BLOG/ 7 Tips to Renovate Your House on a Limited Budget!

Buying a home is one of the largest investments a person will make in their lifetime. Renovating your house can not only protect your investment, but improve your quality of life while you live there!

But when things break down, there is no landlord to cover the cost! Homeowners know that maintaining a home can be expensive. Renovating a house can feel unrealistic if you live on a tight budget.

Renovating your house doesn’t have to break the bank, though it certainly can. One of the first steps you can take to reduce the cost is to plan to do it yourself! Unless you are very handy, this will obviously limit the type of home renovation projects you can take on. 

With a little research and a lot of planning, you will still be able to radically transform your space without breaking the bank. Check out these 7 tips to renovate your house on a limited budget!

1 Budget

The first step in renovating your house on a limited budget is to determine what your budget is. Evaluating your finances carefully will first involve determining your priorities and balancing those with market research about the cost of materials. 

Make sure your budget includes an extra 20% of wiggle room into your budget to account for unexpected costs (which are inevitable).

2 Quality over Cost

When you’re on a budget, it can be super tempting to cut corners and opt for the less expensive option. When you do this, you slash the longevity of your project and risk having to re-do your work in just a couple years.

By the time you buy new materials and spend the time fixing your space up AGAIN, you may end up spending more than you would have by buying the higher quality materials the first time around. 

There are ways to do this without sacrificing quality. Buying second hand at thrift stores or rebuilding centers can lead you to heirloom quality products at a much better price than buying new from a big box store.

3 First Impressions

Where judging a book by its cover doesn’t work for people, the exterior of a home is a direct reflection of what the rest of the house may be like. It’s important to make a good first impression! 

Landscaping is one of the first things people see when they glance at your home. In fact, landscapes can make up to 10% of your home’s value! 

Adding a new layer of  mulch and pressure washing dirty surfaces will take you far! Maintaining pre-existing plantings with a quick pruning can really spruce up your space for no additional cost. 

A frontdoor is the gateway from the outside world into the environment you’ve created inside your home.

What does your door say about you? Does it really reflect your style and taste? Replacing your front door can cost less than $400 dollars. Painting your front door and replacing hardware will cost less than $100 and give your house a fresh facade!

4 A Splash of Color

The fastest, most economical way to renovate your house on a budget is to alter your color scheme. This won’t require any complicated construction, just patience and a paintbrush!

Color can totally transform the feel of a room. If you want to repaint all of the rooms in your home, check out some of the free resources at the paint store to help you plan. Many color swatches suggest an array of complementary tones you could use to build harmony throughout your home.

If you know how to sew, making your own curtains or reupholstering your furniture can be a very economical way to transform your space.

If not, buying new curtains for a room won’t break the bank either. Curtains add texture to your space and may also affect the lighting, which can alter the feel of your room. 

Something as simple as a new rug may be all you need to transform some rooms!

5 Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Why replace something when you can restore it? If your old wood or tile floors look a little worse for the wear, they may just need some TLC!

Polishing and refinishing floors is a lot less expensive than replacing the floor entirely. The same goes for cabinets. Do you really need new cabinets or do they just need a new finish?

You’d be surprised how far some new paint and hardware can go. When it comes to your budget, that simple update will be far less expensive than new, custom cabinets!

6 Add Backsplash

You can completely transform the look of your kitchen or bathroom by adding a tile backsplash.

Peel and stick backsplash is inexpensive and incredibly easy to install! It instantly modernizes your kitchen and can be used to compliment the “like new” cabinets you just painted!

7 Declutter

This is the simplest, most inexpensive tip of them all. How dramatically different might your home look if you take time to get rid of objects that don’t serve you or the space?

Investing in home organization doesn’t have to be expensive. From drawer organizers to redesigning a closet, these simple and cost effective actions can transform your space from “meh” to “yeah!”.