Budget Home Remodeling Ideas

Posted on by Forest in General, Opinion, Saving Money & Finances

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The say a persons home is their castle and like many castles our homes can quickly deteriorate if we don’t keep them in order! It pays to keep your home looking great so that it feels comfortable for you and your family and it holds a good value if and when you ever sell. So hopefully these budget home remodeling ideas will get your cogs working and give you some ideas for your home.

Initially I think it’s important to take a real step back and look at your home from the perspective of the remodeling project. Remodeling on a budget takes a lot of time. Wherever possibly you should avoid professional help and possibly use beer and good home cooked food as currency to employ friends and family. When a professional is needed it pays to be fully prepared and have done all tasks to hand before they arrive to streamline their visits.

As for styling I think it’s best to keep a reasonable minimal approach and don’t butcher things beyond a state that they can easily be changed again. What looks modern and timeless today may just not be that way in 7 or 8 years so you have to think about these things.

Painting the right way

In any budget approach to remodeling your home painting will play a large role. It’s a very important one too with color really affecting the mood of a room and also the feel of the quality. In recent years the quality of painting in homes has really risen and more and more people are paying big money for the professionals. It doesn’t have to be this way though. Again it’s a matter of time and paying attention to the details.

Once you have chosen your colors and gotten the best prices (remember expensive paint color can often be found cheaper under alternative names or can be mixed by places like home depot) it’s time to make sure you buy quality brushes. This is important! Ensure your walls are smooth and sand them down when needed to create the most even and clean quality canvas you can start from.

Layer by layer apply you paint until you have a clean, dense and professional finish. It’s important to apply layers thinly and evenly building up the paint until it’s finished perfectly. This can take days but you will thank yourself for it!

Never forget to properly mask. The touching up of door frames, light switches and more can be complete hell if you don’t properly remove fixtures and mask of things that are permanent!

Re-Surfacing instead of buying new

You may find yourself stuck with some items of furniture and decor that you can’t yet afford to replace or you want to keep. In these cases wooden furniture can often be sanded down and varnished or repainted to look like new at the fraction of buying a new piece. Some furniture can be jazzed up with the use of cool tapestries / covers draped on them. Basically before you throw something just consider how it can be reused within your new remodeled home.

Remodeling the kitchen on a budget

I think the kitchen is always a good place to start if you are remodeling the whole home. It often adds a lot of value to your property and it feels great to cook and share food in a clean comfortable environment. Just ask yourself, where do people always hang out at parties?

Clean – First thing is to clean everything as completely as possible so you can see where you stand. Get the cleaners and shiners out and buff / scrub every element of your kitchen back to as close to new as possible. You may find the oven and sink look just fine after a good scrub!

Minimalize – Cluttered kitchens are hard to work in. Get rid of (selling is always a good idea) all the equipment and clutter you never use. Things like the garlic bakers and toasted sandwich makers that are piled up on top of your cupboards. Get everything out of sight and plan your remodel.

Accent with utensils and plants – Once you have a nice refinished clean kitchen it may be enough but may still be very plain. You could add a matrix to the wall and hang some stainless steel utensils to give the kitchen a clean functional feel and then I would get some dramatic plants.  I look large tropical style plants in kitchens and often they love the heat and humidity of the kitchen too. It’s also worth lining window spaces with herbs.

New cupboard doors, not new cupboard – It’s tempting to want to rip everything out and start again but you can save a lot of money by simply buying new doors for your existing cupboards. Plain clean finished wood faces can be installed at a budget price and a professional can come and make sure it’s all aligned up and solidly installed for not too much money. I like handle-less kitchen doors so you could just consider a tiny material strip attached to each door instead of spending on handles!

Remodeling the living room on a budget

The living room is probably the place you spend most of your time. These days it’s trendy to have clean wooden laminated flooring, minimal carpeting and plain walls. Personally I think these are all good choices and they are easy to maintain and give a sense of openess to a room that the old cosy and cluttered style does not bring. Still a mixture of rustic and modern can easily be found and you can always add a taste of the old style with a few family pictures here and there.

The flooring - If you have an old carpet you could get it cleaned but I would suggest pulling it up and sanding down / varnishing the wooden floor boards beneath. If they are in terrible condition it’s not too pricy to get a nice basic laminated wood to lay down on the floor. Add a few modern style rugs and the room will really open up.

