You know those days when you just feel gross? You're having a bad hair day, your clothes don't seem to fit right, so instead of exercising or working on your attitude you go out and buy some new clothes? We've been there, and it usually ends in buyer's remorse. The same thing can happen with your home. Although you might think a new sofa or a flatscreen TV will get your apartment out of its frumpy slump, you might be better off starting with a few cheap strategies for home improvement...
- Clean your home. It's usually the single best way to improve your environment, and it costs nothing. Plus, even a new sofa won't fix a dirty house.
- Get rid of something. It's free and free-ing. The bonus? Helping your apartment lose weight is a lot easier than dieting.
- Lay off the shelter porn. Just as ads make it seem like everyone's a beautiful underweight 21-year-old, shelter mags and blogs (yes, us too) often feature beautiful homes that can make your own space seem like it doesn't measure up. Work on learning to love your home for what it is.
- Paint. Nothing perks up a room like a fresh coat of paint, and the right color can offset things you already own, elevating your whole apartment to a new level.
- Rearrange your furniture. It's a really effective way to change your outlook on your home, it's free, and it gives you a good workout.
- Upgrade something. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to buy something new - you can revive an old piece of furniture with a coat of paint, reupholster a chair, or make a slipcover for something.
- Fix something. You know that drippy faucet, torn window screen, or broken doorknob? You'll feel better once it works again.
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Comments (23)
I usually go to the fabric store and make myself some pillows.
Fresh flowers! Next to the bed, on the counter in the bathroom and on the coffee table - having them around ALWAYS makes me feel better.
Here are some on my coffee table: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25117127
Flowers are a great idea, but I'm the person that forgets about them until they're gross and not only wilted, but completely rotted and the water in the vase is green... eeek. Instead, for longevity, I often go for a plant or two. They make me happy, and I'm of the opinion that you can never have too many plants. My blahs stay away longer with more oxygen.
Paint and accessories are the best ways to transform a room.
cleaning and flowers make everything look better.
New paint, decluttering and fresh throw pillows are an inexpensive way to spruce up any room.
cristin
http://simplifiedbee.blogspot.com/
Cleaning windows, baseboards, doors, and jambs always does the trick for me.
Paint is dangerous; it's an excuse to change everything. I bought new kitchen cabinets because I purchased better lighting because I painted the damned walls.
DEEP CLEANING........vacuum the furniture, pull the furniture out and vacuum along the walls, baseboard, clean the windows and treatments, dust and polish everything, DUST THE WALLS WITH A SWIFFER DUSTER, declutter, clean all lamps and light fixtures, clean outlet plates, door knobs, etc.
Take everything off your bookshelves and re-organize/accessorize. This makes me so happy!
Going shopping in your own home is really great. When we re-did our office, we only bought furniture, not accessories or anything else. I got dressed and got my purse, and shopped my house! There were quite a few things that weren't working in other rooms, that looked great in our office and a few things from our office we took out and put into other rooms. It's free and fun!
I second the shopping your own house and getting creative with it. I like filling baskets/serving bowls with my nicest knitting yarn, digging out old scarves or tablecloths to drape on things, and making little vignettes of books and dishes filled with fruit.
Oh, and rearranging the furniture always inspires me to clean and feels like I have a brand new space.
Glad I read this and all the great suggestions. I was just in the middle of a funk about my house (after just finishing two one-room Cures in my house, for heaven's sakes!).
i've been unemployed for awhile, so to cheer me up, two of my best friends came over and painted the two major rooms in my space, the living room (grey and white) and the kitchen (fiestaware-orange and white), plus the hall that connects the two (tiffany blue and now known as the jewel box). it took 3 of us 12 hours to finish everything, but now it's got a great energy that makes me feel less tired and more inspired. no more blues! (except for the jewel box) next up: my home office and bedroom.
In the summer, I like to take up all the rugs and drape white sheets over all the upholstered furniture. It feels fresh and summery, for no money.
WASH THE WINDOWS, inside and out. It's amazing what you don't notice is there until it's not.
Pick some photographs and pictures and hang them up the walls !
That reminds me, do a swap meet with your friends, too. I think there are lots of people who have items that don't belong in their house any more, but they also don't want to give away (I'm guilty!) but I could swap many of those items with my friends.
darned good advice! I'm going to go get rid of something. Or several things -- you're right, often that feels quite a bit better than getting something new!
Even if you don't paint, just organizing and putting stuff away helps a lot.
If you have LP's put them back on the shelves instead of resting them against something like I have right now, gather up stuff you no longer want and donate (I have a box full and 3 more empty boxes in the back of the truck ti slowly fill of donations), same thing for CD's, DVD's and other items, putting things away back where they came from is one of the best things one can do because when you go to get it another time, you'll know right where it is.
If stuff keeps falling down off of closet shelves, re-organize them so they don't and get rid of stuff you no longer want, if bookcases look cluttered, go through them and purge/reorganize, just stuff like that will go a long way towards making your place look so much better w/ little to no money involved but your time and some effort.
I did some picking up of the bedroom and got rid of a pile of old bank statements and stuff from 2002/03 and some old junk mail that had been sitting on a bottom shelf of my TV cart in the bedroom over the weekend, also picked up and put away of current stuff and stored the box I'm keeping w/ it's packing stuff for the new computer monitor (for when I move, it helps protect those fragile items) and in general, put stuff away. the bookcase in the bedroom still needs going through/straightening but the bedroom that's relatively picked up feels really nice.
A clean house or a newly rearranged room is always a great feeling. I use this trick all the time!
http://www.makemineeclectic.wordpress.com
Does anybody know where I can find this wall color (or a similar one)? Thank you!
Just today, I repainted one entire peeling and dirty wall in a bedroom and repainted the window trim and baseboard trims in the living room, all in under 2 hours! It was a hurried quick fix, but my apt looks 110 % better! Yay!
Remodeling one's home does not necessarily have to be costly, once you have a reliable and trustworthy home improvement Dallas contractor, for instance. It may be true that building materials keep on increasing their prices but we do not have to worry too much about that if we are guided with the right information on how to improve the look of our homes under a tight budget.