Kate Hackett
Home renovations don’t have to be big bathroom remodels or kitchen tear-downs. You can get quite a lot of bang for your buck with some of these smaller ideas.
Over in the Home Improvement subreddit, u/scal369 asked its members what smaller ($500-1000) changes were “total game changers” and people jumped into the comments. As a homeowner myself, I gotta say: I’m psyched to get into this list! So without further ado…
1. The OG Post
On top of my head the most common ones I read were –
Bidet
Robot vacuum
LED lights/Motion sensor lights
Smart switches/bulbs/smart thermostat
Paint
Smart door locks/garage doors
Extra fridge/freezer
Farmhouse sink
Soft close cabinets
Soft close toilet seats
2. Side house water
When my kids were little I bought a refrigerated water fountain and put it on the side of my house facing my backyard. I’d love to know how many thousands of gallons the neighborhood kids drank. It saved them from coming in the house when they were playing outside. Total game changer. They liked drinking from it so much they would get off the couch and go outside to get a drink.
3. Cabinet hinges
Cabinet hinges with slow-close springs. Like moving to Beverly Hills.
4. Metal hose reel
Commercial grade metal hose reel that attaches to the house. Its up high and is a dream to operate compared to that dumb reel-in-a-box thing we used to have sitting on the ground. Probably spent $150 on it at Northern Tool.
5. Repainting
Painted the interior of the whole house before moving in. It feels 20 years newer.
6. New House
Every 5 [editor note: …paint should last more than 5 years, but sure] years pretend you’re going to sell your house. Paint, carpet, trim, declutter, whatever. Freshen things up and it will feel like a new house.
7. Replace switches
When doing this consider new light switches/outlets and faceplates.
Makes an old place look totally brand new.
I think people forget these things wear and yellow with age.
Bonus: some new door knobs/hinges.
Now you live in a new home.
8. Insulation
Insulated the attic for ~ $500 plus $150 to put a bathroom fan in(in the upstairs bathroom before I blew the insulation in)
Easily have saved $1800 in heating and cooling costs since
9. Automatic lights
Automatic light sensors for the laundry room and pantry. Not having to fumble while carrying a load with two hands is wonderful.
10. Sliding shelves
Sliding shelves for all the lower kitchen cabinets. I eventually want to swap all the lowers out for drawers, but sliding shelves was a low-cost upgrade in the meantime that adds SO much more functionality.
11. Basement
Spray insulated my rim joists for about $800. Don’t know how much weve saved in heating yet, but my basement is at least 10 degrees warmer on average.
12. Front loaders
Way cheaper than $500 but if you have front loading washer and dryer combo, go to Home Depot or some thing similar and buy the prefab particle board counter top with the moulded 4-6” back slash on it and lay that over them to give your self a new counter space/remove gaps where clothes can fall down between Units and the back part keeps things from falling behind them too
13. Garage
Shelving system in the garage. The amount of space we freed up was well worth the cost considering we don’t have a basement or a useable attic for storage.
deleted
14. Door sweeps
Best $20 investment was properly fitting door sweeps. I didn’t realize how much cold air was entering the house during the heating season. Take time to measure the size of the gap and width of the door.
15. Humidifier
For the dry winter months, install an automatic whole home humidifier. Total game changer in terms of breathing and feel of the air. With an automatic control, there is no adjusting the humidity level to balance with outside temps, keeping excess condensation under control.
I went with the Aprilaire 500 – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039PR5RE/
Definitely a heavily involved install for DIY, but doable with the right skills/tools.
16. Stupid split sinks
Single basin stainless steel kitchen sink. I will never do a split basin sink again. The ability to wash a full baking sheet in the bottom of the sink with room to spare is a game changer
17. Many ideas!
Way less than $500, but removable shower heads. Makes cleaning the shower so much easier.
Also less than $500, smart lights and plugs for interior and exterior lights.
Then, closer to $500, the artificial Christmas tree that already has the lights in them. No more tangled light strings. Get them on a smart plug and you don’t have to fiddle with it all season.
$500-$1000: drinks fridge. Keeps booze and bottled drinks out of the kitchen fridge space.
More than $1000, remote control motorized blackout shades in the bedroom. Pretty much total darkness. And you can set up a schedule for them to auto open partially to fully. We used Hunter Douglas via Costco.
18. Extra fridge / freezer
Extra fridge. Just by coincidence right when the pandemic started we replaced our fridge and left our old one in the garage planning on craigslisting it. We kept it instead and used it for bulk storage. It’s been great – fewer visits to the grocery store, and more home cooking.
19. Litter Robot
Litter-Robot. As a cat owner, it is absolutely worth the money. I’m happier, my cats are happier. Odor, mess, and overall costs and efforts are down dramatically.
20. Closet
New closet system! It made a huge difference and I wish I would’ve done it as soon as I moved in. I used the aurdal system from ikea and it was about $600 for my medium sized walk-in closet.
21. Vent
Range hood vent. I can cook what I want and sear the fuck out of some steaks.
22. Dishwasher
A dishwasher is a must. So many fights used to be about who’s turn to do the dishes. Now we just place them in the dishwasher with some soap and press the button.
23. Smart Lights
Hue lights for sure. You can turn your lights on and off from work if you think you forgot one. Dim any and everything and tell Alexa/Siri/Google to turn of any particular light or turn it to a percentage of total brightness. It’s amazing.
24. Attic fans
Dad put in an attic whole house fan. In the morning when it’s cool it pushes hot air out of the attic, so the house doesn’t even heat up until after 3PM. He runs the fan for 10 minutes with an outside window or front door open, and then whole house cools.
He then runs this in the evening too , so again hot air in the roof is forced out.
It saves so much on cooling bills even when it’s over 100F outside during the day. Using the evening breezes to cool the house works great where we are.
25. Yards
When I had toddlers that answer was a fully fenced yard. Life changing.
