Easy DIY Projects

Andrea did the $250 Challenge: a 6-week project that involved transforming one room in your home on a $250 budget.

This beige-on-brown bathroom wasn't pretty, and it definitely wasn't practical.

This kitchen went from dark and dim to bold and bright—all for only $600.

Your sneakers deserve better than a pile at the door! Take organization inspiration from one of these awesome custom-made setups.

See ya, '70s-style mirrored doors. Wallpaper and paint pair up to make this closet way more fun.

What to do when your kitchen's perfectly fine but also just fine? Roll out the wallpaper and grab some paintbrushes, of course.

Got a rental in need of a kitchen facelift? No problem!

Perfect for fall: A comfy DIY book nook, done on the cheap. Dreamy!

When Eric Skyta first toured his San Francisco studio, he saw a messy, outdated space filled with peeling linoleum floors and peeling paint. But he says he saw something else, too: potential.

Sometimes it's not about how much space you have, it's about how you use it. Max out your storage with one of these low-cost tricks—one of them is totally free!

After a year of living with their new build's plain white living room, Olivia and her boyfriend Tom were ready to fill their space with color and personality.

New tile, paint, and lighting help this fireplace say, "hi, fall!"

You know what they say: the best home transformations come when the "before" photo looks like it came straight from a horror film (and if they don't say it, they should!).

Creating a gallery wall is possible even if you're on a major budget—it's all about showcasing your personality, memories, and creativity all at once.

First-time homeowners Nick and Sarah Wissinger bought their home in 2016 and, after having only rented apartments before, were grateful to finally be able to decorate in a way that felt like them. Their plain-Jane master bedroom gave them the perfect opportunity.

Like many half baths, Jo Char's powder room is tiny and windowless. Logically, she initially went with a light wall color, but all that did was make the room feel "sterile and anemic," she writes.

Myra McKeon's kitchen was, well, totally fine. "The before was functional and by all means great," she writes. "The style of the kitchen would be liked by most, but it just wasn't my particular style."

Last month, we featured a Melbourne apartment tour that won over readers with its rainbow headboard, above. Most fun sleeping spot ever? Or *ever* ever?

Luxe for less!

Because we ask a lot of our entryways.

Meghan Clemons had a standard wood staircase in her Pennsylvania house, but she wanted something a little different.

Andrea Latham's entryway had fabulous bones, but it wasn't living up to its potential, and it wasn't very functional either.

Aside from the embarrassment of a disastrous attempt at fixing stuff around the house, performing your own fixes could very well wind up costing your more money than you’d planned on spending.

Y’all have been sharing some really fantastic before and afters with us this year, so we wanted to take a sec to highlight a few that stood out as especially brilliant and inspiring.

"I wanted a kitchen with an open aspect that I could love, enjoy, and utilize," writes Vicky Flynn of Liverpool. Instead, she had a "dark, gloomy, decrepit space" with a leaky tap and "some interesting shades of brown."

Sure, Kalila's 1975 kitchen had been updated a bit with a cooktop, dishwasher, and refrigerator. But overall, it was a wood-filled, windowless room desperately in need of a renovation.

Get ready to see a lot of plant action.

People often think of patio season as starting and ending with summer, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

When Andrea Jensen and her husband were house hunting, they narrowed in on a Southern California area they loved. However, "the neighborhood came with a steep price tag," Andrea writes, "so we knew whatever we bought in our price range would require a lot of work."

Allison Schaeffer and her husband Noel had a large loft space at the top of their stairs that wasn't serving much purpose—but had serious potential.

It even includes a plant propagation station!

The half-moon dowel is more or less having a moment.

It's becoming chillier outside, which means it's officially the season for cozy nights in, pumpkin-flavored recipes (if that's basic, so be it!) , and, of course, candles.

A firepit isn't like other yard goals (a new deck, a hot tub, a perimeter full of privacy-lending trees), because all you need to add one is a tiny yard and a little motivation.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s $32 Design Challenge! Finding the perfect piece of furniture is hard enough… but then it can be surprisingly tricky—and expensive—to style it just right for your home. We challenged five staffers to style five different areas of the home, from the entryway to a desk, with a budget of just $32. Follow along with the whole series here.

Joanne Gultig's UK bathroom had green carpet, and that really says it all.

