10 Ways To Easily Update Your Home This Weekend

There are a lot of small things you can do to update your home that won’t cost you a lot of money. Maybe one day when we have a disposable income things will change, but for now we don’t pay for anything we can do ourselves! We have had some help painting, doing other small projects, and had granite countertops installed but everything else myself or my husband has done. In fact, as I am writing this weeks blog Tyler is cutting the treads to install new stairs! I’ll update when that project is complete.

For all these projects prices will depend on what you choose, and what fits best for you budget. For our first home we kept cost low by purchasing items on the lower end of our budget. For our current home we we didn’t do the cheapest, but also not the luxury items. I’d say gray is the new traditional nowadays, gone are the days were people want wood cabinets, and tan walls. Now most new houses or renovations have gray or white kitchens and gray walls.

1. Update faucets: Depending on your style you can easily purchase a kitchen faucet off of amazon or from Home Depot for less than $100 and bathroom faucets for less than that. This specific faucet was around $90 and we ordered it off amazon. Updating fixtures can make your home look more modern. We went with a chrome finish on all of our fixtures.

2. Paint the bathroom vanities: Well in this case it’s stain. But instead of replacing the whole vanity, which would have been at minimum $100 each, I purchased a can of stain for $16 and used it on the guest room vanity and master bedroom. Looks like a whole new vanity!

3. Replace blinds: In our in our house we have 9 windows, we decided not to do curtains down stairs so we invested in new blinds. When we moved in the blinds were a dingy yellow color. By replacing them we brightened up the whole down stairs.

4. Change the lights: We had multiple “boob lights,” as I like to refer to them, they are outdated and hard to clean. Instead we changed every light to the same light. They are easy to clean and cost about $16 each. The lights are also very bright, the bulbs last forever and are energy efficient, so will save you a little money.

You can see one of the “boob lights” in this photo

5. Paint: Obviously it’s cheaper if you do it yourself. Get a 5-gallon bucket and a few friends to help and knock it out. Our house was a tan color and we painted it a cool gray.

6. Update the stairs: We updated the stairs in our town home and are currently working on it in our new home. It was much cheaper in our old house. So this may not be very cheap depending on what’s under the carpet. We pulled up the carpet and under the carpet the stairs were wood. So we just sanded them and purchased a can of stain, again about $16, and stained the stairs.

Our current stair project costs much more and is more labor intensive. Under the carpet is particle board. So all steps and risers have to be replaced before they can be stained and put down. Each step is about $10 and each riser is about $8, times 16 stairs. Not a cheap project by any means, but check what is under your carpet you may just get lucky.

7. Replace cabinet pulls: This is especially important if you replace your faucets. Change the cabinet pulls to match. We went with chrome pulls to match the rest of the house. The ones we purchased were about $30 for 10 from amazon. We used them in the kitchen and the guest and master bathroom.

8. Replace hinges and door knobs: Our door knobs and hinges were gold. We changed them to chrome and used an egg shaped knob.

9. Update floor in bathroom: Most outdated bathrooms have an ugly tile. Home Depot or Lowe’s has a variety of different pattern sticky tiles. This particular pattern was about $30 a box, and I think we had to get a few extra single pieces. It was also super easy, my mom helped me and we got this project done in just about 2 hours.

10. Update you decor: This can be done a few ways. You can sell what you have, and purchase new or used items or repurpose what you have. I’ve used paint, stain and spray paint (a lot of spray paint) to repurpose items we had. Some items were purchased new or new to me, but they weren’t the right color so I just painted them. I don’t have many before photos, but 90% of our house and decor is DIY, definitely a trait I get from my mom.

I recently wrote a blog about purchasing and redoing our town house, you can check that out here

We are currently redoing our new house. We’ve been in it a year this month! And almost to the finish line. The house is larger so it’s taking a little longer, and costing a little more. I’ll be sure to update when we are done. In the meantime follow my YouTube channel, I’ll be posting some different projects as we get them completed. You can check out my channel here

What are some projects you have done or want to do in your home? Leave a comment and let me know!

Now back to the projects!

xo