Rooms

Sometimes when faced with a very outdated room, say like a kitchen, your first instinct could be to pour a lot of money into it to try to bring it back into the present day. But as Sabrina proves with this simple and subtle redesign, you can make a big impact on the look of a space with very small but potent changes (and only a bit of money). From Sabrina: Believe it or not, I bought this home at an estate auction, and these people were looking at it as well.

This spring I won all new Moen fixtures for our bathroom. When it came time to install them, I realized they were too nice for our outdated bathroom, so the makeover began. We didn’t have the budget for a remodel, so all the major parts of the bathroom stayed intact. Sometimes a makeover has just as big of an impact as a remodel — for much less money! Everything in the room was DIY’d from top to bottom!

Having a whole closet right by your front door is amazing for storage if you’re a family with kids, but not if that closet comes with big outdated mirrored doors that don’t work well and don’t allow you to see what’s actually in the closet. Jen got to work, transforming this old closet into a very stylish — but most importantly functional — welcoming storage spot for her family. From Jen: This all started because this closet was not working for us.

Melissa’s living room wasn’t bad looking — it had perfectly functional, traditional-styled furniture and a lot of natural light. But it didn’t fit her or her husband’s style. So they worked together to come up with a look that would! From Melissa: My husband (lover of mid-century modern) and myself (a lover of modern, chic style) met in the middle and co-designed our space together.

Jordan and her growing family were looking for a home, but knew with San Francisco’s high prices they would probably have to settle for a home that didn’t quite match their dreams. Even though friends warned her of the high prices of renovating, discounts were searched for and they did a lot of work themselves. From Jordan: My husband and I recently bought our first home together in San Francisco. We wanted a large home that had space for our growing family.

It’s never easy trying to create a beautiful space that reflects your personality when you don’t have a big budget, but it’s even harder when you’ve got two people’s tastes in the mix. Chelsea and her boyfriend managed to style a bedroom using only DIY projects, hand-me-down furniture and vintage finds that is a combination of both their tastes.

While renovating an over 100-year-old Victorian sounds like fun, it’s also a lot of work, which is why Lilly and her husband are tackling this home project room by room. They decided to fix this room up so they could use it as a bedroom while they makeover the master bedroom, but they love the finished result so much they might keep sleeping in here! From Lilly: For years my husband and I used this room as a spare bedroom/storage space.

After looking at hundreds of different properties over the course of ten months (and losing bids on eight other places), Allison and Jovito finally found their dream home: a 100-year-old brick row house in Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway neighborhood. They loved the house’s character and classic feel, but going into the purchase, they knew the home was in need of some serious TLC.

When your tiny power room, closet, bedroom whatever starts to feel too boring and you want a change, you’ll want to come back to this easy before and after project for inspiration on how to do dramatic right. And how to do it all without spending a lot of money with a simple secret.

Twenty-three years is a long time to sleep in a room that looks the same, but that’s exactly what this couple have done. Until recently, of course, when their compact bedroom got a fresh makeover and a much-needed new look! From Marty: We had lived with the same furniture arrangement in our bedroom for 23 years. Yes, that’s right. 23 years. That’s a long time to wake up on the same side of the bed!

When you’re faced with a bland, beige rental kitchen in an apartment you otherwise love, what do you do? If you’re Kerry, who has a gorgeous New Orleans apartment, you infuse your rental kitchen with some color! From Kerry: I’ve lived in my 800 square foot French Quarter apartment in New Orleans for five years now. I have the perfect combination of low rent and a hands-off landlord. This summer I decided to make some big changes.

Renovation by: Mike (you may remember his bathroom renovation) Location: Chicago We live in a typical Chicago apartment with a really long skinny layout. When you enter our apartment the foyer and hallway are the first things you see so they really needed some TLC. When we first moved in to the apartment the foyer and hallway were painted in a yellow glaze and the only light fixtures were flush mounted glass domes from the 80’s.

How do you take a bland spare room with builder’s beige carpet and turn it into a sleek, modern, black and white home office and craft room combo…without spending a lot of money? Well it took a lot of patience and some awesome used furniture finds but Melissa turned this boring blank room into a sleek home office for her and her husband. From Melissa: Our home office doubles as a work space for my both my husband and me.

What do you do when you move into your boyfriend’s house full of his stylish things? You work on carving out a space for you. That’s what Chris did with this tiny spare bedroom that had been rented out to a tenant before. He wanted to turn the dark room into a more welcoming guest bedroom but also create a spot he could get work done while at home, too. From Chris: Moving in with a significant other is never an easy task.

