Budget friendly home updates?

JoanE2012 · August 2014

We bought our house last year and have been slowly updating it. It wasn't terrible to begin with (we do need a couple of bathroom remodels though!), but each update makes it more "ours". That said, we are in the process of painting every door and all the trim, doorways and crown molding bright white. I am amazed that for the cost of paint, the transformation is AMAZING! The previous owner had everything an off white. It just looked dingy. The bright white really pops against our wall color and just gives the house a very rich feeling. We are also replacing all the door hardware and hinges from brass to brushed nickel. Another wonderful and relatively cheap update. Anyone else have any budget friendly tips to spruce up their house or easy updates that made a world of a difference?

blondie42107 · August 2014

Paint is huge! Depending on the size of the home and rooms, flooring can be tackled if you are willing to dig for deals. We will be retiling our tub surround in the near future - so hard to agree on a tile!

smbenevides1989 · August 2014

I found plants on clearance last month (they looked like they were dieing) so I bought them for $1.60/small plant. I planted them and tend to them everyday. Just yesterday, a little yellow lily popped open. I was so excited to see that.

jessica490 · August 2014

Awesome! My parents just re-painted all their doorway and trim white and the house has totally been transformed. They also re-painted the walls different colors too and the house went from old looking to modern! I am all about the white trim, it has such a neat and clean feel.

formerlyGDaisy09 · August 2014

Paint is huge! we keep a little slush fund so that when we find a deal on something we've talked about we can jump on it. We changed out the hardware on the exterior doors from brass to that oil-rubbed finish, it looks nice. The doors also didn't have deadbolts when we moved in so we added deadbolts with the key-pads for keyless entry to the house, they work great and the "modern" update with the key-pad is nice when we have guests and when I go out for a run or walk with the dog I can lock the house and not worry about carrying a key with me.

We're also working on changing out all the outlets in the house, from those off-white ones to bright-white with the square plugs (instead of the rounded ones). we've done maybe 1/3 of the outlets and they look great, so far the ones we've done we've added the outlets that have 2 USB chargers, I think the rest we'll change out for just regular ones...then we'll have to work on updating the light switches to match.

als1982 · August 2014

Not exactly an update, but for me it makes a world of difference to keep our house exceptionally clean and well kept. Above and beyond wiping down the kitchen and bathroom and vacuuming daily (I

my Roomba!), we each take about 5-10 minutes a day to do something "extra." Like last week, H wiped down the baseboards, door frames and all the molding in every room of our house. Keeping things nice, keeps us from both wanting and needing to buy new. I also follow the same idea with clothes and cars.

abrewer5 · August 2014

JoanE2012 said:

We bought our house last year and have been slowly updating it. It wasn't terrible to begin with (we do need a couple of bathroom remodels though!), but each update makes it more "ours". That said, we are in the process of painting every door and all the trim, doorways and crown molding bright white. I am amazed that for the cost of paint, the transformation is AMAZING! The previous owner had everything an off white. It just looked dingy. The bright white really pops against our wall color and just gives the house a very rich feeling. We are also replacing all the door hardware and hinges from brass to brushed nickel. Another wonderful and relatively cheap update. Anyone else have any budget friendly tips to spruce up their house or easy updates that made a world of a difference?

Congrats on the new house! These ladies have you given you a lot of great advice... I would also recommend doing things a little at a time. It's gets so overwhelming emotionally and financially trying to cram everything in at once! Make a priority list and check things off as you do them.

Where did you get the door hardware? I'm planning to change mine from brass to brushed nickel also and have been trying to figure out where to get them.

hoffse · August 2014

Yes paint is major. We PAINTED this weekend. Seriously, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 hallways, and the living room - including the interiors of the closets, the baseboards and the ceilings. We are beat but it looks so much nicer. I think that the owners could have asked more for this house if it had been painted instead of looking dingy.

Matching face-plates for outlets have also made a difference. We found a ton that were mis-matched an we replaced them all with matching ones. At less than $1 each, that was huge.

I think bathroom hardware also makes a difference. So do faucets.

