86 Pieces of DIY Makeover Inspiration for Every Decor Style
In our DIY Makeover Issue, we offer project inspiration, instruction, and helpful tips and hacks for every DIYer, no matter your skill level or budget. We can’t wait to see what you create with your new skill set — find it all here. This content was created independently by our editorial team and generously underwritten by the new Ford Maverick™.
Completing DIYs often comes with its fair shares of hiccups and snafus. But sometimes, the hardest part can be figuring out what you want to do over next. Whether you’re a maximalist to your core or you’re looking to dip your toe in the coastal grandmother trend, you can find DIYs here to suit your style. Get your creative juices flowing and your next makeover project planned thanks to the following ideas.
Keep scrolling to read them all, or choose your favorite style right below to jump to DIY inspiration for a makeover in that aesthetic:
Bohemian
To recreate this DIY by TikTok user @tysoncurates, all you’ll need is some tile, a hammer, and Kwik Seal adhesive caulk.
Designer and upcycler Sarah Teresinski removed the basket’s metal hinges, spray-painted it blue, and added a tassel border with hot glue to get the look.
Melanie Schantz created the illusion of colorful tiles on her stair risers using free desktop wallpapers that she resized, printed, and adhered using Mod Podge.
Lisa Ksprzok removed a couple cabinet doors and picked up arch cutouts to help update her kitchen. “I used 1/4-inch plywood and secured them with a couple of small nails, so I would be able to easily remove them and reattach the cabinet doors when moving out,” she told AT.
Courtney Scott took her beige patio wall to burnt orange, adding a white chevron design to inject some personality.
Years ago, this garage sale find got a new look with pink ombré doors. This time around, Lucas Shaw sanded off all the paint off the top to show off the natural wood and added rattan knobs.
Wendy Lau of The Kwendy Home turned a plastic basket into a place for a plant that’s chock-full of texture.
Every table Madison Bess liked for her breakfast nook was out of her price range, so she found a thrifted piece of marble for the round top and made it over and into a dining table with wood slats nailed onto a concrete tube form for the cylindrical base.
Using a plug-in pendant light kit she bought online, Madison simply cut a hole in a rattan basket, slipped it onto the light, and hung it from the ceiling. “This light looks expensive and the look of natural wood ties the whole space in together,” she said.
Coastal Grandmother
For about $20, Dana and her husband strung together a shell chandelier and attached it to their bathroom ceiling using a salvaged radiator cover, which also acts as a screen for the bathroom fan.
Laurel and Richard said goodbye to vinyl siding, a rusty screen door, and “blah” front facade to make this home’s curb appeal Nancy Meyers-ready.
In a weekend, interior designer Tay Fusco’s husband installed vertical board and batten to the side of their staircase, while Tay caulked and painted it white. To add color and texture, she added artwork and furniture in natural textures.
Alexis Nicole even wove the shades herself.
14. A Beachy Bifold Door Update
Maria covered the slatted portions of the doors with headboard and added trim.
“If you want to add collar ties or a ridge beam to your space but don’t want to deal with structural changes, heavy machinery, or opening up walls, you can opt to build your beams onsite using four pieces of wood that create a box,” designer Becky Shea explained. “This hollow method is less dense and easier to manage during install. The result gives you the look of the real deal, all without the headaches or inflated costs!”
The wallpaper Briony Delves hung around her Jan Juc, Victoria, Australia, home adds the touch of refinement the coastal grandmother style is known for. “Wallpaper can instantly make a space warm and fun — almost like you are getting a huge hug when you walk into the room,” she said.
Farmhouse
With some paint on both the tiling and mantel, plus shiplap above, Teresa Feldmann transformed her dated fireplace in a weekend. “Adding shiplap above the fireplace and painting it one cohesive color really makes it a focal point for the room and draws attention to the 10-foot ceiling,” she said.
18. Faux Shiplap
“During this project, we discovered we like the look of faux shiplap better than the real thing!” Courtney Beatty said. She and her husband, Bret, made it using ¼-inch sanded plywood, which she said was easier to work with and saved them money.
Laura Gibson and her husband completed a slew of DIY projects to accentuate their kitchen redo, including rustic pendant light fixtures made of “spindles and maple syrup buckets hung on rain chain.”
Laura Gibson’s farmhouse-style home gets its rustic flair in part by repurposing items in new ways, like an antique baby bath tub she and her husband turned into a sink.
Marni and Willa Blank’s 1918 farmhouse already had a 103-year-old wood-burning stove and paneled walls and ceilings. The duo doubled down on the farmhouse style by switching out their overhead light fixture, painting the walls and ceilings a buttermilk shade, and completing some furniture redos, such as reupholstering a chair with a canvas drop cloth.
DIYer Sahana Begum’s family room got a high-contrast, black-and-white makeover with new built-ins that appear custom on either side of a farmhouse-perfect fireplace.
