Renovating & Remodeling Skills & How Tos

When Diane first moved into her new house, she spent so much time and energy remodeling the rest of the home, that the master bedroom was a bit of an afterthought. At the time, she made it bearable by ripping up the wall-to-wall white carpet and purchasing a new bed. Still, even after all those changes, it just didn’t give off the moody, luxe feel she wanted. She eventually gave it the attention it truly deserved.

Considering a renovation? A recent article recommends that while you’re filling your home with dust, debris, dropcloths, construction noises, paint fumes, and skilled (and therefore expensive) workers, you might as well get everything done while you’re at it. How Remodeling More Than One Room Can Save Money by Jeb Breithaupt was published in the Shreveport Times, and it raised a few intriguing points. Let’s go through them one by one to see if they might apply to your project.

I think many of us have spaces like this one in our homes: crammed with secret stashes of stuff that, over time, get a little out of control. We often don’t even need most of the things in there, which makes it a colossal waste of square footage. This year, Robin and Ed not only cleaned out their 44″ x 43″ closet, but found a completely new use for the little room. Here’s a hint: it’s not storage any more.

When interior stylist Jaimy and her husband Marcel wanted a quieter place to live, they decided to move to her hometown…where they were able to buy her childhood home. To truly make it their own, the new home needed quite a few updates. One of the most striking transformations has been the attic. The idea was to let daughter Dalí have the master bedroom, so Marcel and Jaimy could inhabit the top floor. It sure is spacious enough, but a lot work needed to be done.

Bland rental kitchens and bathrooms are about as common as noisy upstairs neighbors, but at least you can make small temporary fixes to transform your space. Take some serious inspiration from these clever renters, who invested a little bit of time and very little money to make changes they could live with, then reverse when they moved out. This awkward bathroom — with a seashell-shaped sink — got a weekend facelift that only cost $350 (also lead image above).

Sheena and Jason’s vintage Airstream is a soothing, lovely, bohemian dream on wheels. They travel the States in it with their beautiful dog Riley. Now the interior is all-white, with natural textures and bold patterns, but it sure didn’t look that way when they bought it. “Our entire trailer was one giant DIY project. We bought Mavis in original 1975 condition.

A mudroom is a great luxury to have—a spot to corral hats, gloves, scarves, dog leashes, muddy shoes, boots, and other inherently messy items—but a pretty, even glam, yet still totally practical, mudroom?!? Dreams really can come true. Before we ooh and aah over the space now, let’s see what Leslie Price of Price Style + Design had to say about the unremarkable room before: When I entered my home through my garage, the space always felt unwelcoming and undefined.

I’m old enough to remember a time when sliding shower doors were considered very innovative, and the height of bathroom fashion. When my family moved to Houston, in 1994, our new house had one, and to me that was a very big deal. Fast-forward about 20 years and the shower door in my parents’ house just seems a little moldy and gross.

We often update our homes to make ourselves more comfortable or happy. We switch up paint, change out hardware and maybe even tear down a wall or two. But, when it comes to resale value, not all of those things are worth it. So, before you retile the bathroom or paint your kitchen cabinets, there’s one thing that you should consider doing first. It’s one of the only projects that will actually pay you more than what you put in. Each year Remodeling Magazine’s Cost vs.

Here’s a non-traditional hardwood floor that deserves a second look: wide planks. These beautifully crafted floors really evoke a sense of warmth and old-world charm, and make your room look larger, more open and less crowded. When the outside world feels complicated, unpredictable — and sometimes downright unsafe — creating a warm, authentic environment at home seems more important than ever. As trends go, this one has weight and longevity.

This rotting detached garage had been neglected since the 1950s, but its owners saw nothing but potential. With lots of learning and labor—and a little help from friends and family—they converted the old structure into a lovely rental studio. This little kitchen is so cute! It’s small, but it’s efficient, practical, and stylish.

An extra kitchen? As tempting as it would be to trash it every year during the holidays, pay for a professional cleaning, and shut the door again until the next big event, an extra kitchen almost always seems like a total waste of space. In this renovation, the upstairs kitchen becomes a much-more-useful room! From baby blue kitchen to gloriously green bedroom!

This is an interesting project, as it was purchased and remodeled for the express purpose of being sold. Unlike many projects we see which intimately reflect the residents’ needs, habits, and tastes, this one was freed from such restrictions. As the homeowner described the process, “The house was an estate sale, and was extremely dated. It hadn’t been touched in many years, though it had a lot of potential.” That potential has now been unlocked!

