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Top Creative Home Improvement Ideas
Many homeowners would like to upgrade their homes but don’t know how. They watch home improvement shows, pore over online collections, and beg friends for advice. These homeowners might not revamp kitchens and bathrooms. They might just want unique improvements of which no one has thought.
What people search for in a new house is storage, light, and space. A homeowner who can create these things will shine to potential buyers. If homeowners aren’t selling their homes, then they can use these ten great ideas no one has thought of yet.
1. Create Storage Space
Cut storage space in the baseboards in the kitchen. Homeowners who aren’t carpenters will need to source out the work. Flat pans, cutting boards, and extra ice cube trays will finally have their own space! Homeowners might even use one to keep the dog’s (or cat’s) water and food bowls neat and tidy.
2. Room For The Dog (Or Cat)
The family pets usually sleep on beds with their humans, on sofas and chairs, or wherever they happen to be when a Nap Attack occurs. This occasions the use of a vacuum to get the pet hair off before a guest can sit. Now it doesn’t have to be like that.
Homeowners with staircases can cut a small “room” into the stair well to house their pets. A pet pillow or bed will fit snugly into the “room.” The pet will have his or her own “space.” They won’t have to share their bones or toys with other pets, either.
Note to Homeowners: The Dyson Animal Upright gets dander as well as pet hair. No other vacuum does that.
3. Organize Existing Space
Any Big Box store will have baskets, bags, racks, shelves, hanging bars, and clothing organizers. Every closet can be organized for less than $100. Organize the laundry room with over-the-door hanging bags or cloth baskets. The hanging organizers can go in the bathrooms, too. Buyers who see these space-saving innovations will be pleased.
4. Organize The Entry
The first impression people get of a homeowner’s home is at the front door. People usually dress up the front porch with plants and wicker chairs. Most paint the front door an eye-catching color. However, that’s where the innovation usually stops. Here’s how to make a good impression in the entry way.
The name of the game is to organize and create space without taking up valuable room on the floor. Therefore, hanging as much as possible will create the necessary space. If homeowners can’t get a recycled barn door, then any old door will do. It can be painted and distressed very easily.
Hang the door low enough that people can hang their coats, bags, and hats. Since the door will be hung on the wall length-wise, the bottom of the door can be hung with baskets for shoes or umbrellas. Homeowners might think of using the middle of the door or perhaps removing the windows in the door as a message center. White boards or school-type blackboards work well.
5. More Storage
Those with staircases are very lucky indeed. The stair well can be used as bookcases and storage nooks. Homeowners will need to source the work if they aren’t carpenters. Families with not enough books can use the space for knick-knacks or collections.
Should bookcases or extra storage not be necessary, the space could be used as a relaxing reading nook. Alternatively, why use a whole room for a home office when a cozy little nook will do nicely? There would be just enough room for shelves and a desk. Guests or business visitors will sit in the living room on a comfortable couch to do business with the homeowner.
Homeowners without stairs can use the space beside arches or entries into other rooms. Place old wardrobes, bookcases, and even some chiffoniers in the space for extra storage. Modular units are also available in colors from stark white to wood tones to child-like brightly colored modules. Have some fun with it!
6. Let There Be Light
Adding windows where there were none requires serious budgeting as well as interviewing contractors. Natural light has been making a splash with new builds and remodels for quite some time now. It’s not hard to figure out. Natural light boosts our health and mood. It helps us without the need for electric lights.
Window treatments are an important part of allowing light into the house. Homeowners want to allow enough light without having the light fade the rugs, furnishings, and artworks. This can be done in several ways.
Homeowners with a recycle place nearby could find shutters from a previous house for reuse. Cut them to fit the window, adjust the slats, repaint them, and homeowners will have trendy window treatments at half the cost. Buyers will appreciate it.
Making your own cellular shades is a simple matter of obtaining rollers, materials, and cords. Fold and glue the chosen material into a honeycomb shape, wind it up with the cord, attach to the rollers, and voila! Cellular shades at a fraction of the cost of new.
At the very least, ditch the heavy velvet and opt for lighter materials in fun colors. The light will still influence the room, but not to the point of fading everything in it. Save the heavy draperies for Southern and Western exposures, where you’ll need the most protection.
If new windows aren’t in the budget, then innovative lighting is useful. Three types of lighting make our lives easier: task lighting, focus lighting, and ambient lighting. Focus lighting is usually used to highlight artwork, sculpture, or a collection of some type.
Task lighting is generally a kitchen thing. You’ll find it in innovative drop lights over an island and/or over the kitchen table. Under-cabinet lights are task lighting as well. Office workers often use task lighting when they pull a goose-neck lamp over papers they’re reading. Many homeowners have such lighting over their beds for reading.
Most anything can be used as task lighting, from drop lights using Mason jars to copper bowls, and from wire baskets to carriage lamps. Homeowners with creative friends might use lighting made of twisted metals, wood creations, or perhaps glass such as fishbowls or uniquely shaped and/or colored vases. The sky is the limit!
Homeowners usually think of track lighting when they want to highlight a feature of the house. A fireplace, a bay window made into a cozy little nook, and ceiling beams come to mind as things homeowners highlight. Some homeowners use track lighting over their kitchen islands, over their staircases, and strung around the parameters of a room like Christmas lights around a roof line.
Buyers look for lighting, both natural and electric. The more places they find lit, the more they’ll be inclined to buy the house. Homeowners will have a great idea when they highlight some of their innovative storage solutions, such as stair well storage and bookcase units doubling as built-in solutions.
7. About That Space
Creating space from nothing isn’t easy. The solutions, however, are things no one has thought of. For example, if homeowners are handy with a hammer, build built-in shelving lining the family room with a window seat including storage beneath a window. Instant space.
Not many kitchens are large enough to hold very many people and still get any cooking done. Solve this problem by building a table that folds into the wall much like a Murphy bed. Instead of bar stools or chairs around the kitchen island, build seats into the island.
Alternatively, why have anything at all? Roll the island out of the way, fold up the Murphy-like table, and you’ll have room for family to help prepare holiday meals. Showing potential buyers how it works will impress them.
Space in bedrooms is at a premium. This can be remedied by building cubby-like units on the walls. Toys, books, and stuffed animals will fill the cubbies. Between them could be a bed with storage drawers beneath the mattress and box spring. Fill the closets with organizers. Then there will be plenty of space in the bedrooms.
8. Windows On The World
People love an outdoor room. If it’s only a couple chairs and a table near a fire pit, it’s still an outdoor room. However, homeowners with a full-blown paved, covered area complete with stove, fridge, counters, table and chairs, and lighting have room for improvement.
We’ll bet you didn’t know that windows from the kitchen to the outdoor room or outdoor kitchen roll up like a garage door. The framework holding the panes of glass is all that’s engaged. If homeowners can’t handle that, their kitchen windows can open much like an awning. Prop them open, and pass out food from the kitchen to those waiting in the outdoor room.
9. Inspirational
Many decorators use words in plaster on walls, on sofa pillows, and in framed pictures to inspire. Want to thrill potential buyers? Use your own inspirational words, phrases, or sentences in a light-up marquee. Place at random spots in the house for an inspirational moment.
10. Door Number Two, Please
Aren’t microwaves funny? There’s never a really good place for them. In desperation, builders mount them beneath cabinets, atop ovens, or just leave them on counters. Why not build a cabinet of its own on the island? It’s out of the way, but near enough when you need it.
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