Anna and her fiancé were like many couples who are just starting out: their first home was full of mismatched hand-me-downs. Even though there’s a big front window, the room never felt like it got a lot of natural light. And it was just small and cramped. Their goal: Make their living room lighter, brighter and look bigger! Here’s how they did it.

It’s not that Pauline was ungrateful for her kitchen nook — it was a convenient corner with a desktop that could be a great place to do work. It’s just that it didn’t fit her needs (or aesthetics). So she came up with a plan to mold it to be a space she could use, came across some surprises while tearing out the old stuff, and got clever to finish out what turned into a very creative corner! Bonus: There’s inspiration (and a link to instructions) for DIY art inside!

Jenny describes the “before” of her compact kitchen best: it was safe. White walls, white cabinets. Not a lot of color, accessories, style or windows. It gave off about as much charm as a doctor’s office. So she decided to add color — but in a practical way. She’d keep the black floor tiles that hide dirt, but add a cheery pop of color in an unexpected place, and throw in some efficient storage ideas for good measure.

Dark, dated wood paneling on the walls. Beige builder’s carpet on the floor. Even the curtains in this room were old news. Cara could have given up when tasked with turning this space into a dining room, but she persevered. And the result is a bright delight! From Cara: There is no question that it took a bit of vision and a large leap of faith to see the potential in our dining room. Paneling, old carpet, dated light fixtures.

Project by: Lauren N. Sellers/Trust the Vision Decor Location: Yardley, Pennsylvania You know those beige breakfast nooks that sometimes show up in the corners of otherwise lovely homes? Don’t start your day off boring when you can surround yourself with bold. Designer Lauren N. Sellers of Trust the Vision Decor turned this nook into an exciting place to drink morning coffee with only $600 and just over a week of time.

Not everyone is brave enough to show off their laundry room like Anna. Hers was the room that accumulated all of the extra “I-don’t-quite-know-what-to-do-with-this-right-now-so-I’m-going-to-leave-it-here-and-forget-all-about-it.” Finally enough was enough and Anna decided her laundry room should be functional for, you know, actual laundry. These were Anna’s goals: •A surface to sort and fold laundry comfortably. •A place to hang ironing.

Compared to their last kitchen, the kitchen in Anna’s new home was amazing. Two people could cook at the same time, the appliances were made in her lifetime and it was bug-free. Once with newness wore off though, it was time to tackle all that wood that did not fit their style. The challenge? How to make this dated kitchen look brighter and more modern with the tiny budget of $2000!

While dark wood walls certainly have their place in the homes of certain styles, in this dutch colonial Kelly’s renovating, it wasn’t quite the desired look. Though cozy, the eat-in corner of this kitchen did have ample natural light and opened out onto the deck, so it had a lot of potential. From Kelly: I wanted to refresh our eat in kitchen which opens out onto our deck. The goal was to brighten it up without spending a ton of money.

Yellow kitchens can be cheerful and sunny or they can leave you feeling kinda queasy. Katrin, who blogs at Taking Notes, found herself with an acid bright kitchen that fell firmly into the latter camp. But armed with a paint brush and various shades of white and grey paint, she has worked a magical transformation.

Amy’s home office functioned just fine before. But, being located in a corner of her living room, she didn’t want it to feel temporary or look blah. So she tackled a considerable amount of mini and large DIY projects to add some stylish detail to this small corner. From Amy: To make it more functional, I added shelves above the desk to increase storage space. Keeping with the theme of gold accents, I spray painted the brackets gold in addition to some of the other desk decor.

Tanya and her husband have been slowly updating and decorating their house on a small budget, just completing a remodel of their kitchen. In their previous home, they played it safe with design, concerned about resale. But in this home they did whatever they wanted, making some pretty dramatic changes in the kitchen that brightened and modernized the small space.

Kendra started her own business in 2011, REmix Design, a perfect way to use her interior design skills plus her passion for home design and working with tools. She loves saving furniture that “has seen better days.” She mixes old with new, rusty and shiny and this $10 table turned butcher block island is a perfect example! From Kendra: I took it home and immediately began tearing off the metal top with the help of my dad.

Have you ever hated the outdated look of a room so much that you wanted to paint every single surface? Tasha didn’t love her kitchen, and paint on every nearly single surface (along with some new hardware and furniture) helps transform it into a completely new space! Tasha says: Our kitchen was functional and in good condition, but outdated in style. We totally transformed it into a space that we love for under $700, including new hardware and furniture.

