Upgrading your home on a budget

Want to improve the condition of your home but don’t have much money to spend? Maybe you’re looking to sell the place or rent out a room, or maybe you just want to feel happier living there. Whatever the case, there are lots of small things that you can do to make it more attractive and add to its value. You just need to be a little bit creative.

Go to work with paint

A simple coat of paint can transform a room, making it look brighter and fresher – and if it changes the colour, then it also changes the atmosphere. As long as you use a bit of painter’s tape to protect the edges where you don’t want paint to spill over, it’s easy to apply, and there are lots of great shades available these days. As well as walls, you can paint old pieces of furniture, kitchen cabinets, door frames, window frames and skirting boards.

Revamp your windows

Curtains generally don’t age well and old ones can make your house look dingy. Why not brighten up the place with a new set of wooden shutters? These have the additional benefits of providing insulation, making it harder for anyone to break into your home, and letting more light in. Add a window seat so that you can relax and enjoy the view.

Try some tiling

Tiling is an easy art to get the hang of, and there are all sorts of things that you can do with it, from revamping your bathroom, to fitting a new splashback in your kitchen, to creating decorative tiled floors that are naturally resistant to flood damage. You can pick up tiles at discount prices online, especially if you only need a few of each colour or broken pieces for making mosaics. If you can’t afford the designer tiles that you’d like, then try using stencils to create your own.

Shape up your storage

Most modern homes have inadequate inbuilt storage and it’s always useful to have more. You can make niches, empty walls and unused corners useful by fitting shelves, building wooden storage boxes to fit under your bed, or developing unused loft space. In the kitchen, you could attach a pulley platform to the ceiling for storing pots and pans or add hooks to the walls for hanging up utensils.

Think kerb appeal

If you want your home to make a good impression on visitors or potential buyers, then you’ll need to think about what it looks like from the outside. Add a coat of paint to your fence or railings and your front door. Fit a shiny new doorknob, knocker and letterbox. Clean up discoloured patches of brick or stonework and add flowers to your front garden. Your local garden centre can recommend species that look good all year round and don’t require a lot of maintenance.

These simple touches will get your home looking great, and you might be surprised by how much they can add to its value. In fact, even if you are thinking of leaving, you might discover that the results of your upgrading work make you want to stay.