Finally... window treatments that work for the space. Previous owners had these really horrible maroon velvet curtains over the big (lovely) window in the living room. It made the entire living room feel like a funeral home or something. We are probably going to go with white linen curtains that allow some light through.

formerlyGDaisy09 · August 2014

@hoffse, we said the same thing about the landscaping at our house...if the prvious owners had landscaped anything they could have probably asked a few thousand more for the house. definitely need to AW some photos

hoffse · August 2014

AprilH81 said:

Sorry to threadjack, but @hoffse it is time to AW pictures!!!!

Believe me, I will! I need to download them still but then I'll post some before and afters. My favorite is the photo of the laundry closet door. It's a crappy door so we are going to replace it and didn't bother painting it.... but the previous owners DID paint it to match the living room. So we have the old paint color on the doors with the new paint color around it. I think it pretty much justifies the money, time, and energy we spent on this project all weekend.

emily1004 · August 2014

New light fixtures are always nice and they don't have to cost a lot.

brij2006 · August 2014

AprilH81 said:

Sorry to threadjack, but @hoffse it is time to AW pictures!!!!

Agree!

We bought a foreclosure, so our updates were mostly full remodels. But here's how we saved money on doing so.

1. The biggest: Did the work ourselves.

2. Bought remnant carpets, shopped at a builders discount store (where builders don't use everything and re-sell it back to a big warehouse), use Lumber Liquidators, and would shop clearance sections for faucets, light fixtures, curtains, etc.

3. Changed out all of the light fixtures to match the entire house.

4. Changed outlets and covers to be all 1 color.

5. Changed knobs and hinges on kitchen cabinets to a modern style and color.

6. Changed out all faucets throughout the house.

7. Paint, paint, and more paint.

8. Took the faded shutters off the outside of the home.

9. Took down an awning that was above a huge window.

10. Ripped out the old landscaping and put in all new bushes, mulch, and landscaping bricks. I did it in June/July and bought bushes that were marked down. Then bought the mulch from a pallet company that shreds old pallets and you buy it by the truckload. We did have to borrow a friends' truck, but we filled it with gas and gave him a 12 pack. He was fine with it. The most expensive part was the bricks and I bought them BOGO at Menards for $45.

11. Put frames on the walls with simple pictures we took while traveling. Most of the frames I bought at garage sales and spray painted, then would order the pictures during a big sale on Shutterly. It looks like I spent a lot of money on our decor, but it was very minimal and made a big difference.

12. Rented a large sander for 1 weekend and sanded our gross hardwood floors that came with the house. Then just did polyeurithane on them to seal them. No stain.

JoanE2012 · August 2014

Gdaisy09 said:

Paint is huge! we keep a little slush fund so that when we find a deal on something we've talked about we can jump on it. We changed out the hardware on the exterior doors from brass to that oil-rubbed finish, it looks nice. The doors also didn't have deadbolts when we moved in so we added deadbolts with the key-pads for keyless entry to the house, they work great and the "modern" update with the key-pad is nice when we have guests and when I go out for a run or walk with the dog I can lock the house and not worry about carrying a key with me.

We're also working on changing out all the outlets in the house, from those off-white ones to bright-white with the square plugs (instead of the rounded ones). we've done maybe 1/3 of the outlets and they look great, so far the ones we've done we've added the outlets that have 2 USB chargers, I think the rest we'll change out for just regular ones...then we'll have to work on updating the light switches to match.

We cheated and replaced the covers with these. Can't see the beige outlets anymore!

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hubbell-TayMac-1-Gang-Decorator-Wall-Plate-White-2500W-20/100156927

Xstatic3333 · August 2014

Another vote for paint! Our house was painted horribly-I could still see the color from two coats ago underneath. When we painted we took the time to spackle holes and sand down dried drops and I think it was totally worth it. We went with some bold colors that we like since this is a long-term home for us. There are still another couple of rooms we'll get to soon. Another thing we did is buy the pre-made cellular blinds from Home Depot. They will cut them to any size you need for free, and they are hugely cheaper than the custom-made blinds.

