5 Ways To Improve Your Home On a Budget

Paint Your Front Door

Yes, really! This may seem really simple but painting your front door can help to boost the appearance (and even the value) of your home. Whether you touch up chips and peeling paint or give it a total makeover, improving how your front door looks from the road provides a great first impression. Research shows that the colour blue can add the most value, adding as much as £4,000 to the value of your home. Sunny yellow and dramatic black are also popular colours — play with classic hues from paint brands like Farrow & Ball, such as Stiffkey Blue. If your door is looking particularly drab and you’ve got more time and money to spare, you could even change your door entirely to suit the character of your home.

Think: Storage

If your house is lacking interior storage, create some! Our modern lives come with a lot of ‘stuff’, whether that’s boxes of Christmas decorations or those golf clubs you might just use again one day. Clear out cupboards to show off any existing storage space and add shelves and wardrobes to alcoves. Even if not permanent, for example a console table in the hall, it’s a good place to hide your personal things out of sight during viewings. If you really can’t bear to throw anything away and have a lot of personal possessions, you could consider putting some items in a rentable storage unit (such as Big Yellow) to keep them out of sight (and safe!) until you’re in your new home.

Change Up Your Kitchen

If your kitchen is looking a little dated, you don’t need to head down to your nearest cabinet maker or B&Q just yet. If the units are in good condition, consider giving them a lick of paint too: you can buy specialist kitchen cabinet paint from DIY stores which covers a multitude of sins. While you’re at it, you can upgrade your kitchen handles too for a more modern look that costs about £100 for the average kitchen.

Give Your Garden Some TLC

While most prospective buyers have some ‘vision’ when it comes to their next property, nothing is more off-putting than an unkempt outside space — especially at this time of lockdowns and outside socialising. If your garden is particularly bad, consider getting in a professional for the day to clear out weeds, overgrown trees and improve the lawns. You can also do this yourself to save some cash for other improvements: most household recycling centres have an area for garden waste, and if you don’t have your own tools you might be able to borrow them from a neighbour or friend. Don’t neglect the front of your house though: a few window boxes in spring or a wreath at Christmastime will work wonders.

Don’t Overlook The Bathroom

You might consider making changes to your bathroom a ‘big job’, but there are a few small tweaks you can make to improve dingy tiles and crusty chrome on a budget. Give all the sanitaryware a good scrub and pay particular attention to tiles; once you’ve removed the dirt, you can give them a polish with grout reviver if necessary. If taps are particularly bad, consider changing them. Basic taps and threads cost as little as £15 and you can even replace the ‘HOT’ and ‘COLD’ top caps on period-style taps too.