Don’t let the idea of a home improvement project scare you…there are a lot of ways you can make improvements to your home without breaking the bank.
The following home improvement projects can all be done for around $150 or less, depending upon prices where you live and the extent of changes that need to be made to your home.
Not only are they quick to do, they’ll make a big difference in how your home looks, both to you and to a potential buyer if you’re planning to sell.
Renovate by room
1. Kitchen
Storage
There are many very affordable organizational tools to help with your kitchen’s storage needs.
Look around for unused areas such as unclaimed walls or a corner space that offers room for open shelves and/or corner organizers to make the most of the room you do have.
Decorative brackets paired with plain shelving can add a touch of personality to your kitchen and an empty wall is the perfect place for a wine rack.
Cabinets
A fresh coat of paint, some updated hardware and even an addition of molding can give your cabinets an entirely new look with a minimum of cost and effort.
Backsplash
From beaded board, to tin and even tile backsplashes, a quick look online at any well known home improvement store will show you thousands of backsplash ideas that will help protect your walls from splashes and spills and provide fast and easy cleanup.
Sink filter
An undersink filter will provide great tasting water…saving you money and encouraging everyone in the family to drink more water because it tastes so delicious. (Note: Make sure you have enough room under your sink to install a water filter system before starting this project.)
2. Bathroom
For a quick, inexpensive home project in your bathroom, update your existing showerhead…and if you or someone in your home is getting older, a grab bar makes good sense. They’re fast and simple to install and can be a lifesaver.
3. Entryway
A dropping point for everyone coming into the home is often the entryway. Stop clutter before it invades the rest of your home by adding storage…or making the most of the storage you already have.
Some things you can add to increase your entryway’s storage include:
⬥Wall hooks for clothing, backpacks and purses
⬥A bench along an empty wall that serves double duty as both a seat and shoe storage
⬥Open shelves with baskets assigned to each family member
Renovate by features
4. Fireplace
If you have a fireplace, you know how they can lend elegance to a room. If yours could do with an update, here’s how to do it.:
⬥Clean the fireplace thoroughly to remove every trace of dirt and grime.
⬥Apply a stain-blocking primer to help clean and prepare the surface for paint.
⬥Go with a high gloss, heat resistant paint to ensure the best adhesion and to make it the centerpiece of your room.
While you’re at it, consider changing the decor on your mantle and/or hanging a new piece of artwork or mirror over the fireplace.
5. Lighting
If your light fixtures need updating, begin by thinking about the lighting needs for every room in your home.
Choose fixtures that will give your home both a stylish update and the perfect light, according to its purpose. For example, task lighting is perfect for the kitchen and bathroom areas so a cool white light works best in those areas, however bedrooms and living room lighting should be more ambient, providing a warm, relaxing glow.
6. Bookshelves
Bookshelves are not only the perfect addition to hold all of your treasures, they also lend a certain elegance to an otherwise ordinary room.
While a built-in bookshelf is the ultimate feature for any home, more affordable options could include a prebuilt bookshelf or a kit that you can put together yourself.
7. Interior trim work
Crown molding, chair rails, beadboard and other architectural features can add character to your home with little expense.
8. Window treatments
Window treatments can instantly change the look of a room.
From Roman shades, to blinds, panels or curtains there is a wide variety of materials, colors and textures of window treatments to choose from.
We live in changing times. Having gone from daily coffee cup throwaways, binge-buying cheap clothes and thinking nothing of disposable straws, we’re now seeing streams of people clutching reusable mugs, going vintage and saying ‘no’ to single-use plastic.
And little changes are great. If we all gave up single use water bottles, carrier bags and food packaging, we’d be a lot closer to hitting the (ambitious) target to ban all avoidable plastic waste in the UK by 2042.
But there are other, chunkier moves you can make to your home. It’s not the most glamorous of subjects, but getting a more efficient boiler is one of them.
research* documented in a report from an All Party Parliamentary Group for the Private Rented Sector estimates that replacing a G-rated boiler with an A-rated one, complete with a full set of heating controls, equates to a reduction of carbon dioxide of 1,500kg per year.
A fresh new boiler heats water way more efficiently than one that’s been around for close to 10 years, which means less gas or oil to get your space warm and your water piping: hence, fewer emissions.
Grassetto via Getty Images
Heating accounts for about 55% of what you spend in a year on energy bills, according to the . And just like the 50p that Pret will give you off your coffee if you bring a reusable cup, it could save you cash and reduce your impact on the planet, too.