When Lucy and her husband bought their UK home four years ago, their sitting room and its Victorian fireplace were every shade of neutral.

It was about two years ago, my partner Emily’s 2006 MacBook laptop began showing the visible signs of being well used…very well used. The white polycarbonate front edges cracked after years of palm pressure and the heat discolored the once pristine white laptop to a yellowish hue most often equated with British dental hygiene.

As soon as Hope Mendes and her husband saw their Cobb, California, cabin, they knew it was the place they'd been searching for.

Sure, they're a pretty way to store bottles of wine and cocktail mixer sets, but bar carts can also serve so many other purposes around the house.

Initially, Jessie Ecker only planned to paint her fireplace surround black, but she decided that it looked so good and modern that she would keep going and paint the paneling around it.

When we see a bathroom renovation roll in for under $200, it gets our attention because, let’s be honest, a light fixture alone can cost well over $200!

IKEA's GLADOM tray—at only $20—is a strong contender for the newest classic piece to come from the brand.

How do you design a living room when it has an uneven fireplace sitting oddly in the corner? Kristyn Jackson was baffled.

Galvanized stock tanks and troughs are essentially huge tubs which can be turned into or reused as any number of things. Depending on the context, they can read modern, industrial, or farmhouse. Learn all the ways you can hack them and create something spectacular and useful for your home. Bathroom Tubs: Jayme used a large round tank as a bathtub in her in warm and inviting modernist home in Philadelphia.

Curious to see what all the hype's about?

Lucinda Mitra and her husband inherited a bathroom from their UK home's previous owners that was "completely livable, but somewhat tired and dated," she writes.

This vintage RV has been torn down, fixed back up, and glittered, dangled, and frocked within an inch of its life.

Here are nine useful or fun ways to use your food coloring and bring the rainbow to projects outside of the kitchen.

The powder room didn’t quite make it to the top of Laurel list of must-immediately-make home improvements—until she found out that a wall had to be taken out completely and rebuilt for proper support.

Alexandra Madison loves “taking old spaces and making them feel new and fresh,” she writes, so in a few weeks and with less than $600, she gave her dining room an entirely updated feel.

When Katie and ​David​ purchased their home in Memphis, the house had all of the charm of the 1940s—but the bathroom left much to be desired.

Pretty fabrics AND comfy armrests? Yes, please.

Joanne Mooney​'s IKEA FLÅDIS​ planter did its job—aka, holding plants—but looked pretty bland against the backdrop of her colorful home. She decided to use punch needling to give the seagrass baskets a makeover.

Color, peel-and-stick backslash tiles, and a few gorgeous light fixture splurges COMPLETELY transformed this old, dark rental kitchen.

It’ll solve tons of your small space problems.

The plush seats were once the height of cool home decor.

The truth is, an IKEA hack isn’t always worth your time and effort.

If you're looking for a home that, somehow, brilliantly blends the best of Gwyneth's sensibilities with Sterling Cooper-era interior design, do I have a home for you.

Time: 2 WeekendsCost: $120 This is one project that most (including ourselves) consider TOO HARD. Recovering a reading chair? Forget it. But NicoleMari’s patient, smart, inspiring instructions will soothe your nerves and give you confidence. NicoleMari submitted this project to our January Jumpstart Contest and tied for second place in her category (Thanks, Nicolemari!)… AFTERTell us the tools and resources you used for the project: I bought all my materials and notions at fabric.

If you’re moving into your first “grown up” place, you’ve probably been told time and time again that you just have to go to IKEA for affordable, functional furniture. While it’s no secret that we’re huge fans of the Swedish retailer—not to mention the countless hacks you can perform to glam up even its most basic pieces—the search for inexpensive furniture items doesn’t have to end there.

This place needed A LOT of updates but after six weeks of chaos, countless Home Depot trips, and tons of sweat equity, this condo now fits the couple's personalities.

For a less intrepid DIY-er the assortment pictured above would be one intimidating pile of rocks. Not so for April. She transformed her courtyard into a relaxing spot, perfect for entertaining. Best of all, it’s super low maintenance so she can spend more time planning parties and less time watering grass! From April: I am in love with the new look of my courtyard area, which was almost all do-it-yourself projects.

The dark blue accent wall cost $180 total, including trim, caulk, and paint.