I'll also agree that landscaping is huge. I love gardening so it's all I can do to keep from making huge changes, but I'm trying to force myself to just maintain what is currently in place instead of doing anything major until next spring.

We have one room that is carpeted, and it's in horrible shape. From crunching the numbers, I don't think it will be too bad (under $1,000) to put in new carpet, so we'll probably do that soon.

JoanE2012 · August 2014

hoffse said:

Yes paint is major. We PAINTED this weekend. Seriously, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 hallways, and the living room - including the interiors of the closets, the baseboards and the ceilings. We are beat but it looks so much nicer. I think that the owners could have asked more for this house if it had been painted instead of looking dingy.

Matching face-plates for outlets have also made a difference. We found a ton that were mis-matched an we replaced them all with matching ones. At less than $1 each, that was huge.

I think bathroom hardware also makes a difference. So do faucets.

Finally... window treatments that work for the space. Previous owners had these really horrible maroon velvet curtains over the big (lovely) window in the living room. It made the entire living room feel like a funeral home or something. We are probably going to go with white linen curtains that allow some light through.

SITB - We also chose a white linen-like curtain for the living room and what a difference it makes. I like that light still passes through even if we don't open them on a given day!

JoanE2012 · August 2014

brij2006 said:

AprilH81 said:

Sorry to threadjack, but @hoffse it is time to AW pictures!!!!
Agree!

We bought a foreclosure, so our updates were mostly full remodels. But here's how we saved money on doing so.

1. The biggest: Did the work ourselves.

2. Bought remnant carpets, shopped at a builders discount store (where builders don't use everything and re-sell it back to a big warehouse), use Lumber Liquidators, and would shop clearance sections for faucets, light fixtures, curtains, etc.

3. Changed out all of the light fixtures to match the entire house.

4. Changed outlets and covers to be all 1 color.

5. Changed knobs and hinges on kitchen cabinets to a modern style and color.

6. Changed out all faucets throughout the house.

7. Paint, paint, and more paint.

8. Took the faded shutters off the outside of the home.

9. Took down an awning that was above a huge window.

10. Ripped out the old landscaping and put in all new bushes, mulch, and landscaping bricks. I did it in June/July and bought bushes that were marked down. Then bought the mulch from a pallet company that shreds old pallets and you buy it by the truckload. We did have to borrow a friends' truck, but we filled it with gas and gave him a 12 pack. He was fine with it. The most expensive part was the bricks and I bought them BOGO at Menards for $45.

11. Put frames on the walls with simple pictures we took while traveling. Most of the frames I bought at garage sales and spray painted, then would order the pictures during a big sale on Shutterly. It looks like I spent a lot of money on our decor, but it was very minimal and made a big difference.

12. Rented a large sander for 1 weekend and sanded our gross hardwood floors that came with the house. Then just did polyeurithane on them to seal them. No stain.

SITB - Wow, what an amazing difference! Looks beautiful!

Xstatic3333 · August 2014

@brij2006 your home is beautiful! I love your idea for finding frames at yard sales, I'll have to try that. Did you do any carpeting yourself? If so, how tough is it?

brij2006 · August 2014

@xstatic3333 We didn't install it ourselves. Instead we bought 1 room at a carpet store (non-chain store) in the remnant section, and let them know that we had bought the carpet for another room from the builders discount place. Then asked if we could pay a little more for installation and have their guys install the 2nd room while they were there. We were fortunate that they do not charge for installation if you buy the carpet there, so the guys actually installed the 2nd room for free. It was also a really small room, so I don't know if that made a difference.

The only items we've paid to have done were carpet installation, seamless gutters, and window installation. Everything else we've done the work ourselves.

hoffse · August 2014

Xstatic3333 said:

@brij2006 your home is beautiful! I love your idea for finding frames at yard sales, I'll have to try that. Did you do any carpeting yourself? If so, how tough is it?

I don't think I'd carpet myself unless you are doing squares. I'm pretty sure carpet guys have special tools to pull the tension in the carpet very tight so that it doesn't rumple over time. Our apartment carpet is VERY cheap and was obviously installed very quickly.... over time it has had a bump form in the middle of the living room because it wasn't installed tightly enough.