Kristen Hettich has been living in her Burbank duplex for five years now but never had the intention of staying longer than 9 months. This was the very reason she hesitated about really investing in the decor. “I was planning on moving back to South Florida. With this mindset I was thinking temporary furniture and also thinking in the mind frame of a 22 year old.” She also was raising a puppy who was destroying everything.

Sometimes our favorite before and after projects are the ones that take a small addition to a home and create a big impact on the look. This tiny kitchen is a great example. Christina made a small but bold choice —and it really paid off! From Christina I recently bought my first condo — a small and beautifully renovated 475 square foot one bedroom.

When Amanda moved into her second house, she knew the dark and dated split entry needed to be brightened up — a dark door, peach-hued walls and a tall wall with nothing on it just didn’t fit her style. From Amanda: To brighten up the space, we installed a tongue and groove accent wall (to cover the heavy knock down texture) and painted it white. A new larger glass French door let light pour.

Do you suffer from a bland bathroom? You might find some inspiration in the ideas that Jolie added to her standard-looking, not-very-interesting bathroom. She made this boring room turn glam with some DIY projects and vision. From Jolie: I wanted to feel like I was stepping into a high end hotel bathroom in the morning so I decided I would decorate it with glam wallpaper and gold accents.

When Kelly and her husband moved into a 1950s fixer-upper in late 2012, they knew their kitchen — with original (in Kelly’s words, grime-encrusted) pine cabinets, aluminum-wrapped laminate counters and linoleum floors mixed with asbestos — would need some aesthetic upgrading. They even started working on this room two hours after closing on the house! From Kelly: To say that it was a labor of love is an understatement.

This cramped and outdated kitchen almost prevented Christina from buying the house! But it was a charming 100-year-old Craftsman-style house that won her over, and she made the goal of brightening up the kitchen and maximizing space a priority! From Christina: When we toured this house, the kitchen was the reason why we almost didn’t buy the 100-year-old Craftsman-style house. It was so small, so brown, and so ugly!

Christina’s second bedroom is a tight eight feet wide by 13 feet long. But, despite the small size, she needed it to function both as an office and craft room, and a guestroom that could sleep two people. Christina turned this room with beige walls and bland carpet into a light and inspiring space to work and entertain guests! From Christina: The whole transformation cost about $800.

Ama had found this piece of furniture at a garage sale but wasn’t quite sure what to do with it for a few years. It had great bones, but the finish was in pretty rough shape. Though not a drastic change, the finished product came out stylish and sophisticated and is now the perfect storage piece for her dining room! From Ama: The cabinet cost me $50, dyeing, varnish and handles about $35, plywood for shelves, new door and feet cost me $23 and paper for background about $12.

Kimberly joined in our Apartment Therapy Style Cure in 2013 and, even though she went into this bathroom update with pretty low expectations, she wound up getting a huge style upgrade on a budget. Kimberly says, “I am so happy with the final result and I would have never done it without the encouragement from you and your readers. Thanks for guiding me along, AT!” See more pictures of Kimberly’s new bath at Turning it Home Thank you Kimberly!

From Jamie: In truth there are still a few small things we want to change or tweak (one major project being the demolition of the drywall around the stairs to allow the installation of a modern, open handrail) but we are satisfied with how far it has come. We feel it is bright, cheerful, and modern while still meshing with the overall transitional style of the house.

Need inspiration on how to lighten and brighten your old and outdated bathroom? You’ll find it in Mera’s simple update of her cozy room. She didn’t do anything complicated, but her changes made a big impact on the look and feel of this small space. From Mera: The paint peeled and cracked pretty quickly which just added to the overall yucky-ness of the room.

You know how we’re always saying that entryways are a perfect spot for walls that wow? This before and after certainly highlights what a difference design in one’s entryway can make! It was a lot of work (and a lot of math) but you might find inspiration for your own entryway with this neat 3D wall pattern idea.

Sometimes older bathrooms are full of charming and quirky details that are totally worth keeping as-is. And other times older bathrooms are just dull and outdated. Can you guess which one Tanya’s was? Waiting on when the budget will allow for a full renovation, she tackled a few DIY, tried-and-true tricks to change the look of this space to be more livable now. My husband and I just moved into our house and are saving up to renovate our main bathroom.