Get rid of the old clunky TV! – The TV is often the center of a living room and although I don’t think you should just spend money wily nilly, a new flat screen can be gotten at a much lower price than they used to and they can help finish a room and bring back some valuable space. As people upgrade to huge flat screens and even 3d TV’s you may find some amazing deals on eBay or Amazon.

Cover the sofas - Instead of buying new sofa’s which can be a huge expense, consider getting some nice covers to lay over them. The same goes for the coffee table if it has seen better days!

Remodeling the bathroom on a budget

Bathroom remodeling can get very expensive! A lot of the jobs such as re-tiling often benefit from a professional and I think rather than screw it up it’s worth being realistic about what you can and can’t do. That being said it’s worth doing as much as you can before you get to that point. Like the kitchen it’s important to clean everything as much as possible and once re-painted and the flooring is fixed you just need to de-clutter and add in details. Things like new shower heads and maybe even taps can create a whole new look.

The sink – If you do have the cash I would say change the sink and get something super modern. The risk here is that it will look old in 10 years but they are so cool I think it could be worth it. You know the kind of thing I mean with a flat sink or round bowl and water dropping through some kind of interesting tap. I really welcome the inovation that sink designers have put in place in recent years.

The color - When you re-paint or re-tile the walls it’s easy to pick white or off white but think about it a little more and maybe try and go for something that will make you happy when in the bathroom. If that color is white then fine but just look through magazines and online and consider breaking out of the norm.

Quality finishing – It’s important that any tiling and grouting is done with absolute quality in the bathroom. Spend a long time practicing if you plan to do this yourself and never ever rush the job!

Consider the garden as a room

Your garden can often be seen from one or two rooms and in the warm months it’s likely you would like to be outside a lot. If you just have a buzz cut lawn then think of it like it being a room with just a carpet, boring, eh?

Add a veggie garden - Every remodeled garden needs function I think. Plants are beautiful and everything but vegetables put food on the table and give your garden a function. Vegetables liing the perimeter and in pots on the patio can bring your garden to life and give a focal talking point to guests.

Build a raised deck – A raised deck with a grill either at the end of the garden or where you enter the garden brings an ideal guest space. Use a simple design and you may even be able to build it yourself. If you have an old deck that is falling to pieces then it could just need a new face lift and buying the planks and finishing materials will be the cheaper option.

Consider your rooms as gardens!

I know I am pushing for a minimal approach but I think every rooms should have plants. Plants give an instant interesting focal point to a room and can create a sense of calm as well as encouraging oxygen production which is clearly good for us! Choose interesting but easy to grow plants. Cactus and money tree’s are two of my favorites and they are both easy to maintain and grow. Plants can also be gotten from friends or purchased fairly cheap, much cheaper than a new piece of useless furniture!

Other considerations

Being budget friendly about the remodel means that in general you won’t be ripping walls down or floors up. I would make sure you try and create space by choosing lighter colors and removing carpeting. Your hall ways between rooms could do with clean laminated flooring or varnished boards and bright (not strip) modern lighting to help create a sense of space. Door frames and other details should be paid attention to as well as the quality often shines through in such things. A perfect room with a tatty old light switch can and will create a nasty focal point!

It’s also worth becoming a designer as much as you can. Imagination has a wondrous way of stretching budget and often when you buy a new kitchen it’s the idea you are paying for not the actual workmanship of the cupboards and such things. You can get designs together and work with local craftsmen to produce the actual things you want throughout your house at a greatly reduced price. Immerse yourself in tv shows, home and garden magazines and websites and more!

When it does come to buying new appliances, furniture and such things consider buying used of going online to buy straight from the manufacturer. I used to work next to a shower and bath warehouse where things were available at about 30% of the cost of the main home and bathroom stores in the retail parks.

Take your time!

I honestly think the biggest cost of a Budget Home Remodeling should be time. You need to carefully plan everything to reduce mistakes and also get the quality finishing you require. Making the remodel a hobby may even keep you away from the bar or going out to eat and help cut expenses in other areas.

Good luck and let me know if you have any other Budget Home Remodeling Ideas.

Tags: Budget Home Remodeling, Remodeling the bathroom on a budget, Remodeling the kitchen on a budget