The states that in a typical semi-detached property that uses mains gas for heating, you could be looking at slicing a respectable £200 a year from your bills if you go from a G-rated boiler (less than 70% efficient) to an A-rated one with full heating controls. Exactly how much money you could save each year will depend on how old and inefficient your existing boiler is, the property type you live in and the fuel you use.
Doing it now – way before the sudden need to get your home heated quick sharp when Autumn rolls around – is good sense. At the same time as you’re cleaning out your closet and coming over all ‘summer,’ get ahead with another way of living a more streamlined life.
Peter Cade via Getty Images
With E.ON, a Gas Safe registered expert will install your in as little as five working days, if you’re without heating and hot water**. When it’s in, they’ll give you the lowdown on how to use it. Plus, there’s a five year manufacturer’s guarantee, to give you peace of mind.
We hear you. “I’m on board. But what about shelling out a big, upfront cost?” No stress. E.ON have which means you can spread the payments for your new, energy-efficient boiler interest-free up to three years with 0% APR***, pay some upfront, or just do it all in full, if that’s your jam. To note, E.ON acts as a credit broker and not a lender.
So, really, the time is now to start living your best planet-saving life. No, a new boiler won’t look as snazzy on Instagram as your KeepCup, but it will give you a gentle glow of low carbon feel good vibes.
And really, that’s even better.
*p.72 of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Private Rented Sector document.
**From the point you accept your quote and either make your upfront payment or have your finance agreed. Our Gas Safe Registered experts will install your boiler within 5 working days if you’ve no heating and no hot water at the point of survey, subject to you accepting your quote and making your upfront payment or finance agreed.
***0% APR Representative over a period up to three years. E.ON Energy Installation Services Limited acts as a credit broker and not a lender. Barclays Partner Finance acts as the lender. Credit is subject to application and status. You must be a UK resident aged 18 or over to apply. Terms and conditions apply. Find out more about our finance options at .
This piece of marketing is on behalf of E.ON Energy Installation Services. E.ON Energy Installation Services Limited of Westwood Way, Westwood Business Park, Coventry, CV4 8LG, is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to credit broking services under number 750410 on the Financial Services Register and offer financial products from Barclays Partner Finance. Barclays Partner Finance acts as the lender. Barclays Partner Finance is a trading name of Clydesdale Financial Services Limited a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Bank PLC. Clydesdale Financial Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Financial Services Register number 311753). Registered in England. Registered Number 2901725. Registered office: 1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5HP. E.ON reserves the right to amend its finance offering at any time and may withdraw at short notice. Please see for details.
Dates: June 13-14, 2018 | Register here Prices: starting from EUR 1695,- Location: Barcelona, Spain
Global DIY Summit 2018
The Global DIY Summit is the world’s leading event for retailers and manufacturers from the home improvement and garden centre industry.
It is a unique opportunity to exchange views on current and future developments within the global market with the industry’s leading players.
The Summit is being jointly hosted by the two leading European DIY professional organisations, EDRA (European DIY-Retail Association) and fediyma (European Federation of DIY Manufacturers), and the first global representation of interest of DIY trade, ghin (Global Home Improvement Network).
DIY Next – Reinventing our Industry
The main congress theme is DIY Next – Reinventing our Industry. The difficulty for the industry’s leaders is that they cannot afford to focus on just one aspect of disruption. Manufacturers and retailers have to navigate three revolutions at once: a geographic, a demographic and a technological.
The expectation of the arrival, by 2030, of a billion new consumers in China and 500 million in India, the change in the consumer behavior due to the rise of the Millennial consumers group, and the global penetration of mobile phones are the main factors of global volatility and will remain the main concerns for many market leaders. With social, economic, technological and environmental change continuing and accelerating companies will need to be agile to survive.
The view that the best way to survive disruption is to lead it is increasingly being accepted by many established manufacturers and retailers. There is a balance to be struck, but many companies are changing their strategies, structures, and business models.
Take advantage of this unique opportunity to embrace disruption and reshape the future of your business.
Main topics
What’s next in the world of home improvement?
The world has drastically changed in the past years! How does the future of home improvement look like?
Global Economic and Political Overview
The World Bank forecasts a fragile recovery of the global economy, as it expects that growth will strengthen to 2,7 percent in 2017. However, prospects remain clouded by elevated policy uncertainties, including election outcomes, the direction of Brexit negotiations, and financial sector fragilities.
Policy changes in the United States, the single largest destination of Euro Area exports, also remain a source of uncertainty. A renowned global consultancy will present a comprehensive overview of the key facts of the actual global political and economic scene.
Challenges for a New Kind of Cooperation – Facing the Future Together
Many manufacturers and retailers are facing the future, and trying to shape it, rather than denying it, but is the industry doing enough? Do the boardrooms understand the urgency and the scale of the demographic changes that are already remaking the industry?