Anderson Grant made a version of these by transforming vintage wooden frames into a place to hang papers and photos.
Melissa Strassner updated her kids’ 1980s bathroom to a modern farmhouse style with a coat of green paint on the cabinets and vertical paneling on the lower half of the walls, painted a light gray to add some contrast.
Alexis Moore and her husband brought their “dark and dated” 1930s farmhouse kitchen into the light of modern day with a beadboard backsplash topped with a peg rail instead of upper cabinets.
Leslie Davis went vintage for the sliding door slot in her mudroom, filling in the holes where the locks had been, adding wood to the bottom so the door was the right height, and mounting it with sliding barn door hardware.
Glam
Yes, you read that right. Margaret Wright created a jewel-toned headboard using four pool noodles, 1-inch pipe insulation, a queen memory foam mattress topper, and 2-inch insulation board for the frame.
Using this trick, blogger and designer Shannon Claire Smith upgraded a standard $10 side table.
If you’re using drop cloth on the floor during metallic spray paint projects like the one above, make like blogger and interior stylist Jewel Marlowe and frame and hang that drop cloth as art.
In this IKEA RAST hack, Renee applied nailheads in a criss-cross pattern, plus added some sparkle via drawer pulls.
Inspired by a Queen Anne-style gold-framed chair she’d seen online, Meme Grimes transformed a wood-framed chair with gold leaf paint and white fur.
When Ursula Carmona, of Home Made by Carmona, made over her daughter’s bedroom, “it wasn’t in the budget to replace the ceiling fan, and we like how useful a ceiling fan is,” she said. The solution? “I removed the old glass shade, and screwed on a drum shade in its place. Then I strung some inexpensive faux crystals from the inside of the shade using a bit of clear thread. The results were pretty awesome!”
Van Tuyet painted the walls of her home office emerald green and installed molding above the baseboards. Painting the molding the same color as the walls gives the illusion of taller ceilings.
Industrial
In this once-blah powder room, the countertop went from builder-grade beige to industrial-inspired concrete.
During the build process, Will Strawser realized he was able to use the iron to make a “trough” for storing wine bottles and hanging upside-down wine glasses.
36. Faux Brick Walls
To give her stepson’s room an industrial edge, DIYer Megann Gresham added faux brick panels that she painted white, and revamped the mirrored closet doors with black windowpane-style trim.
Sasha Santillan worked with her dad on this industrial kitchen redo that doesn’t have upper cabinets but does have industrial-style shelving and a really cool place for pots.
John Connor and Maryana scoured her parents’ home for items they could use as furniture in their D.C. apartment, including bricks that they arranged into a TV stand.
Created with barn wood that Melanie Gnau and her husband George bought off Craigslist, these shelves soften the metallic wire cage flush mount and thrifted metal filing cabinets in his home office.
There are no closets in Freddie Chavda’s Bushwick loft, so outfitted his space with bookshelves that fit the feel.
You might even save space by gluing floor-length mirrors to the doors.
Elle and her boyfriend rescued a metal shoe rack from the trash to make this geometric piece.
Rachel Edmonds made a bed, wardrobe, and desk using plywood and small gauge scaffolding to fit in her son’s small bedroom.
Maximalist
Designer Aiesha Mullings used a mix of abstract multicolored wallpaper, copper paint, and freehand painting to create her powder room’s lively walls.
45. Decked-Out Doors
Stephanie Wilson’s maximalist Denver rental includes plentiful pops of color, including wallpapered doors and neon door jambs.
Who said patterned walls need to stay bare? Adrianne Hawthorne and Seth Thomas topped off the pink-and-green painted living room wall in their Chicago loft with artwork.
Michaela Dupkanic struggled to narrow down what she wanted to do in this small space, “until I realized it’s my house, and in this small space I can take some risks. So I did all of them,” she said. Those ideas include a cherry red paint job on the stairs and a graphic runner, as well as a striped wall mural and a gallery wall.
Marita put her own spin on a rainbow mural, creating an abstract one for her daughter’s playroom in their Seattle home that incorporated “a lot of polka dots and also some hidden things like bees, fruits, and sunshine.”
Practically every room in this New Jersey home features bright, colorful ceilings. For example, Sara Rothwell and husband Peter painted the wainscoting and ceiling of their dining room blue to pair with their fuchsia toile wallpaper and funky chandelier.
Kristin Cedar changed out dark charcoal walls for a hand-painted mural that combines a zebra print with five other colors.
Johnny Coleman and one of his creative contractors made a bed out of a salvaged fireplace mantel for his “classic maximalist” Chicago rental.
There’s a lot to look at in this dramatic, maximalist Victorian, including the table that Marta Hutt upcycled and covered with 24-carat gold.
“I kept seeing these vintage paintings with ornate framing that had been painted over on the bottom portion. I thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if I applied the same technique to a mirror?’” said interior designer Courtney Scott. Her version got a pink and white pop.
