QOTD: Monday

KtotheJ

Happy Monday, everyone!  

 

If you had $2500 but could only use it to redo/redecorate one room in your home, which room would you choose and what would you do with it?

 

kastle

Oooohhh, good question.

I'd probably get new furniture for our bedroom.  What we currently have is the stuff my parents got shortly after they got married.  It's solid stuff, but not 100% our style.  I like everything else we have going on in there, though.

A runner up would be to pimp our office/guest room.  I'm thinking build-ins and a proper drafting table and maybe a murphy bed (or some other space-saving bed).  This would probably go over budget!

However, if I could use it for *outside* the house, I'd expand our patio a bit & get some lounging furniture for that space.

doggylovr

Kitchen:-) my kitchen is small so 2500 would probably be enough for granite counters,undermount sink and new appliances.. Just black.. Not a ss fan really:-)

smacb

We're in the middle of redoing most of our house so that's tough.  I have a long list of projects!  Probably our room.  We just had most of the interior repainted but not our room.  I like our bed.  DH needs a new nightstand, we need to update our dressers, we need more storage and I'd update our linens.

WinesNotWhines

I would love to redo our bathroom, but $2500 wouldn't go very far there, so I'm going to pick our living room. I'd get a nice new sofa and comfy chair. Maybe a new rug, too (I like the rug, but the color matches our walls a little too closely).

QueSrah

I guess we'd put it toward our basement.  We want to finally decorate it so we can have a better play/hangout space and maybe get some of the toys out of our living room, so $2500 should at least cover the FLOR tiles and getting the whole space painted.  The rest can go toward the wall of bookshelves I want to put in.

bh2720

definitely our master bedroom. by far, it's the ugliest room in the house furniture-wise. the rest of the house is in pretty good shape, so it would be nice to splurge on our room which has a definite flea market vibe these days (and not in a good way!).

KtotheJ

We have a really open dining room/living room that I would like to separate with some half walls with an opening in the center and bookshelves on the living room side.  I have no clue how much that would cost, but that is the next project that I think that I'll undertake.

 

tomandcourt

That's tough. I would want to either redo the kitchen floor (tiles were laid down on a crappy sub-floor so they're breaking and coming up), or get new furniture/rug for our living room. I like the rug, but it's five years old and gotten stained from too many meals eaten on the couch.

Maybe I could get a new rug and new kitchen floor for $2500? The square footage isn't that big!

MrsPhilDunphy

WinesNotWhines:

I would love to redo our bathroom, but $2500 wouldn't go very far there, so I'm going to pick our living room. I'd get a nice new sofa and comfy chair. Maybe a new rug, too (I like the rug, but the color matches our walls a little too closely).

Same. Although we're having one bathroom redone right now (they are taking it apart as I type!!) but we have another I would love to add a shower to but that would be more than $2500.  I'm not planning on investing any more in our current house.

So, a nice new couch and cute side chairs that we can take with us to our next house!

cep1976

I'd transform the office into a nursery, since that's got to happen shortly anyway.

A close second would be replacing the basement couch. It is super high quality (extremely wealthy parents of one of H's former students gave it to him since it had a small spot of sun damage/fading - the horror!) but it is huge. Definitely scaled for a Potomac mansion and not our post-war cottage.

MrsHabious

Hmm, does it have to be an interior project?  If so, I want to take down a wall in our living room.  It would really open the place up.  But, I am not sure how to deal with the lack of hard wood floors where the wall was ;o(

If it does not have to be inside, I would either spend that to take down our existing deck or on landscaping.

maryandkirk0909

There are oh so many projects that would be on my list if we didn't rent... But as renters who can only change furniture/ furnishings, I'd change my dining room.  I love our bar height table, but wish we'd gotten the chairs, not the stools.  It also needs a rug and some new lighting.

If I got to do whatever to the place we live now, I'd rip up all of the linoleum and replace it with tile.  For $2500 and some DIY grunt work, I think I could do it because I would want cheapish tile in the kitchen and each of the bathrooms is very small sq ft wise.

mssaint

Ooh, good question. I have so many projects.

For $2500, I would either:

Buy new bedroom furniture for us (to replace our shabby Ikea stuff).

or

Install hardwoods in our dining room and buy an area rug. We've priced out the wood install we want and it's about $1200, and a rug I like is about $600, so with the extra $700, I'd probably get a new light fixture, and perhaps use the balance on craigslist to get another buffet for storage.