Home Depot frequently runs carpet installation sales. Right now I think you can get any amount of carpet installed for $100 or less (even all the way down to free installation if you spend enough on the actual carpet). For $100 I would have somebody else do it.

Now tile? Hand me a tile saw and I'll go to town. Tile is easy

Xstatic3333 · August 2014

brij2006 said:

@xstatic3333 We didn't install it ourselves. Instead we bought 1 room at a carpet store (non-chain store) in the remnant section, and let them know that we had bought the carpet for another room from the builders discount place. Then asked if we could pay a little more for installation and have their guys install the 2nd room while they were there. We were fortunate that they do not charge for installation if you buy the carpet there, so the guys actually installed the 2nd room for free. It was also a really small room, so I don't know if that made a difference.

The only items we've paid to have done were carpet installation, seamless gutters, and window installation. Everything else we've done the work ourselves.

Gotcha. We will have to check for remnant carpets as well if there's a similar store in our area!

brij2006 · August 2014

Xstatic3333 said:

brij2006 said:

@xstatic3333 We didn't install it ourselves. Instead we bought 1 room at a carpet store (non-chain store) in the remnant section, and let them know that we had bought the carpet for another room from the builders discount place. Then asked if we could pay a little more for installation and have their guys install the 2nd room while they were there. We were fortunate that they do not charge for installation if you buy the carpet there, so the guys actually installed the 2nd room for free. It was also a really small room, so I don't know if that made a difference.

The only items we've paid to have done were carpet installation, seamless gutters, and window installation. Everything else we've done the work ourselves.

Gotcha. We will have to check for remnant carpets as well if there's a similar store in our area!

We had better luck with local carpet stores rather than ones like Carpetland, Home Depot, Menards, etc.
Also, roughly measure your rooms before you go. If they're smaller rooms it's easier to find remnants that will work. For our bedroom we were able to piece 2 smaller remnants together that were the same carpet. It created an extra seam in the carpet, but you can't tell and it's held up well over the last 5 years.

Xstatic3333 · August 2014

brij2006 said:

Xstatic3333 said:

brij2006 said:

@xstatic3333 We didn't install it ourselves. Instead we bought 1 room at a carpet store (non-chain store) in the remnant section, and let them know that we had bought the carpet for another room from the builders discount place. Then asked if we could pay a little more for installation and have their guys install the 2nd room while they were there. We were fortunate that they do not charge for installation if you buy the carpet there, so the guys actually installed the 2nd room for free. It was also a really small room, so I don't know if that made a difference.

The only items we've paid to have done were carpet installation, seamless gutters, and window installation. Everything else we've done the work ourselves.

Gotcha. We will have to check for remnant carpets as well if there's a similar store in our area!

We had better luck with local carpet stores rather than ones like Carpetland, Home Depot, Menards, etc.
Also, roughly measure your rooms before you go. If they're smaller rooms it's easier to find remnants that will work. For our bedroom we were able to piece 2 smaller remnants together that were the same carpet. It created an extra seam in the carpet, but you can't tell and it's held up well over the last 5 years.

Great tips, thanks! It's a pretty small room. It's also possible that there is hardwood underneath, in which case it sounds like we can spruce it up ourselves and save even more. That would be a preferable situation since the room in question is a place that our future dog will probably have good access too

formerlyGDaisy09 · August 2014

doing the work ourselves has been key! Plus I always get an awesome night of sleep after I've spent the day doing some house project....the before/after's of our exterior are fairly impressive (I think

).