Mid-Century Modern
Once you find a tabletop you love, swap in or install hairpin legs for an MCM vibe, like DIYer Faith Carbon and her partner Julia did once they found a slab of wood on Facebook Marketplace.
Adding them to a couch, chair, or sideboard, like DIYer Melissa Clifton of Create and Find did.
Furniture flipper Michelle McRae used both white paint and a walnut stain to decorate a tired MCM dresser with two different geometric patterns.
To give his traditional-looking staircase a sleek, mid-century modern-inspired upgrade, Andrew Berkson added black iron balusters with rectangular accents.
Meghan Wheeler gave a RAST dresser a coat of black paint and cane webbing, but it’s the new legs and modern metallic hardware that lend an MCM feel.
Alli Gannet picked up an aging couch on Facebook Marketplace and reupholstered it with a fun botanical print. She even used a repurposed memory foam mattress topper on the seat to give it extra cushion.
From solid to color blocked to metallic, the options are endless.
Carrie Waller of Dream Green DIY restored a rickety dresser, then added a pastel teardrop design that makes a statement.
Retro
It’s not uncommon to see checkerboard print used in flooring, but Marissa Zingg took the pattern up onto the wall of her dining nook with textured peel-and-stick wallpaper that she cut into square strips.
Bringing his 1979 home back to its roots, Bob Copani painted an orange square faux tile backsplash to accompany shag carpets and avocado green cabinetry.
Dipa Halder’s dining room mural creates a curated home for her bike in her San Francisco apartment.
Once Justin Labinski got this fan — which he found in the garbage — up and running, he gave it a bright orange makeover and shined up all of the metal sections by hand.
Ashley Poskin framed a decades-old swimsuit.
Stacey Marquardt’s Chicago apartment is full of DIYs, including a TV credenza found on Craigslist that she transformed by applying paper to the front.
It’s an easy way to create a statement piece.
Ashley Poskin’s got a pretty pop of pink.
Nicole Murphy opted to give a once-brown side table a geometric design.
Scandi Minimalist
Tatiana Panopoulou kept the bottom piece of her existing bookcase, sanding, priming, and painting it white. On the top, however, she traded dark brown shelves for pine IKEA IVARs. The taller shelves help to space things out more, making the space a little airier, and the white paint and light wood brighten the look.
Joana Bianchi transformed this IKEA mainstay with chunky legs, plywood doors, burlap, and half circle plywood handles in soft beige, all for $40.
DIYer Alexis Nicole used the popular bookcases to create an L-shaped banquette. “I’ve seen several IKEA hacks turning the bookcase on its side for storage baskets to sit behind your legs, but we wanted the storage to be entirely within the bench. So I opted to turn the bookcases on their backs so the storage is on top, and then I added some trim to the sides and topped with wood to act as a lid,” she told AT.
With sanding, painting, and some handcrafted leather straps, Dana turned this worn down dresser around.
Alice Kauban and her husband painted the floors, vanities, and walls of their previously beige bathroom in white, giving the dated tile and built-ins a fresh Scandi feel.
To stay within a $400 budget, DIYer Joana Bianchi updated her friends’ bed with a headboard made of 1×3 pine boards nailed to the wall and wrapped with burlap.
For her home office redo, Ashlee Cabreles topped two IKEA filing cabinets with butcher block, forming a Scandi-style desk that’s big enough for two.
Traditional
After completing this project, DIYer Amy Mynhier advised starting with where you plan to cover the molding with furniture or curtains, since you’ll get better at installing it as you go.
Liz used double-sided mounting tape to attach the molding pieces to the wall. It’s removable!
Designer Natalie Metzger found dining chairs on Facebook Marketplace, which “were in excellent shape aside from the upholstery, which was torn and badly stained,” she told AT. She and her mom removed the old seats, added new foam, and covered it with blue velvet fabric.
During her dining room transformation, Natalie Metzger decided to paint her own version of “A Pastoral Scene” by Asher Brown Durand within her own DIYed picture frame molding.
DIYer Andrew McCray said he stained this piece, which was headed for the dumpster, with “a combination of cherry oak and maple red to give it a rich antique look.”
“Since they aren’t composed of real wood, PVC ceiling medallions are the front runner for getting the ‘look for less’ in the molding department,” Carneil Griffin of Griffin Direction Interiors told AT. He says they’re a great option for renters, since they can be installed with semi-permanent affixing.
Jennifer Harrup balanced the busy print of a 20th-century France-inspired floral wallpaper with soft blue cabinets and new brass hardware in her laundry room.
Home decor Instagrammer Madeline Scalzi used the liquid starch method to fit monochrome landscape wallpaper into her pre-existing picture frame moldings.
Blogger Cathy Poshusta used linen sheets and curtain clips to create the look of sheer linen curtains. To make them appear extra polished, she suggests “a good faux pleat,” which she says you can do by pinching the fabric and clipping from the inside.