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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.
This post may include affiliate links.
#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!
RELATED:
#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.
CNN reports that home affordability is in a pretty bad situation. The income of a typical American homebuyer rose from $88k in July 2022 to $107k in July 2023. Considering that the median income of someone living in the US is around $75k, this puts homeownership out of reach for many families. Especially those with kids.
Or, to put it simply, if you’re rich(er), you’ll have a far easier time buying property because you have more flexibility. You can outcompete everyone else. “In a still-competitive housing market, more well-off home buyers were able to have their bids accepted by offering larger down payments and even by paying cash,” Jessica Lautz, the deputy chief economics and vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors, said.
#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).
Lame Llama 1 year ago
I think thevoriginal state looks better. Bricks need time to "live" and gain character.
#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!
WindySwede 1 year ago
Just be careful not blasting water into the house walls and get mould instead?
#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!
Averysleepypanda 1 year ago
I did the opposite of this. I waa tired of the slide out getting nasty and having to clean it up constantly. The drawer front gets nasty too.
The issue isn’t just big downpayments and mind-melting mortgages, however. There’s also a problem with home supply. The average age of a first-time home buyer in 2023 in the US is 35. That’s down from 36 a year ago, but higher than before. Meanwhile, average repeat home buyers this year are around 58 years of age.
According to CNN, families with young children are having a tougher time affording property. 70% of recent buyers didn’t have kids who were under 18 years old in the home. Compare that to way back in 1985 when only 42% of home buyers didn’t have kids under that age in the home.
Another trend that we’re seeing is that remote workers are more willing to move to find affordable properties.
#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.
#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
When it comes to upgrading your home, learning some basic DIY skills is your best bet. There are plenty of free tutorials on the internet and on YouTube for whatever small project you have in mind.
In some cases, however, your home might be in a bad state, and you may need a handyman’s help. That might up the cost of your upgrade, though. What you’re paying for is experience, speed, and the ability to be creative in complex situations. But in order to get someone who doesn’t cut corners, you should look at their previous work and check out recommends them. If they’re reliable, they’ll have a good reputation. And they might even give some tips on what else you can do at home by yourself.
#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!
#11
a bidet. I feel like I'm in the stone ages anywhere else.
#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!
#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
jdtimid123 1 year ago
Painting is probably the easiest and least expensive way to give your home a makeover. And if you don't like it you can always do it over (although people who don't enjoy painting might not be a fan of the idea). I painted our brown living room a cream color and it made the room so much brighter.
#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.
#15
$20 showerhead to replace the dumb expensive rainfall one that was there. Best $20 I spent this decade.
ohmyjustme 1 year ago
ugh! As someone with very long and very thick hair, I support this one. When I use a rainfall shower, it's a struggle to rinse out the shampoo
#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!
Heather Vandegrift 1 year ago
You don't realize how much you drag your feet until you get a finishing nail poked up in one spot in a threshold or a piece of vinyl flooring pop up at just the edge!
#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.
GettingCereal 1 year ago
Definitely a subjective change. I actually prefer the "ugly brass" ones here.
#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.
#19
Some USB outlets
Alexej Dvorak 1 year ago (edited)
I was considering these when renovating my home before moving in. But for the price of one I could get five regular outlets and USB adapters for them.
#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.
jdtimid123 1 year ago
The previous owners of our house made a lot of, IMO, questionable cosmetic decisions, like purple carpets in the whole upstairs and dark walls in the small living room. Been slowly replacing things.
#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
#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.
jdtimid123 1 year ago
Meanwhile I'm over here wishing we had more windows so I can find more spots for my plants 😅
#24
Motion sensor light switch in the powder room. Never do that reach around in the dark again.
featherytoad 1 year ago (edited)
Who turns on the light in the middle of the night. That's what night lights are for. But I'm sure this comes in handy when those pesky light switches are always moving around the room to keep you guessing.
#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
#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.
Bubs623 1 year ago
Soft close hinges are amazing but one note of caution: they sometimes don't line up exactly and you'll get a gap between the door and the cabinet base. It's minimal for most and doesn't bother us, but for some people it would drive them nuts to have that gap. Test one before doing them all.
#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.
Michelle Reynolds 1 year ago
Vintage stuff really only looks right when the whole house has at least some elements. My house was build in '86 and it would be a waste to use anything fabulous like that. My next house will be an old bungalow with tons of charm (I hope ;)
#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
Firstname Lastname 1 year ago
For those of you not risking weird search history, a boob light is a flush-mount dome light. And now I won't be able to unsee it.
#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!
Shelli Aderman 1 year ago
That’s great in theory, but hopefully the OP got plastic-coating spray paint, and took the covers off before painting them. 🤞🏾
#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!
What do you think ?
Erik Ivan 1 year ago
Raising the bed slightly. My wife is handicapped, and it makes it so much easier for her to get out of bed
Bec 1 year ago
Our bathroom sink was weirdly low, have definitely noticed the difference after replacing it - much easier to wash my face in the sink. I'm friends with a couple who is taller and they added a 2x4 frame before installing their vanity to gain some height
Load More Replies...
Cyber Returns 1 year ago
I bought 6 LED solar powered motion sensor lights from Amazon for less than £50 and they are really good. I have some set up in my garden to light up the whole garden at night. One where we park our car so we can take in the shopping after a night time shopping trip and one above the front door which also lights up the path in front of the small front garden
Erik Ivan 1 year ago
Raising the bed slightly. My wife is handicapped, and it makes it so much easier for her to get out of bed
Bec 1 year ago
Our bathroom sink was weirdly low, have definitely noticed the difference after replacing it - much easier to wash my face in the sink. I'm friends with a couple who is taller and they added a 2x4 frame before installing their vanity to gain some height
Load More Replies... Cyber Returns 1 year ago
I bought 6 LED solar powered motion sensor lights from Amazon for less than £50 and they are really good. I have some set up in my garden to light up the whole garden at night. One where we park our car so we can take in the shopping after a night time shopping trip and one above the front door which also lights up the path in front of the small front garden
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