When you look around your home, you might be bored of the design or in need of more space as your family grows. But your love for the location and memories built here are making the concept of moving too difficult.
Luckily there is another way to bring life back into your home without having to pack up and leave. We are talking about renovation!
There are so many ways to renovate your home, some are cheap, and others are dramatic. We will show you 30 amazing ideas to help you figure out what your home needs.
1. Use The Area Under The Stairs
Staircases have a lot of room underneath them. That block of wood or plaster along the staircase only has one job – hide the carpenter’s work. That used to be a fashionable statement in a home, but now we prefer hiding away unsightly utilities (like washing machines) or using the space productively.
For any of these options to work, you will need to remove the material covering the staircase.
There is a myriad of ideas to help you utilize this untouched area, and it can range from adding more space to sprucing your decor.
Here are our favorite options:
Hiding bulky appliances
You can tuck vacuum cleaners, washing machines, or any other needed by unsightly tools into the staircase space. This can free up the room around your home and keep the items out of the way. You can then add a door to the open space to hide the appliances with ease.
Pantry
Adding shelves to the area can help you store those long-life ingredients. Put the shelving unit around the sides, allowing yourself space to get into the cupboard, and hey-presto, you have added more storage space to your home.
Hallway Wardrobe
Putting hooks underneath your staircase will allow you to store your constantly used coats and umbrellas without them being in the way. Many people use coat hangers near their door, but in reality, it creates an ugly view into your home – suggesting your house is cluttered. Hiding the coats away neatly into the staircase de-clutters the viewpoint while still staying functional.
2. Baseboard Drawers
Baseboard drawers are also known as toe-kick drawers. This is because you tap them with your foot to open them up. From such a description, you might wonder where these drawers could possibly go!
Baseboard drawers replace the skirting board around your kitchen. Instead of having just a blank of wood to stop dust from getting under your counters, the toe-kick drawer also allows you to expand your storage.
The anti-dust protection is still in effect, as the drawers will stop crumbs from getting under the counters, but now you can store those hardly used appliances out of your main areas.
Baking equipment, seasonal gadgets, and anything that you don’t want to throw away but are constantly in the way now have a place to live!
3. Exterior Renovations
It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? Well, as much as we want that to be true, the outside of your property is important too.
If the paint is chipping or the design is old-fashioned, you can easily feel embarrassed about your home.
An easy fix can be painting the exterior. Although the idea is simple, sprucing up the outside with a fresh lick of paint can do wonders for the home’s appearance. You can even use the paintwork to modernize your home by adding changing gradients, or a block of dark color for 5 feet, and a block of light color for the rest of the building.
If you don’t like the idea of painting, you can renovate your exterior in other ways. For example, you can add greenery through well-placed flowers or add wooden features. There is so much you can do!
4. Create More Usable Space
To some, getting more usable space means adding an extension. Although that is a valid option, it is an expensive one. Before you dive into your pockets, try some of these cost-saving options first.
Doubling Up
If your growing children need more space in their room for a desk, but you haven’t got room to adapt the area, they probably end up doing homework on the kitchen table. Although this is good for a short-term fix, your child will start associating work with food. This could cause problems with productivity or appetite.
We have another solution to avoid this. If you have a countertop that is mostly unused, paint it a separate color to the kitchen and add in shelves for textbooks. This distinct design is enough to disconnect your child’s workspace from their eating space, allowing them to work peacefully without procrastination
Open Space With Dividers
If you have an open space, which seems too large for its needs, add in some dividers. These decorative art pieces both add to your home’s decor and allow you to separate the space around you. Now that open space can be halved, giving you the ability to separate their functions too.
For example, a large living room with a divider can turn the second half into a library or a gym. The partition can make this happen by stopping you from seeing the room as one entity and instead as two separate spaces.
5. Add Or Upgrade The Kitchen Island
Adding in a kitchen island can give your home more space. It might seem contradictory but open space in a kitchen isn’t needed; instead, you should have more countertops!
