Having a home to call your own is a blessing. Especially in this day and age when downpayments and mortgages are through the roof. However, once you have your home, even if it’s older and mustier, you don’t have to break the bank to make it look good and feel great.
The r/HomeImprovement online community shared some of their favorite tips on how people can upgrade their homes for $100 or less. We’ve collected some of their top pieces of advice to share with you. Make sure you’ve got a notepad ready, you might want to ‘borrow’ some of these ideas as you scroll down.
#1
I LOVE my soft-close toilet seats. The only problem is that now when I visit people who don’t have them, I end up slamming a lot of toilet seats…but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!
Image source: parasolfinish, amazon
#2
Convert any shelf in the kitchen that’s lower than your chest to a drawer. You’ll want good ones, so you probably can’t do more than one or two for $100. Start with the ones you use the most. I did that for my parents and it made such a big difference. My new kitchen won’t have any shelves under the counter, only drawers.
Image source: Chrthiel, Max Rahubovskiy
#3
Weather stripping around poorly insulated doors.
Image source: Echochrome3, JulieAlexK
#4
This was a fun one – before and after: https://imgur.com/a/9VbpnCC Whole project cost around $80…the shelves were I think 2x10s, cut to fit. Gave em a good sanding and stain/poly. Pretty cheap, standard brackets. Also did a light white wash on the bricks (wet the bricks, paint on a 50/50 mixture of white paint/water, then lightly blot).
Image source: mrspetie, mrspetie
#5
Well, I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but investing in a powerwasher made such a difference with our exteriors. Cleaning up stones, walls, siding etc. has a huge impact on optics!
Image source: bonesonstones, rick kloeppel
#6
I just installed a slide-out trash can and recycling bin. My wife and I were debating it for a year and we finally got one. It’s so nice to have the garbage and recycling hidden away, and as a bonus, now we can just pull out the bin and sweep crumbs directly into it from the counter!
Image source: MiniXP, lovinkat
#7
LED shop lights for my garage. ~$20 a piece to replace the failing fluorescent fixtures. They were so cheap and easy to install, I doubled up on the number of light fixtures. Now you can see my garage from the ISS.
Image source: flying_trashcan, William Hook
#8
Putting my dog bed under the stairs.
Moved into a new home and im fully renovating. We dont have as much room so we decided to put a false wall under the stairs, cut a square hole and use a gate as a door.
Cost me a bit of trim, some wood and some boarding, probably £50-£80. Yet saves me the massive space the dog crate took up!
https://imgur.com/gallery/zEOfTzb
Image source: B23vital, bugfatcatballs
#9
A cat door to move the litter box to the basement
Image source: jvhatch, Justin Baeder
#10
Invest in a curved shower rod, especially if your shower is narrow. It’s so nice not to have the shower curtain sticking to you when you’re showering, and it really makes a difference in the overall amount of space you have to move around!
Image source: thereverend666, Poolarity – Life Hacks
#11
a bidet. I feel like I’m in the stone ages anywhere else.
Image source: alanbdee, Ben Stanfield
#12
When we moved in, we replaced all the 1980s gold door handles and all the outlets & light switches from beige to white. It upgraded every room of the house dramatically.
More recently, we added a Subway tile backsplash to the kitchen where there was none.
Wall mounts for TVs can make a huge difference of making a space look neater and tidier.
Also, I second the curved shower rods. And a shower head you love.
That’s several favorites, but they were all favorites when we did them!
Image source: sydneyface, Jonathan Petersson
#13
I paid $100 to repaint my kitchen cabinets, and it was the best decision ever. It’s simple, too — all you have to do is clean them, scuff them up with sandpaper, prime them, and paint with two coats
Image source: VORT3XXX, Mikhail Nilov
#14
Stationary vacuum! I got a Eye-Vac for a Christmas gift. It’s stupid how much I love it.
Hard floors throughout the house with two dogs, two cats and a toddler. I hated sweeping but love having swept floors… now I get so much joy from seeing that huge pile of gross get whooshed up into a nice little box that I only have to empty once a month. No more dustpans! It’s silly what a big difference it makes.
Image source: klodklodklod, Stephany B
#15
$20 showerhead to replace the dumb expensive rainfall one that was there. Best $20 I spent this decade.
Image source: Turd_of_Paradise, Pete
#16
I spent $7 on a wooden threshold, for a spot where my living room hardwood floor joins the sunroom parquet floor. Previously there was a big gap there and chippy parquet edges. It made such a big difference, that little strip of wood!
Image source: OrangeCosmos, u/huaraches_n_fries
#17
Refinished my ugly brass ceiling fans.(https://imgur.com/a/QgT35Ux). Took them all apart, got rid of the weird little points on the end of the blades, painted the metal with oil-rubbed bronze rustoleum, finished the blades with gel stain. Looks pretty good for under $20 (I already had the gel stain), and it changes the feel of the room.