As far as the new outlets vs. outlet covers, many of our outlets are in need of replacing (like i plug something in and the plug will just fall out of the wall). The whole house (minus the bathrooms that the prvious owners renovated) has builder-grade outlets from 1988...according to most things I've read it's probably worth it to replace all the whole outlet...H is now very good at this

.

we've replaced light fixtures and sinks...we got a fantastic new sink for less than half-price buying it "like-new" on amazon.

here's our before, it's blurry...but the only landscaping is those half-dead bushes:

here's from earlier this summer right after our new roof went on, again, not the best photo quality, the roof went on while we were on vacation and our neighbor texted this photo to me:

CuriousKiddosMama · August 2014

Not really an update- but changing decor can always make something feel new. Today I bought a new bathroom set for what will be our 3rd bathroom and I got it 1/2 off at Bed Bath and Beyond so the whole thing (curtain, towels, trash can, everything) was under $150. I was pretty happy with that, although I probably could have done better at Target or Walmart, I really like this set!
Other than that, paint is the cheapest change for me! I will paint myself so it's just the cost of the actual paint.
Tile and wood flooring are pretty easy, although costlier. If you don't really have anything in mind though I love the end lot section at Lumber Liquidators- got an entire room done in our house for $150 (wood floor and it's a big room) and had enough left over for my sister to do her bathroom and closet, or her dining room whichever she decides to do. The wood flooring was a fraction of the price because it was the final bit they were going to carry of that type.

JoanE2012 · August 2014

abrewer5 said:

JoanE2012 said:

We bought our house last year and have been slowly updating it. It wasn't terrible to begin with (we do need a couple of bathroom remodels though!), but each update makes it more "ours". That said, we are in the process of painting every door and all the trim, doorways and crown molding bright white. I am amazed that for the cost of paint, the transformation is AMAZING! The previous owner had everything an off white. It just looked dingy. The bright white really pops against our wall color and just gives the house a very rich feeling. We are also replacing all the door hardware and hinges from brass to brushed nickel. Another wonderful and relatively cheap update. Anyone else have any budget friendly tips to spruce up their house or easy updates that made a world of a difference?

Congrats on the new house! These ladies have you given you a lot of great advice... I would also recommend doing things a little at a time. It's gets so overwhelming emotionally and financially trying to cram everything in at once! Make a priority list and check things off as you do them.
Where did you get the door hardware? I'm planning to change mine from brass to brushed nickel also and have been trying to figure out where to get them.

I went to Home Depot and Lowes. We were limited in what we could get because when we removed the old brass handle you could see the outline of the original cherry underneath (I didn't realize cherry darkens with age). I only found one handle that I liked with the "feet" big enough to cover the lighter, unexposed cherry, and when I brought it home and tried it out I realized it felt cheap. So, I ordered nearly identical handles to what we already had in brass, just in brushed nickel, from Amazon (shipped from Build.com). You could also check out your local hardware stores.

abrewer5 · August 2014

JoanE2012 said:

abrewer5 said:

JoanE2012 said:

We bought our house last year and have been slowly updating it. It wasn't terrible to begin with (we do need a couple of bathroom remodels though!), but each update makes it more "ours". That said, we are in the process of painting every door and all the trim, doorways and crown molding bright white. I am amazed that for the cost of paint, the transformation is AMAZING! The previous owner had everything an off white. It just looked dingy. The bright white really pops against our wall color and just gives the house a very rich feeling. We are also replacing all the door hardware and hinges from brass to brushed nickel. Another wonderful and relatively cheap update. Anyone else have any budget friendly tips to spruce up their house or easy updates that made a world of a difference?

Congrats on the new house! These ladies have you given you a lot of great advice... I would also recommend doing things a little at a time. It's gets so overwhelming emotionally and financially trying to cram everything in at once! Make a priority list and check things off as you do them.
Where did you get the door hardware? I'm planning to change mine from brass to brushed nickel also and have been trying to figure out where to get them.

I went to Home Depot and Lowes. We were limited in what we could get because when we removed the old brass handle you could see the outline of the original cherry underneath (I didn't realize cherry darkens with age). I only found one handle that I liked with the "feet" big enough to cover the lighter, unexposed cherry, and when I brought it home and tried it out I realized it felt cheap. So, I ordered nearly identical handles to what we already had in brass, just in brushed nickel, from Amazon (shipped from Build.com). You could also check out your local hardware stores.

Awesome, thanks! I've looked around I just wasn't sure where the best place to go was. That will be a winter project for me.

Budget friendly home updates?

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