Megan’s bathroom was already kind of sweet and simple — perfectly serviceable. But as the only bathroom in her and her husband’s 1930s Sonoma house, they felt it should be a little more spectacular. So they mixed their styles to create a still-simple and sweet but definitely more bold bathroom. From Megan: Our 1930s Sonoma home has only one bathroom and so it had to be spectacular!

Does this kitchen look familiar? It is the Apartment Kitchen. I believe it was installed in every apartment built between 1978 and 1995. It is difficult to hate the Apartment Kitchen — it just is. But there is not much to love about it, either. So when One Kings Lane editor Kerstin, who had the Apartment Kitchen, met stylist Megan Pflug, who was looking to do an “easy but stylish” kitchen before and after, she jumped at the chance. Yes — it is the same kitchen. I know.

Yikes. That’s what I thought when I saw the ‘before’ version of Lisa and Brian’s Brooklyn kitchen. Old cabinets covered in so many layers of paint the doors would no longer close, peeling vinyl flooring, ancient wood-grain (!) laminate countertops — this kitchen had it all. And not in a good way. Oh, and also the oven didn’t work. It was time for a change.

Sheila was feeling rather unromantic in her bedroom lately. All the elements were there, but something just felt…off. So she did one simple thing that made all the difference. Ooh la la. Someone’s getting lucky tonight. Lucky to sleep in such a cute, new bed, that is. Sheila already had everything she needed for this makeover right in her own home — she just needed to put it all together.

Dana and her husband had a pretty standard bathroom with some pretty dated wallpaper. Together, they tackled a series of DIY projects that transformed an old and tired bathroom into a new bright space with a seriously darling DIY cottage feel. From Dana: We chose a cool white and aqua palette for our cottage style bathroom. My husband updated the floor with white ceramic hex tile. To complement, he installed beadboard around the room.

This resident dreamed of trading in her 90s era furniture for a look that felt like it came out of the pages of magazines like Veranda and House Beautiful. She finally reached out to a professional designer who was able to see that the client was looking for rooms that looked polished but felt cozy, in a transitional style with a heavy dose of navy and white. Steal some of these ideas for your own magazine-worthy home!

The retro look might be back in, but this kitchen that hadn’t been touched since the 1960s was a little too retro for the owners of this beach house on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. The kitchen needed a total upgrade (and a small bathroom in the house also needed renovating) but there was a small budget. With the help of a designer, clean lines, IKEA products and a neutral color palette turned this dated kitchen to a modern breath of fresh air.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to dramatically improve the look of a space, as proven by the kitchen Julia and her boyfriend share in Montreal. Some budget ideas, affordable products and a lot of DIY labor made this kitchen brighter and more pleasant. From Julia: My boyfriend and I bought a duplex house in Montreal less than a year ago. We were able to buy in the city, but we didn’t have much money for renovations after.

Armelle lives in Shanghai and runs Tsai Yun Studio with her friend Catherine. They collect and up-cycle old Chinese furniture that comes from many of the old houses that get torn down to build high-rise buildings. In the process of renovating her apartment, when Armelle spotted this old cabinet that was destined for the trash, she knew it could be the perfect addition to her sons’ bathroom.

When first-time homebuyers Nadine and John Paul bought a century home that was split into a duplex, they decided to rent out the bottom half and live in the top half. Now with a little additional money to spend on their new purchase, they decided to tackle the kitchen first, which was tiny, uninspiring and not at all luxurious. From Nadine: My partner, John Paul, is a carpenter by trade and owns a business building custom furniture.

Kimberly of Swoonworthy and her partner Wayne did a great job renovating their old kitchen, but Kimberly wasn’t entirely happy with the results. She is a girl who requires more drama from her interiors. A couple of simple DIY projects later, she’s added some glitz and glamor to this space. And here it is, in all its sparkling glory.

Looking for the inspiration + resources to transform a boring bathroom into something that wows? Darlene Chimaliro and Caty Tillman of Studio MOD(ish) were tasked with adding some personality to a boring condo for a young fun couple. The two bathrooms were transformed, each to match the style of either spouse. The guest bathroom — dramatic and over-the-top — was designed to reflect the wife’s bold tastes, and Darlene and Caty shared the resources they used to create this look.

You know how earlier today we shared real advice about how to be patient and take your time when decorating a home? This Before & After perfectly highlights that idea. See this living room go from full of uninspiring hand-me-down furniture to a living room that, after taking the time to discover their tastes, is now a sophisticated, lovely space that matches their personality!