The interior of a 16-year-old camper is as outdated as you might imagine. Even in the best of conditions, green carpet, over-sized (not trendy) floral patterns and some questionable wood veneer can leave a small space feeling even smaller. That’s what makes this stylish — and affordable! — RV remodel so great. It now looks good and feels much larger than just 188 square feet.

Is your rental apartment lacking kitchen storage? Could you use a little extra work surface? If you need one, or both of these things, stand-alone kitchen islands and carts add instant style and multiple functions where there was previously nothing at all. Here are a handful of mostly movable options — from a budget-minded $99 to “good god almighty, who the hell can afford that?

Jennifer had this plain, never-been-painted, oddball-sized slab door underneath the stairs in her living room. Since it’s located directly across from the couch, she saw that uninspired door every time she looked up. It was so boring, she even forgot to take a “before” photo, but you can imagine what it looked like from her Photoshop job up above. She decided to take that basic door and turn it into something utterly charming.

Not only did this kitchen receive a major aesthetic upgrade, the project achieved the Holy Grail of renovation dreams. In the words of the condo owner, “Same footprint, more space.” Hashtag goals indeed. So elegant! Malcolm Simmons of Mas Means More did such a fantastic job on this project. Is it strange that my favorite part is the cupboard above the refrigerator? It elongates the fridge and adds grace to a necessary appliance.

A family of four—including a former professional chef—made the most of this kitchen for four years, but they were eventually able to totally transform the room. Farewell to the “sparkly purple laminate countertops and faded store-bought cabinets” and hello to a gorgeous new gathering space that’s perfect for cooking. Impressed, but confused?

As one of the most intensely-used areas of our homes, bathrooms are popular candidates for remodeling. Though they can recoup a good portion of the costs at resale (usually 56-70%), bathroom renovations tend to be pricey. That’s why it’s important for homeowners to plan their budgets well. Given that more than two-thirds of renovation projects go over-budget, many homeowners could benefit from more thorough, accurate planning. Just how much does it cost to remodel a bathroom?

What’s the solution to two competing patterns of speckled stone in a kitchen? Sometimes the answer is a third, completely different material…. Argh, it’s like a beautiful jewel box! That pantry on the left is my new favorite room ever. And the unique arrangement of the hanging cabinets—is that middle one an ingeniously disguised range hood?—is so graceful, the marble walls are pure luxury, and that wonderful blue brings out such interesting hues in the marble.

I’m sure this fireplace makeover is going to be great, but in the meantime, I’m in love with that little sidecar of a fireplace on the left there. It’s so cute! Beyond that adorableness, it’s easy to see why this fireplace got an update. I think this style of stone is beautiful, but it can be hard to fit into many types of decor.

Covetable ideas for your next remodel, or just your next weekend project.

Here’s a room with beautiful bones—stunning wood floors, classic fireplace, tasteful paint colors, interesting accent wall, high ceilings—but can it be even better? Here’s how the homeowner kept everything that’s good about this room, while remedying the “big empty space!” next to the fireplace. First, here’s how Lindsay of Indigo & Gray described the situation before the change: We had just moved into our brand new house.

Here’s a lovely dining room that boasts ample natural light, beautiful wood floors, covetable furnishings, a graceful light fixture, and happy plants. It’s nearly perfect! There is, however, the matter of that huge blank wall that somewhat sucks the life out of the room… This is so fun!

This kitchen looked pretty good! It was cute and has charm—but it had hidden issues that were driving its owner batty. Let’s see how far $3,500 went in refreshing this sweet space. Before we gaze upon the new kitchen, here’s how reader Alisha described the old one: The kitchen in our townhouse was adequate when we moved in 2+ years ago, but every day it grew more tired.

Behold this tragic trailer, 63-years-old and abandoned in the woods of rural Mississippi. Is there any hope for this rusty, busted, pest-infested little sweetie? Hold out for a hero, brave Airlight! It’s so SHINY!

Green bathtubs, sinks and toilets — and especially avocado green bathtubs, sinks and toilets— are usually the thing of bathroom nightmares, and the one of the first things to go during a renovation. But we just spotted a recent renovation that might help change your mind about uniquely colored fixtures. This beautiful bathroom arrived in my inbox and caught my eye, with its green fixtures, light blue walls, and marble sections of wall and floor.