LindseyJW

i'm going to cheat since our first floor is basically all one room! we have a living room/dining room combination and it is in desperate need of help!

i'd add shelving so we can have somewhere to put all our stuff

i'd get rid of the current dining room furniture and get custom bench seating, a new table and lighting in the dining area and the living room would get hanging shelves, a reading chair and table and a few floor lamps.

i'd also replace our ceiling fan with one that is more contemporary. 

SecretServiceWife

The office.  It's a disaster.  We need more storage and a bigger desk.

We already have 2 walls of shelves, but a lot of stuff is stuff that we need, just not right now - so it needs to be behind doors or something. So we would get closed shelves.

I would also get a desk that goes the length of one wall - and hopefully find some sort of dog cage that doesn't scream "hey - look at that dog cage!"

Also, I was able to do the entire living room, including furniture for $1500 - so that means I would likely have money leftover, so I would hire Pam to help me organize

cheekywife

we rent so true renovating isn't really an option. though i'd love a new couch some ottomans/storage so we could ditch DH's futon and reconfigure our living room. i have a really nice bay window that i can rarely use as a photo location because of that stupid futon >:I

megstoo

Hands down the kitchen.  I'd start with redoing the floors, then redoing the cabinets (I want them to go all the way to ceiling and they were refaced so I'd want to replace now)... then I'd change the appliances.  oh wait.. 2500.... um... yeah  

Litasail

Master bedroom. I actually love our furniture in there, so I'd take the $2,500 and splurge on a bunch of fun accessories so that it actually looked cohesive and styled. Right now it's something of a mish-mash.

DCtoLowcountry

Next up is our foyer / living room. I'd love a nice boot bench, mirror and row of hooks in the foyer, repainting the living room, hanging some pictures, and a valance for one kitchen window.

victoria1212

I think I would do master bedroom too. We need some new window coverings and I am not really that happy with our furniture.

VARedhead

Can I have $7,500?  We are desperate to get new family room furniture. I hate the couch (it's a fold out and the cushions are constantly falling into the bed part when we sit). Also, it's too small. The coffee table is a disaster waiting to happen; it's a glass top from Ikea that's probably 10 years old. We've been very lucky DD hasn't crashed into it yet, but I feel like it's only a matter of time.

I am also prioritizing redoing our deck, which is an original with the house (meaning it's 30+ years old) and not very stable. I suspect that's going to cost a lot more than $2,500 (or even $7,500!).

We are literally finishing a small paint job today (four rooms - the dining room, family room, master bedroom, and baby's room), so I feel like we're making progress. We've only lived in our house for 3 year with no changes made. Why didn't we paint before we moved in? Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Hey Jellisy

Our whole house needs work, it just hasn't been the priority.  I think for $2500 I would put in soapstone counters.  They're really the next cosmetic item on the to do list.  The tile floor just off the kitchen needs to be replaced, but we are having trouble finding the matching tile so it will take a whole lot more than $2500...

jenn248

New tile in the master bathroom.  The whole bathroom needs to be re-done, really, but my top priority is getting rid of our dingy 30-year old white tile.  I would love to know who thought putting white tile in as flooring was a good idea...

KimWard

This is a tough question for me, since we rent and I really know nothing about the cost of renovations, or even furniture sets (all our furniture is from college, from relatives, or CL). I'd first get a new dining room table and chairs, then a new bed, nightstands, dresser, and armoire. I'm guessing that $2500 wouldn't cover all of that though...

dmuppet7

I'd use it all to buy big area rugs for our first floor - main living room, family room, and my office. Cute rugs are so damn expensive, which is why we've bought zero in the almost 5 years we've lived here.   

living_insanity

some furniture and paint and blinds for the guest bedroom.  we use it more as a storage area than a sleeping area.

Mrs_Lady

My backyard sucks thankfully its small! I would revamp it with good landscaping and especially new grass

Temp790631812507809

Super late to the party! I'm another renter, so there's not a lot we can do. But, our living room desperately needs to be reconfigured. We need more seating, and we need to do something about what I like to call the "awkward area" that's currently behind our couch. Our living room is basically a rectangle with our front door on one long side and the other long side open to the dining area/kitchen - so our main seating area is to one side of the front door and the other side is basically not used at all - we just have a bookcase and a table with a bunch of photos on it over there. I'd love to get a poker/game table for that area, and a chaise lounge or comfy chair for reading.