Spring has sprung which means it’s not only time for the flowers to bloom, but for your home to get a bit of a refresher as well. Aside from a good spring cleaning, now is the perfect time to start some DIY home improvement projects. Of course, we understand that home improvement can be very overwhelming to start, especially if you’re new to the DIY world.
In this article, we’ll go over some small, yet effective home DIY projects that even beginners can finish in a weekend. Your projects don’t need to be complicated to make your home look fresh and beautiful. All you need is a can-do attitude (and a paintbrush or two).
Popcorn Belongs in Movie Theaters
We need to have a talk about your popcorn ceilings. The acoustic texture on ceilings is extremely outdated and, let’s face it, it never looked that good to begin with. There are a few ways to remove the tacky texture.
Wear Protective Gear
You should always wear protective eyewear and a face mask for projects of this kind, but these are even more important if your home was built prior to 1978. Acoustic texture applied before 1978 and sometimes later has a high probability of containing asbestos. With that in mind, we encourage you to do proper research and wear protective gear to avoid breathing in dust or hazardous particles.
How to Use a Scraper to Remove Popcorn Ceiling
For this project, you’ll need a scraper tool and a ladder. All you have to do is scrape away at your ceiling until all of that popcorn texture has been removed. It can get messy, but luckily cleaning up is extremely easy. Everything will fall off as dust, so you can just vacuum everything right up when you’re done.
Get a Popcorn Ceiling Removal Tool With a Vacuum
For about $70, the PopEEZE Popcorn Ceiling Scraper with Vacuum Attachment will help you get the job done faster and minimize the mess. This nifty invention was tailor-made to remove popcorn ceilings. It is by far the best tool to remove popcorn ceilings, so it’s well worth the investment.
A Fresh Coat of Paint Can Fix Anything
Whether you’re changing the theme of a room or just freshening up some spots, painting is an easy way to improve your home. Of course, you can paint your walls and ceilings, but try to think of smaller areas that you wouldn’t normally paint too.
Cabinets, trim, doors, and even air registers are great weekend projects to make over any room. If you’re able to remove your air registers or vents, you can take them outside and spray paint them. Cabinets and trim can be painted easily as well since there are lots of cabinet coating kits made specifically for this kind of project! Depending on your interior color scheme, you can paint your doors with popular colors like calming seafoam green or robin’s egg blue. Whatever you decide to touch up, it will be a noticeable change in your home that will have you wondering why you didn’t do it sooner!
Getting a Handle on Home Improvement
Leave your old cabinet and drawer handles behind! While you’re at it, you can upgrade your door knobs too. Replacing doorknobs, cabinet handles and drawer pulls is a pretty simple and affordable project. Best of all, it only takes a few minutes. These are small changes, but believe us when we say it makes a huge difference.
Your Wood Floor Needs More
Are you hardwood floors looking pretty drab? With all the winter boots knocking salt onto your floors, we’re not surprised. Refinishing your wooden floors is a great way to bring them back to life. Floor finish gives a long lasting shine to any hardwood floor and will make it seem like you had it installed yesterday. It can also give your floors a rich color that should never yellow and protect them from future damage.
Shining a New Light on Home Renovations
Another bright idea to improve your home is to update your light fixtures. Aside from changing your light bulbs, you can dust your chandeliers and replace outdated sconces and domed ceiling lights. Hanging pendant lights, LED strip lights, and under cabinet lighting are all the rage right now.
Whatever needs to be done, this is your sign to finally let the light in! When doing anything with lighting, it’s important to choose the right light temperature, as this can have a huge impact on your space. In a previous article on home office design, we explain why lighting is everything when it comes to setting the mood in a room.
Switch Things Up
If your light switches and outlets are irreparably dirty, cracked or faded, you may do well to swap out the plate covers. There are so many design options, from basic plastic to elegant ceramic, metal, or wood, that can really make a statement in any space. To add some style, you can accent any room with unique, textured plates, like this hammered copper wall plate.
Another way to upgrade your outlets is to make the outlets themselves white to match the plates. You can do this without messing with any electrical wiring. Just install an outlet cover on top of the outlet before you install a new plate. This is a small and inexpensive way to dramatically improve the appearance of any room.
Don’t Pout, Renew Your Grout
Does the grout in your bathroom look dingy and discolored? If so, it might be time to color your grout. Of course, you could just deep clean your bathroom floors, but why not change things up a bit?
It’s very easy to refresh and protect your tile floors and backsplash. By using Polyblend Grout Renew Colorant, you can easily change or brighten the color of your grout. The Polyblend will also act as a sealant to prevent color fading and mildew build up.
How to Apply Grout Colorant
First, clean your floor, so specs of dust and dirt do not get sealed in. Then, use a toothbrush or small paint brush to apply the grout colorant in small sections, allowing each section to dry for 10-15 minutes. Start at the inside of the room and work your way out toward the exit, so you aren’t trapped while it dries.
Don’t worry if you happen to get any grout colorant on the tiles. You can easily wipe it off with a damp cloth. This should take the colorant off the tile, but not the grout. Once you’ve coated all your grout, give the colorant 24 hours to dry completely. By the next day, your bathroom or kitchen will look like you retiled the floor in just a day!
For more tips on how to keep your grout looking clean and fresh, read Tile Grout Maintenance 101: The Complete Guide.
Peeling Fine
If you don’t want to paint or have commitment issues with paint colors, peel and stick wallpaper is a great alternative. Peel and stick wallpaper makes it so easy to change up the look of any room. There are so many different styles as well so once you’re done with one, you can easily remove the previous wallpaper and put up a new one anytime you want. Funny enough, we also wrote an article on the best way to remove wallpaper without damaging your walls.
Simple & Inexpensive DIY Home Improvement Projects
We completely understand how overwhelming starting a home improvement project can be. You might think all home improvements should be left to professionals, but there are plenty of projects that are simple and fast enough that literally anyone can do them. Simple tasks like repainting kitchen cabinets, freshening up the tile grout on your bathroom floor or backsplash, or replacing the plate covers on your outlets and light switches, will make your home feel brand new and ready for a new season.
No project is too small to make a visual difference in your home. In fact, it’s usually the small things that have the biggest impact. So, whether you’re new to DIY home improvements or have a tight budget, there is no excuse not to fix up your home. Let’s get started!