This is a very nice living room! If it has a flaw, it’s that it is all a bit…beige, with endless shades of taupe and brown. Check out the renovation that makes the room’s many assets pop — and makes you forget there was ever any beige involved. It’s now so fantastic!

Anyone who’s ever done a renovation on a budget knows that you have to find places to cut costs. Everything can’t be a splurge, after all. When my husband and I redid our home’s third floor to make it a full-time Airbnb, we were starting from scratch, so expensive things like HVAC systems ripped huge chunks out of our budget. I knew we had to restore the gorgeous original wood floors, and that meant another big expense.

Hi, my name is Sarah Smith and I am a ridiculously devoted Menards shopper. Now, please understand: this doesn’t just mean that I like the store and shop there often. At this point, I may as well have my own cot in the lumber yard so I can just spend the night and be there when it opens again in the morning. Why you ask? Oh child, you just don’t even know, but let me enlighten you. Then maybe you can get a cot too —or wait — bunk beds!

Reader Tamera is having a baby — yay! Tamera’s rental apartment does not feature a room for a baby — boo! Fortunately, it does have a generously proportioned master closet, and Tamera had a vision to transform this space. This is so very sweet! The accent wall really makes it feel like a room, the pretty mirror adds natural light to the space, and every inch has been used so wisely.

When I saw this living room, I crossed my fingers that the ceiling beams and wood-burning stove survived the renovation. Spoiler alert: they did! Just don’t get too attached to that amazing, but undeniably eccentric, hutch. Beams and stove are intact, but the problem now is that they’re utterly upstaged by that astounding floor by Fairwood.

Today, Mel (a designer) and Mario (a filmmaker) live in a stunning Spanish apartment they own, having spent the last few years slowly decorating the space to be an open, airy and warm home for themselves and their baby daughter Mia (as well as pups Coco and Marni). But it didn’t always look this good. In fact, this 1950s apartment had NEVER been renovated before.

This photo doesn’t look too bad, but click through to find out why reader Sara refers to this bathroom as a “two-toned linoleum bath pit” — and how the situation was dramatically remedied in less than two weeks for less than $2,000. Here’s more detailed information on this 1950s bathroom, pre-renovation from homeowner Sara: The before picture pretty much sums up why I needed a change from this two-toned linoleum bath pit.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear “track lighting,” I picture a sad ’80s sitcom bachelor pad. But what do I know? Even the most precision-dated trends can make a comeback once nostalgia gets the best of us. Denim jackets, leg warmers, big blazers — all have seen a resurgence in the past few years. I’ve even heard teenagers singing Phil Collins without irony.

If you’re looking at kitchens that were designed in the last few years, you’ll notice a definite trend towards undermount sinks. It’s easy to see why they’re popular: having a sink that attaches to the underside of the countertop, rather than sitting on the top, makes for a clean, minimal look. And you can brush crumbs directly into the sink, which is nice.

Much like front- or top-loading washing machines or gas versus electric stoves, kitchen sinks inspire strong opinions and fierce debate — ones that transcend even the trends of the moment. People love or hate their single bowl sinks; others love or hate their double bowl sinks, too. If you’re in the position to choose, and/or you’re open to change, here are the pros and cons of each.

This is a treat: a whole-house renovation, with before and after photos from seven rooms — and the exterior, of course. This massive makeover retains the home’s mid-century modern charm, while giving it a fresh, more modern twist. Let’s dive in. This exterior remodel was so well done! It highlights the house’s bold lines and actually makes it easier to appreciate the beauty of the bricks.

This bathroom has a lot of charming quirks, but upon further inspection, we’ll see that it’s falling apart at the seams a bit. Fortunately, a thoughtful design company is about to help this little room be its very best self. Before we ogle the bathroom now, let’s let Courtney and John Achilli of Content + Company describe their process: Not every renovation is a total overhaul.

When I saw the title of this reader submission, I braced myself for some The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe action, but it turned out to be less Narnia, more Lane Kim. Don’t let your teen see this makeover unless you’re prepared to build them a secret hideout — and you’ll probably be tempted to build one for yourself. Here we see Laura Medicus of The Colorado Nest‘s daughter stepping into a fairly magical vintage wardrobe . . .

You know we are suckers for smart storage — especially in small spots — and when it’s well-designed and executed storage, we get especially excited. This 550-square-foot Toronto apartment is not only a beautiful home, but it packs in tons of clever, built-in solutions that check off all the right boxes. The apartment comes from Stacey Cohen Design, who called upon a wealth of design knowledge and experience in taking advantage of every square inch of space, in every room.