This way, you can have more appliances going at the same time, you can have more spaces to chop, and you can keep more items out without feeling cluttered.
If you already have a kitchen island but think it looks a little outdated, there are some easy ways to upgrade it. The first idea is to paint the sides.
A simple paint job could be all you need to spark life back into the area. If that isn’t enough, you can add a beadboard to the under-side to create more definition and a delicate atmosphere.
6. Make The Most Of Lighting
Using the natural light of the area can be a simple way to create a magical atmosphere. You could place a window where you know the morning sun will shine a beautiful light in the morning.
Or, if you know that the stars shine strongly in your area, adding a ceiling window could produce a magical sight.
Alternatively, you can add warm artificial lights into hidden areas of your home to create a welcoming atmosphere. For example, you can place LED light strips along the skirting boards or place lamps in open spaces.
7. Use Open Shelves
Open shelves are when your cupboard spaces don’t have doors to hide them. They essentially put your items on display, adding to the decor of the room.
If you live in a minimalist home, where all of your plates and cooking utensils are beautiful but sparse, this concept will be perfect for you.
The only drawback is dust. Without a door to protect your items, you will need to dust more areas of your home. However, if you don’t have a lot of bowls, to begin with, they will likely be cleaned often anyway.
8. Try Different Shapes
When we say “different shapes,” we mean adding geometric patterned wallpaper to a sparse room. For example, you should use circular tables in your living room, where the couch, TV, bookshelf, and TV stand are all rectangles.
Adding new shapes can give you a different perspective on your rooms. Roundness often conveys emotions that can be balanced in bedrooms, kitchens, or living rooms.
Sharp shapes can create order, while multiple sharp shapes invoke action. Having one straight horizontal line of paint separating the middle of your office can help you feel structured, whereas lots of lines and spikes in your gym room can help you push through your normal limit.
9. Lower Your Living Room
This idea isn’t cheap, but it can create a fresh feeling about your home.
Removing a large square of your living room and dropping the floor level down to about couch height can give you the feeling of lying down.
This is super comfortable when you are watching a movie, as you can lie down without having to stretch your neck.
10. Choose New Colors
We have talked about giving your home a paint job to revitalize the feeling of freshness, but you may have to go one step further.
Changing the color scheme of your home can make you feel like you are living in a completely different house.
Adding vibrant colors to a white wall can give it a sense of whimsy that wasn’t there before. Adding dark shades to a brightly lit room can suggest a level of sophistication.
Even just changing one version of a color to a different one can make you feel as though the room is different.
Experiment playing with different colors in one room, and see how the changes affect your perspective.
11. Eco-Friendly Renovations
Eco-friendly renovations tend to come in two versions. The first is opting for easy changes that can keep your bills low and help the planet at the same time.
The other is a complete u-haul of your home for an almost completely zero carbon footprint.
The first is more achievable, so let’s follow that thought process. Changing your windows to double-glazing allows you to trap more heat in your home, meaning you need less energy to keep your home comfortable.
Secondly, insulating the walls, floor, and roof will also stop the heat from escaping, saving your money on energy bills.
You should try installing a solar panel on your roof. This collects the sun’s rays to power your home, reducing your bills.
Any power leftover can be sold to the state earning you money in the process.
This can make your home more affordable.
12. A Glass Link
Glass links are a relatively new concept. Essentially, they are glass corridors to allow you to move from your main building to an art studio or other structure without blocking your view.
You are protected from the weather while still getting to experience the world around you.
They are beautiful contraptions that work amazingly well in old farmhouses that are being renovated or any property with multiple buildings.
The best place to put them in between your main building and your indoor swimming pool. This allows the swimmers to go back into the house without stepping on the cold or dirty floor.
13. A Connection With The Garden
When we say “create a connection with the garden,” we don’t mean add a patio (although that’s not a bad idea).
We mean, allow your garden to reach into your home. You could add in a wall-sized window that will enable you to look out into the garden whenever you please.
