensive renovation. Updating fixtures like faucets, showerheads, and towel racks can give this often-overlooked space a fresh look.

11. Create Outdoor Living Spaces

Extend your living area beyond the four walls by creating outdoor spaces to relax and entertain guests. Add comfortable seating options like lounge chairs or hammocks and create an inviting atmosphere with string lights, outdoor rugs, and lush landscaping.

12. Add Mirrors

Mirrors are practical and add depth and visual interest to any room. They reflect light, making smaller spaces appear larger while adding elegance to larger areas. Plus, they come in various shapes, sizes, and designs to suit any decor style.

13. Invest in Energy-Efficient Appliances

Upgrading to energy-efficient appliances helps reduce utility bills and contributes to sustainability efforts. Choose appliances labeled with the Energy Star logo to ensure maximum efficiency.

14. Create a Gallery Wall

Displaying your favorite artwork or family photos can instantly personalize any space. Create a gallery wall by arranging frames of different sizes and shapes, reflecting your unique style and memories.

15. Change Cabinet Hardware

Give your kitchen or bathroom cabinets a quick and easy makeover by swapping old hardware for new ones. Choose handles or knobs that match the room’s overall theme for a cohesive look.

16. Update Bathroom Vanity

If replacing an entire bathroom vanity isn’t within your budget, consider giving it a fresh look with paint or stain. Add new hardware and update the faucet to complete the transformation.

17. Redecorate with Accessories

Sometimes, you only need a few well-chosen accessories to breathe new life into a room. Update throw pillows, rugs, curtains, and other decorative items to add color and texture to your space.

18. Create an Accent Wall

Choose one wall in each room to be an accent wall where you can experiment with bolder colors or textures. This adds visual interest without overwhelming the entire space.

19. Install Crown Molding

Crown molding adds elegance and sophistication to any room by bridging the gap between walls and ceilings. Installing crown molding is relatively inexpensive but significantly impacts overall aesthetics.

20. Add Outdoor Lighting

Illuminate your outdoor spaces with strategic lighting options like pathway lights, solar-powered lanterns, or string lights. These not only enhance safety but also create ambiance during evening gatherings.

Transforming your home doesn’t have to be stressful or expensive. With these easy and effective home improvement ideas suitable for every budget, you can give your space an entirely new look while staying within financial constraints. Remember that small changes can make significant differences when creating a more inspiring living environment. So, roll up your sleeves, unleash your creativity, and embark on this exciting journey of transforming your space.

The Right Way to Pick a (Gorgeous!) Color Scheme for Your Home

Because the wrong paint job can seriously wreck your home.

Brightly painted walls in a color expert's home
Image: Maria Killam, designer/Barry Calhoun, photographer

Picking a color for one room can be challenging enough. But picking a palette for your whole house?

That feels daunting. Coordinate your colors too much, you’ll end up matchy matchy. Don’t coordinate your colors enough, you’ll end up tacky tacky.

And that not only messes with your mojo, it can be bad for home value. Because ugly colors turn off buyers, and you may not get the best price if you ever sell.

But you can end up with colors you’ll love that’ll also enhance your home’s value — by following these tips from two designers who recently re-colored two different houses.

First, Find Your Inspiration

Rather than picking a palette from a big box store’s paint brochures or from whatever Pinterest’s algorithm serves you up, look into your own soul. Or, at least, into your closet or out your window.

“Designers always have a starting point,” says interior designer Maria Killam, who also writes the “Colour Me Happy” blog.

Pillows Are Perfect Inspiration

A gorgeous pillow is easy to find — and easy to take with you to the paint store.

It might be a favorite sweater or a photo of your favorite beach spot. Or a pillow, Killam says.

Or it could be a feeling you want your home to have: cheery, bright, dramatic, cozy … whatever feels right to you.

For Killam, it was a feeling of “fresh.” So she used a mix of flowers and foliage to come up with her inspiration:

Images: Maria Killam, designer

For HomePolish designer Melissa Mascara, wallpaper patterns inspired her palette.

Images: Melissa Mascara, designer/Jessica Issac, photographer

Learn (Just a Bit) About Undertones

Paint color undertones have the power to make or break your whole-house color palette — and you’re not alone if your response to that is, “Under-whats, now?”

If you’ve ever had a beige that looks just right in the can, but turns an ugly shade of pink on the wall, it’s a red undertone to blame. And it happens because undertones are almost impossible to see in the can.

How to See Undertones

Compare your color to its true color on a color chart. Or ask a pro in the paint aisle to find it. For an example, white. Place your white against a true white, and you’ll be able to see the other hue (blue, green, yellow, red).

But you need to find them because the undertones in your home’s cabinets and counters can bring out the undertones you can’t see in your palette — like that ugly pink beige mentioned above. White cabinets with a green undertone could be the culprit that changed it to something sickly.

Start With a Neutral And Two Other Colors

When choosing a palette, start with three colors. Three is a balanced number, and it gives just enough visual interest without overwhelming you.

Choose a neutral shade and add two more tones, all of which should come directly from your inspiration piece. As you put your palette together, keep in mind your neutral color should be in every room. That’s what helps pull the whole-house palette together.