This bathroom has a lot working for it — streamlined sink, flowered toilet, a cute tiled floor, and boats, boats, boats — but, as we’ll soon learn, it has a lot working against it. Let’s just say you never want something making your wallpaper bulge out… This is a tricky room to photograph, so I’m leading with a few more before shots to get you oriented in the space.

Kitchen renovations are basically one long series of compromises. Stumble upon a Ferrari red Bertazzoni range at half price? Obviously you have to slash the budget elsewhere (many elsewheres) to make that the star of the new kitchen. More often than not, these compromises are focused on the savings and not the splurging. Those splurges are oh-so-tempting, though, and wait for you around every corner—and on every Pinterest or Instagram refresh.

Taking on a home improvement project is expensive enough as it is – why add to the bill? Whether you’re fixing a leaky faucet or remodeling an entire bathroom, here are some costly mistakes to avoid. It’s crucial to take care of structural issues before starting on cosmetic fixes.

We're here for it.

To your average homeowner watching HGTV, the idea of Fixer Upper hosts Chip and Joanna Gaines or some other home improvement hero waving a magic hammer and turning your 1970s kitchen catastrophe into something out of a glossy magazine spread sounds almost too good to be true. So is it? We asked two alumni of home renovation shows to tell us what the experience was really like, and whether there were any downsides or unwelcome surprises. The verdict?

This post is especially for those of us who have lived in 400-ish-square-foot homes, and with a loved one we’d like to keep loving. We can relate to the limited storage, style compromises (there’s zero “me” space), multi-multi-use rooms, and eccentric bed positioning. This studio, shared by a married couple, is an inspiring small space, both pre- and post-renovation. This dreamy decor was designed and executed by Kate Lemmon of Kate L Photography.

Some rooms have a million flaws that need remedying; the problem with this nursery-to-be was there was no real there there. After months of sanding, painting, ripping out, and replacing by a very pregnant lady and her crew, this room was lovingly decorated for its tiny new occupant. The word for this nursery, created by Bridget Matkovich of The DIY Playbook, is dreamy.

Aldo and Zane had already been living in the Borough Market area of London when they fell in love with the city, so it made sense they’d want to buy in the same neighborhood. In fact, an apartment—”a characterful warehouse conversion on a quiet street near Borough Market”—caught their eye. When they got the opportunity to purchase it in 2016, they took on the remodel of a space with great light… but in need of an upgrade.

Some vintage bathrooms are incredibly charming, but I’m afraid the same could not be said of this one. One of the bathrooms in Jonathan and Cecilia’s Queens apartment was a mishmash of styles, with a black and gold sliding shower door, an uninspiring vanity cabinet, and wall and floor tile in a particularly unappealing shade of mauve.

Ursula’s new condo in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood came with a builder-basic kitchen that seemed trapped in the ’90s, and a dark color scheme in the living room that, while stylish, made the space feel heavy and dark. Her goals for the renovation were two-fold: to modernize the kitchen, and brighten the entire space to emphasize its natural lighting and generous proportions. So out went the dark, heavy wood cabinets, replaced by streamlined modern ones in a glossy white.

Can this humble, crumbling little garage be replaced by the hottest place to stay in town, all in just six short months? With a little help from trusted architects and contractors, anything is possible! Let’s let Jude Green of That Homebird Life explain how this family decided to go from a useless garage to a multi-use guesthouse: We pulled down an old rotting garage and constructed a guest house (with attached storage room, loft and bathroom) in its place.

This kitchen is perfectly nice! It’s got lots of windows, a beautiful hardwood floor, and classic cabinets. Its owner, however, wanted something beyond perfectly nice, and, after four years of plotting and planning, made it into something special. In the full-length shot, you can see that lovely floor, as well as more of the mustard walls.

If you want to add just one thing to a room to fancy it up, to really take the space to the next level, you can’t do better than crown molding. Crown molding draws the eye up and gives a room instant architectural character. And depending on the profile you choose, it can be a very inexpensive upgrade — and even one you can install yourself. Choosing the right crown molding for your space depends not just on style, but on scale.