Manufacturers and retailers are closely working together to develop a new ways to generate growth within the market. Get inspired by the industry’s leaders and discover a new era on how to develop a new business model of cooperation.
The DIY Next Generation – Disrupting our Industry
Many of the major players have decided that the best way to compete with start-ups is to invest in their own. Many of the big global companies are looking to disrupt themselves and have set up venture arms to help them think and operate differently.
Even large, global companies can disrupt markets if they are agile, build the right networks and dare to innovate. You don’t have to be a startup to think like one.
Market Update – Latest Industry Figures
Driven by the changing consumers and purchases channels, organizations in the DIY industry are investing in exploring their customer journeys. During this session we show customer journey analytics which can help you to take decisions based on the changing orientation of the consumer.
As a second topic, we will also present an update on what Brexit means for international retailers in the home improvement sector and for organizations that supply the UK retail industry with both goods and services. [Read more]
Home Improvement around the World
Our congress brings together top DIY managers from over 50 countries worldwide. The development of our industry varies from country to country. You will be taken on a journey around the planet and shown the most successful strategies. Discover new trends and concepts that could become a benchmark and growth accelerator for your own business.
Interested in attending the Global DIY Summit 2018? Register your participation by following and taking the suggested steps.
For more , check our section and subscribe to our weekly newsletters
The post Global DIY Summit 2018: The Networking Event for the Home Improvement Industry appeared first on AlphaGamma.
I’m back with another kitchen renovation progress update! If you’re new here, you can read about the start of our kitchen plans . As a reminder, I am working with and she has been amazing to work with. You can see some of our design selections so far in . Here is how our kitchen currently looks:
Let’s dive on it from where we picked up last!
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Here’s a rough sketch drew out with the cabinet layout before transferring it to an official rendering. You can see we’ll be doing an x-detail on the sides of the island and then solid x-doors in the small upper top cabinets.
Here are a few renderings of the updates we’ll be making to the space. There were a few software limitations with our designer’s software, so a few things are slightly different than they appear here. We ultimately decided to get new appliances, after hearing so much feedback from you guys on designing around our ten year old appliances. So, we will be adding a full 36″ duel fuel range (the design below shows a cooktop). One of the things we are most excited about is a counter-depth fridge. Ours currently sticks out by nearly a foot from the counter. Because we’ll be losing depth, the one we are getting is nearly a foot taller than our current one.
The taller fridge will require an update to our upper cabinets over the fridge. As we started talking with the cabinet door maker, he ultimately decided it would only be about $1,000 more for him to build all new cabinets and island from scratch than it would be to modify our existing cabinets.
One minor issue we ran into, is that because we want a 2″ mitered edge on our countertops, one slab of quartz wasn’t going to be big enough for our currently island size (since we’ll be taking it all down to one level). So, although our island will be slightly less deep than our current one, we can actually make it longer to accommodate wider drawers and an extra cabinet. This will also help add a few extra inches between our bar stools and living room chairs (it’s so tight currently). Another thing to note: we’ll be going with a single basin sink – we just haven’t finalized “the one”
Because we’ll now be doing fully custom cabinets, we can maximize space as much as possible, even though we’ll actually be removing quite a bit of cabinets. We actually save over a foot on the side with the ovens because we’ll no longer have to have a stock trim kit, so we’ll free up a lot of space there. We’ll also be adding upper cabinets on either side of the range that aren’t currently there now. If you look at the current photo, you’ll notice the lowers are all doors in our current kitchen, which hasn’t been super functional over the years. So, now we’ll be adding in more drawers and faux drawer fronts (the two drawers next to the refrigerator will actually be our garbage bin and recycle bin and the entire unit will pull out).
These next two renderings give you a better view of the pantry cabinets. We’ve ultimately decided our pantry will never be beautifully organized, so we’d rather hide everything. I was actually going to leave the upper portion open shelving, but Kurtis wants it all behind doors since he knows how organized we both are To the left, we’re having a tall storage cabinet that will store our cleaning supplies like the Swiffer, hardwood vacuum, etc. along with other cleaning supplies we store in the pantry. The countertop will serve as a prep area, particularly for Kurtis who likes to leave out the stuff he uses every day (magic bullet, waffle maker, oatmeal container, etc.). This way, he can leave it out but the kitchen will still look clean!
Here’s a view of the cabinets looking into the pantry from the door. We’ll also be adding a 3’x3′ window to the pantry (on the right side solid wall) to add some natural light and not make it feel so much like a closet. The drawing below also shows the layout for the cabinets under the window in the kitchen. We’ll also be adding a beverage refrigerator on the left of the drawers.