Killam chose white (Sherwin-Williams Shoji White) as her neutral:

A white, bright kitchen with green curtains and accents
Image: Maria Killam, designer/Tracey Ayton, photographer

And Mascara chose shades of brown, which are reflected in the wood floors, doors, and trim on the built-in shelves:

A neutral colored living room with blue and pink furniture
Image: Melissa Mascara, designer/Jessica Issac, photographer

“The trend isn’t the one accent wall, like it was in the ’80s, or painting each room a different color like we did in the ’90s,” says Killam. “Now we’re choosing a main neutral to go throughout the house.”

Add More Colors

Of course, you don’t have to limit yourself to three colors.

Mascara ended up picking seven colors:

Paint color palette used by designer Melissa Mascara
Image: HouseLogic

While Killam went with six hues, including a customized color (yep, you can do that — most any paint store will help you):

Paint color palette used by color expert Maria Killam
Image: HouseLogic
A bright living room with pink shades, yellow furniture
Image: Maria Killam, designer

Repeat Colors From Room to Room

Designers create the coordinated look of a whole-house palette through repetition.

“Use any color at least twice,” says Mascara. “For example, the dominant wall color in one space might become an accent color in the next.” Mascara followed this rule by using turquoise paint in the home office and turquoise patterned wallpaper in the dining room.

Images: Melissa Mascara, designer/Jessica Issac, photographer

The 60-30-10 Color Rule

Your main color should appear on 60% of a room’s surfaces, your secondary color should cover 30%, and an accent color is the remaining 10%. Sure, your remaining colors may peek out from a throw pillow, but let them really shine in another room.

Note that having a six- or seven-color palette does not give you license to cram all the colors into every room in equal measure — or that each of seven rooms should be swallowed whole by a single shade. Yikes. Distribute your palette throughout the house in a balanced way.

Test Lighting and Sight Lines

Before committing to a palette, consider two more elements: lighting and sight lines (how the hues look when you see them from other rooms).

Rather than choosing paint by looking only at small swatches, buy sample-sized cans of your colors and paint them on poster boards.

Place your poster-sized paint samples so they’re visible as you walk through the house. Then look down the hallway and from room to room to see how the colors play off each other. And notice how the light affects the colors, too.

A yellow-painted laundry room
Image: Maria Killam, designer/Barry Calhoun, photographer

In her project, Mascara wanted to maximize the home’s light, so she chose paint accordingly. “Many of the spaces in our project didn’t have the best natural light,” she says, “so we brightened the walls in those spaces and kept the dark accent colors to a minimum.”

A close-up of a light gray wall with dark accent furniture
Image: Melissa Mascara, designer/Jessica Issac, photographer

You may need to relocate certain colors, or even choose another color from your inspiration palette, to find the right flow. But once you’ve done so, you’ll be all set to put your whole-house palette into play.

Kelly Walters headshot

KELLEY WALTERS

Kelley Waltersis a Southern writer and editor. She focuses on interior design and home improvement at outlets from HGTV to Paintzen. She lives in Italy a month every year, drinking Negronis and writing in internet cafes. 

© Copyright 2021 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

4 To-Dos for July to Save Money; Get Ready for Fall

Now’s the time to stock up on paint.

Getting ready for fall illustration with wristwatch
Image: Simone Golob/Offset

When it’s hot outside, smart homeowners focus their energies inside on these four tasks.

You know: Like taking advantage of your nice, cool basement.

#1 Organize the Basement

Wall of organizers in a home basement
Image: Simplified By Simi

The two most common types of clutter? Old clothes and seasonal items. Just the kind of stuff that winds up in the basement. So this month, face your messy basement head on. Not only will you regain space, but you’ll also save time and could even knock back clutter-related depression. (Yeah, that’s a thing.)

Now that you’ve got it organized, maybe it’s a good time to consider this next project:

#2 Finish the Basement

Redone basement
Image: Barnes Custom Builders

The solution to a cramped house could be right under your feet. Transforming an unfinished basement into a media room, home office — or even a rentable space — builds equity, upping your home’s resale value. Start this project now, and you can kick back and enjoy your new space all winter long.

#3 Buy Paint on Sale

Paint purchased at a discount
Image: Eman Jamal/Getty

July. Not really the time of year you think of painting, right? It’s usually too hot and humid. Probably why so many places put paint on sale this month. Stock up now, and you’ll be ready for that painting project on your fall to-do list. (P.S. Latex and acrylic paint can last up to 10 years; oil-based, up to 15.)

#4 Hit Up Recycling Centers

Upcycled carved wooden mantel to get ready for fall
Image: Windy Hill Farmhouse

Summer is home improvement season. That also makes it the savvy buyer’s time to seek out deals at recycling centers and home improvement resale stores. Since this is project time — not to mention moving season — lots of folks are ditching their old stuff. Take advantage, and grab it up at super-low prices.

Kelly Walters headshot

KELLEY WALTERS

Kelley Waltersis a Southern writer and editor. She focuses on interior design and home improvement at outlets from HGTV to Paintzen. She lives in Italy a month every year, drinking Negronis and writing in internet cafes. 

 

© Copyright 2021 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®