We all have to start somewhere, and that includes Chip and Joanna Gaines. The Fixer Upper stars might be worth millions today, but they were newlyweds once, and just getting started out as a young couple while living in Waco, Texas. And apparently, their early homes were a far cry from their current sweet farmhouse setup. We recently asked Chip what he remembers about the first home they shared back in the day, before there were all the kids and animals running around.

Peggy Wang, Buzzfeed’s founding editor, decided one day a few years ago she was ready to move out of tiny apartment living. “It was like a weird sudden existential outburst in my usual lazy put-everything-off-forever mindset,” she writes. When she purchased this 1100-square-foot home in Queens, it felt like the right fit. But boy it needed a face lift. She worked closely with White Arrow—Keren Richter and her husband Thomas Richter—to remodel this home.

This kitchen had a lot of cozy charm, but it wasn’t very user-friendly. After five months of DIY renovations, it’s now bright, spacious, and totally made for cooking. It’s hard to believe this is the same amount of space! While the old kitchen felt claustrophobic, the new one is roomy and airy, yet it appears to boast about the same amount of storage space. Rachel Klein of The Northern Current is the powerhouse behind this renovation, and she did a bang-up job.

If you're looking for something warm and classic, and not too crazy, try this perfect cabinet color.

When you’re dealing with a small space, very minimal designs are usually the preferred choice (or so the thinking goes). But when Nancy decided to remodel her Upper East Side studio, she made some bold choices in the tiny six-foot-wide kitchen—things that you might not expect in a room this size, but that give this little space a character all its own. Previously, the kitchen was a bit of a blank slate.

This is a 115-year-old, 1,800-square-foot carriage house with 11-foot ceilings and tons of character. It had been recently renovated, but its new owners wanted to go a step further, by going back to the past and revealing the home’s historic charms. Such a nice modern upgrade! Allow me to list my favorite things about this transformation: 1. That beam!

It would be fascinating to meet the person who decided to decorate this living room—in what its new owner described as “the ugliest house I’ve ever seen”—with bright green walls and all red furnishings, but we’ll have to be content with seeing how this Christmas-y space was transformed into a bright, modern, and colorful—but not quite as colorful—room.

This bathroom was very, very orange, but no longer. The once-colorful bathroom still has plenty of color, just not quite as bright and “day-glo.” Here’s the full-length version of the bathroom before, so we can see the pedestal sink and what the homeowner describes as “yucky” floor tiles, but let’s take in the full expanse of ORANGE. I kind of love it, actually.

This bedroom was already cute, cozy, and charming, but its owner came up with an affordable, renter-friendly way to upgrade the space—and the results are tropically fantastic. Laura B of Thrifted Bohemian transformed this bedroom into a vibrant oasis with a little help from peel-and-stick wallpaper that goes with the bed perfectly.

After living in Brooklyn for awhile, architect Niraya and civil engineer Humberto wanted to bring that “loft” style to Miami, where they currently live. After hunting for a townhouse to buy, they found this home, which was actually used as the manager’s quarters of a Marriott Hotel in the ’70s and ’80s. And boy did it look like it was still in the ’70s and ’80s.

Painting your cabinets is one of the most transformative and inexpensive ways to upgrade your kitchen. But to do it right, there’s the sanding, priming, more sanding, and painting. No doubt, it’s a lot of work. Turns out chalk paint lets you skip over many of those steps so you can get straight to the new color, even if that new color is just a fresh coat of bright clean white.

Sick of shiplap yet? It’s the little wall siding that could, chugging its way all across America these days. We’ve seen it in kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, and even inside showers. Oh, and it is apparently all over a certain Texas town called Waco—maybe you’ve heard of it? Whether you are a diehard devotee, a grudging admirer, or just looking for another reason to hate it, know that shiplap has at least one major check in the “con” column.

Gorgeous hardwood floors, a large window, posh location, a fireplace, and built-ins galore? Yes, please. This Upper East Side apartment’s living room was already dreamy as hell, but one bold client-designer team knew it could be so much more. My favorite part of this transformation is the way the newly painted built-ins echo the tone of the fireplace, creating, along with the mirror, a delightful triptych. The coffee table appears to be the same hue, further unifying the space.

We’ve written before about kitchens with green cabinets, and blue cabinets, and black cabinets, and those are all lovely, but this post is dedicated to a particular favorite of mine: gray cabinets. Whether you’re looking for a pearl gray or a seal gray or a dark almost-charcoal gray, this color has a timeless allure, and suits practically any space. Here are five reasons why this style is here to stay.