Stand on the kerb and appraise your house like you’re seeing it for the first time – is there peeling paint or cracked gutters? If the answer’s yes, it’s time whip out the paint and ladder. Stripping and staining cabinets will give your space a major facelift. Sealing cabinets with polyurethane will also increase durability.
- Control it from your phone and assign access “keys” to anyone you please.
- Select affordable brick, concrete, or clay pavers to create a livable patio space.
- Extending one’s house with rooms added to the side of one’s home or, sometimes, extra levels to the original roof.
- However, you’ll have to spend a few hundred dollars for a company to do one in some places.
- Even if you’re not planning on moving, adding these can promote a sense of wellbeing.
It should take less than an hour to replace the current fixture, to the tune of about $100 for installation. Blue is as calming as the sky, silver reflects light, jewel tones are bravely bold — and just might work. Get the latest This Old House news, trusted tips, tricks, and DIY Smarts projects from our experts–straight to your inbox.
Maximum Value Mechanical Projects: Water Systems
The company that sells and installs your roof, siding and windows is key. With 103 years in business, our family remains committed to the highest quality products and uncompromising attentive service. Making your outdoor space more functional can add a whole additional room without a costly renovation of addition. “Even just adding two chairs and a table to the patio makes it livable,” says Monaghan. “That’s another 400 square feet of living space,” which can feel like a lot in a 1,000-square-foot home. But it can hide some minor scratches or defects on painted surfaces.
You Can Do Some Plumbing Repairs
The best time to get a skylight installed is when you’re getting a new roof. “Nobody will install a skylight on a roof that’s not brand new,” explains Pacific-Northwest agent Dawn Rushton in HomeLight’s guide to the added value of skylights. Put recessed lighting under kitchen cabinets to illuminate the countertop and reflect light into the rest of the room. Nvesting in a home renovation no matter the size is an important decision that will affect the value of your home as well as your quality of life. In House Home Improvement does not take that decision lightly.
Use recessed lighting to bathe the walls of your room in light, making the space appear larger. Check out the publication’s comprehensive guide to tackle this project in a weekend. This neutral off-white is one of Benjamin Moore’s top-selling paints for a reason.
A quality roof protects your home against all elements. Our Owens Corning roofs come with a manufacturer’s limited lifetime warranty, professional installation supervised by our project managers. Take a page from the farmhouse trend and ditch cabinet doors for an open feel in your kitchen. If you go this route, your cabinets will need to be meticulously organized, but ditching doors on overhead cabinets can really open up your kitchen.
Calling a contractor to repair or improve every single thing gets expensive fast. What if there were a way to know what they know about home improvement? Here are 17 of the best time and money-saving home improvement and care hacks that only a contractor would know about. Good levels of insulation can make room interiors more comfortable as well as dramatically reduce your energy bills – by up to as much as 90 percent. A relatively small investment can pay back quickly, and add to the value of your home when you choose to sell.
Begin by removing cabinet doors and hardware, then wipe cabinet fronts and doors with mineral spirits to remove any dirt, dust, and grease. Apply a gel-type stripper per manufacturer’s instructions, and then remove the stripper with a plastic putty knife. Next, sand the wood with sandpaper, and you’ll be set to begin staining. Whether an art-arranging project went awry or you’re tired of looking at dings around the house, concealing wall blemishes is a weekend-worthy project. With a putty knife and surfacing compound, you can easily repair nail holes and other minor wall imperfections. For larger holes, place an adhesive patch over the area and spread an all-purpose drywall compound over it with a trowel.
Each house is different, and age doesn’t matter and can be found in new homes. Radon test kits are available at home centers and hardware stores for about $10. They usually involve setting a collector in your home for a week or so and then sending it to a lab for analysis.
Your choice should balance aesthetics with practicality. Dimmer switches quickly give your dining room the atmosphere of a swank restaurant. You can use fluorescent lights or special dimmable LED bulbs. A rotary dimmer switch is the most common type of dimmer switch. As you rotate the knob clockwise and counterclockwise, the intensity of the light changes. For an impactful weekend update, swap out the surface of your kitchen island.