Image source: CountingSatellites, CountingSatellites
#18
Timer switch for the bathroom fan. Before we’d either not run the fan long enough or keep it on all day. Now it shuts itself off.
Image source: pennyx2
#19
Some USB outlets
Image source: jonos7, Brent Ozar
#20
Have done so many little upgrades, but the ones I see every day that bring me joy are so trivial. I replaced the super cheap beige outlet and light switch covers in our kitchen with [ceramic/stone ones that almost perfectly match the backsplash](https://imgur.com/gallery/bqaAtb8). Made such a huge difference. Still blows my mind the people who built our house used some many builder grade and base price products.
Image source: beley, brandoneley
#21
Replace your regular lightbulbs with warm LEDs. I’ve had a lot of luck with both IKEA and Amazon Basic brand LEDs — just make sure you’re checking their Kelvin value (which indicates color temperature). 2700K is generally considered a ‘warm white,’ and anything higher than that will make the room feel cold and unpleasant
Image source: Audaxls, Stephan Ridgw
#22
Curtains, changed the look of the room in an instant.
Image source: Gidrel, judy dean
#23
I put one way mirror window film on a front west facing window for privacy and to keep reduce the amount of light entering in the afternoon. Totally worth it.
Image source: anon
#24
Motion sensor light switch in the powder room. Never do that reach around in the dark again.
Image source: Darfoot, Brian and Rita
#25
If you don’t include the $70 spray gun I had to buy then [I paid ~$100 in material to repaint my kitchen cabinet](https://imgur.com/a/k1QAHQ2).
Edit: Wow went to bed and this blew up. Here are the steps that I did just in case you want to do the same
1. Clean/degrease all surfaces with TSP (SimpleGreen is also good)
2. Wood filler for anything you want to patch
3. Sand all surfaces with 120 grit to rough them up. Don’t need to go crazy here, as long as the surface is scuff up, you’re good.
4. Wipe all down with tack cloth to remove all particles, wet rag is acceptable here too
5. Prime 1 side of door, let them dry, prime the other side
6. Sand lightly with 220 grit where there’s any imperfection or uneveness. Also more wood filler wherever I missed the first time
7. Tack cloth everything again
8. Paint 2 coats
Image source: V0RT3XXX
#26
1. A Waste King Garbage disposal. If you have any other brand, you’re suffering.
2. Move ceiling fans over to where you actually spend time in the room. Seriously this cost like $30 to move a ceiling fan from the middle of our bedroom to directly over the bed. What a huge difference.
3. Remote switches for said ceiling fans. So much easier than getting up to turn it up or down.
4. Soft-close cabinet hinges. Can be found on Amazon. Make your drawers and cabinets all soft close.
Image source: NotSure2505, amazon.
#27
By FAR my favorite home improvement projects in the past few years have been in the super cheap kitchen upgrades I did in 2017. For context, I live in a shanty, and pretty much everything in the house could be legitimately improved with duct tape and/or a blow torch.
* I installed corner brackets under my upper cabinets (to give them more of a folk Swedish look), and painted them a creamy gray color. The brackets cost $10 each (I used 4), and the paint was a custom mix from what I had around the house.
* I used automotive detail tape to put up a faux subway tile backsplash on the wall behind my stove. This involved painting the wall first with a wash of mottled gray paint (this would later only be visible as the grout), taping off the tile, and then painting the tile color (semi-gloss white) over the tape. Peel SLOWLY when it all dries. Voila, you have convincing basic subway tile with a narrow 1/8″ dark gray grout line for $28. (Cost of tape and estimated cost of paint usage I already had on hand.)
* Hardware upgrade on the cabinets. I didn’t know how much I would care about my drawer pulls until I installed some that I really loved. It’s been two years, and I still feel happy every time I see them. The total investment in new pulls and handles for everything in the kitchen was about $100.
* This isn’t just the kitchen, but applies to the whole house. PAINT. F*****g hell, paint. It can do so much to help an otherwise underwhelming space. Color is your friend.
* This requires shopping at HFH, or architectural salvage places, but antique or vintage doors can really add a lot of charm to a basic home. Almost every interior door in my home is an antique, and most have cool old windows, interesting molding detail, or remarkable hardware. None cost more than $20, and several were free to carry away from demolished structures.
Image source: ShieraBlackwood, Skylar Kang
#28
Replace your ‘boob lights’ with something better. I just replaced our ninth boob light to complete our whole downstairs! Man, did it make my ’90s house feel so much more updated — it’s ridiculous how transformative it can be
Image source: turnip_for_what_, amazon
#29
We had these dingy old light switches and covers from the ’50s all over our house. New materials would’ve cost a total of $600 — and I was not about to spend $600 on light switches. So, I opted to paint them all. I ended up spending one day and $30 on the materials, and they look so much better now!
Image source: chula198705, Steve Johnson
#30
WiFi Thermostat… just a couple minutes ago my better half was cold. Take a guess who didn’t have to get up to get everyone cozy again!
Image source: panda527, Aaron Paxson
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