Today the cabinet maker is coming over to finalize a few things before getting started (hopefully within the next week)! It’s starting to get real!
Additional Island Color Inspiration
In my last , I expressed my frustration with actually finding the names of colors I like for the island. Pinterest is a never-ending loop of bad links at times and Google images just tends to throw me back into that look. But, I appreciate all the great suggestions you gave me and have since had better luck.
Since the island will be lowered to all one level and with the walls in surrounding areas and main cabinets being white, I feel like we can be a bit more adventurous on the island color. I keep flipping between wanting a bluish French gray color (having a harder time finding examples of this that aren’t too gray) and a muddy blue green color. It’s a decision I have to finalize in the next day or two, so pressure is on! Here are a few more island color inspiration photos I found and loved! You can click any of the images for more details on colors and design. I still haven’t found “the one” yet so it may be a last minute decision. Always a great thing
Photo by Ryan Hoyt Designs Inc.
Photo by Russell J Milligan
Photo by Mark Wilkinson Kitchens, Harrogate
Photo by Wyrick Residential Design
Other random inspiration & design elements
I like this cabinet color, but was also really drawn to the drawers around the range. Ours will be a full range, but the side drawers will be similar. We’re planning one drawer for spices and the other for utensils, much like how this photo is set up. You can see these sketched into Erica’s design plans above.
Photo by Studio Dearborn
We have a contractor that will be handling the window in the pantry and in the kitchen. The window we’ll be adding will be a massive 60″x70″ and will look like three windows. We’re checking to see if horizontal grids can be added like the image below. It would then basically coordinate with the window in my office and the other windows on the front of our home. If they grids can’t be added, we’ll just being doing plain windows, as I feel like ones with both horizontal and vertical would be too busy for the rest of our home.
Photo by Marvin Windows and Doors
Kitchen Accessories
A few weeks ago I mentioned the idea of wicker or rattan over the island. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for but I thought this kitchen was a good example of that idea. I just love the warmth it brings to an otherwise white and monotone kitchen, especially when paired with blue, white and green accents!
I still love the idea of too to coordinate with our dining room light. Still so many lighting options to consider! I do know for sure that we’ll be going from three pendant lights to only two. Here are a few other contenders:
The cabinet builder also recommended we look at some , as we can have doors built to fit some of theirs. We currently have some of their items from Lowe’s like the waste bin and pots and pan holders. Do any of you guys have products of theirs you love and couldn’t live without? I’d love to hear!
We also still have a lot of little decisions to make like sink, faucet, lighting, and other random finishes, so I’ll keep you posted! Perhaps by my next update, we may have some demo occurring! Our goal was to have the entire project finished by June 30, and I’m guessing we’ll be close but a few projects may linger past that date. At this point, countertops are scheduled to be installed June 27th, which means all of our cabinets will have to be completed prior to that. Along with that, our new appliance will likely be delivered and installed on June 29th. Which is good because my family is flying in that day, and it might be a little rough without a refrigerator Stay tuned for more updates!
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When considering all of the changes you can make in a renovation, how does play into the plan? For Becky Morrison, new lights topped her list when she tackled the redesign of her master bathroom.
“The lights were the first selection I made for this space,” Becky says. “They were the inspiration. Our vacation home is a classic ranch built in 1957, and I wanted the bathroom to have a fun, retro feel.”
Located in the historic Old Northeast section of St. Petersburg, Florida, the home serves as a retreat for Becky’s family of five who live in Indianapolis. The remodel included transforming a former closed-off, eat-in kitchen (shown above) into a beautiful master suite.
Becky, an interior designer, chose the Kao Wall Sconce as her inspiration for the new bathroom. She customized these compact, vintage-style wall sconces with a creamy Jadite finish.
“I felt the color of the Kao was the perfect fit,” she notes. “Everything else we incorporated into this design was chosen to keep the space feeling simple, clean, and bright.”
The Kao Wall Sconce is inspired by the lighting fixtures created by Pass & Seymour’s Alabax Division. First popular in the 1950s, this wall lighting is made from solid porcelain ceramic and can be customized with one of 28 different finish colors.
“Color selection was important to me,” Becky explains. “I wanted the clean lines of a contemporary space but with a connection to the 1950s since this home is in an historic neighborhood. I felt the Jadite color used throughout the home’s design helped achieve this.”
Becky handles mostly residential design through her firm Lynn & Campbell. The renovations were completed by Popa Construction in St. Pete.
“I often use Barn Light Electric products in my designs because I love sourcing within the U.S.,” Becky says. “I love the vintage pop of of color, and the vibrant finish is beautiful!”