You could bring plant life into your home to create a sense of wilderness around you.
Green scenery is proven to help with mental health issues. It improves your mood, boosts your self-esteem, and deepens your attention span.
Allowing these benefits to reach into your home will enable those positive feelings to grow around you too.
14. The Voluminous Space
Adding volume to space means creating space that isn’t there, like an optical illusion.
This can be done by adding mirrors to narrow hallways, creating lines along with the long elements of the room, and keeping the short areas blank.
If you want to make a bigger space feel smaller, you can use dark colors to narrow in the area. This can be painted on the ceiling to lower the room’s height or on the walls to make it seem slimmer.
If the room is strangely shaped, using light and dark can create the illusion that the space is more even than it is.
This concept isn’t easy to master, so it might take a couple of tries before you find the perfect fit.
15. A Broken Plan Layout
Broken plan layouts are becoming increasingly popular. They are similar to open-plan layouts, as they give you lots of space.
However, they add in areas of “broken” cuts through this open space to create more dimension.
For example, adding shelving and screens to cut the room up or creating more space by adding windows instead of knocking down a wall.
This can make your space feel larger without removing all of its uses. Your counters can be functional and pretty at the same time.
16. Adding Facelifts To Existing Openings
As you may have noticed by now, we cannot praise the concept of re-painting enough. If your front door, windows, garage door, or any other opening to your home needs a facelift, try re-painting first.
The doors and windows can instantly tell a viewer how well you look after your home. Cracked paint can be enough of an indicator that cleaning and maintenance aren’t a top priority.
These assumptions happen instantly, and your guests might not even realize that that’s how they came to the conclusion. But a quick paint job to these areas can make it seem like a whole new home.
17. Exposing The Organic Fabric Of The House
For most people, their home is a place of peace. Adding nature to your space can help you create a scenic landscape inside your walls.
Depending on where you live, you should figure out how the landscape around you can be brought indoors. If you live near a forest, you can find tall, dark trees to add to your garden or the corners of a room.
If you live near the desert, you could add salt rocks or sunset pictures. If you live in a city, you could include the skyline in the artwork.
If your home was made with exposed wood, make it bear and let the natural aesthetic take hold in the house.
18. Ceiling Glazing
We’ve already talked about adding in-ceiling windows to let in the natural light, but you can use this trick even if you live in a dense city. If you don’t have windows on the side of your building as the only view you’d get is your neighbor’s wall, a ceiling window can solve that problem.
A view into the sky can be just as beautiful as any other view, and you can still let in natural light.
19. No Problems, Only Solutions
If you love the ideas that we are putting out but cannot see them working in your home. Follow this motto – “No Problems, Only Solutions.” Just as large windows in a dense city might not make sense, but a ceiling window does, the same logic can be put on other aspects of your home.
For example, if you love the idea of using a solar panel, but your roof is facing the wrong direction, consider using your garage roof instead.
Or perhaps, you like the idea of using open shelves, but you have too many appliances for that to look good. Instead of removing all the doors, simply remove a couple to give a similar effect.
20. Consider A Third Story
Adding an extra story to your home can be all you need to access more space and boost the value of your home.
When most people consider an extension, they go out, not up. If you live in a packed area, going out isn’t always an option, so you might think extensions are not a choice for you. But as we said before, there are no problems, only solutions. Go up instead!
You will be taking up less land and can use the heating from the bottom two floors.
21. Internal Glass Doors
Glass doors are perfect for rooms that need more light. The reflection of light can make your rooms seem bigger and brighter than it was originally.
The glass will also offer the same open-shelf aesthetics but without the issue of dust.
You can also choose what type of glass you’d like to choose, transparent, translucent, colored, patterned, etc.
22. A Built-In Joinery
If your house has tricky areas that you don’t know how to use, consider built-in joinery. These are built into the furniture, created especially for your home, so you don’t have to worry about them fitting correctly.
These could include beds, bookshelves, window seats, or anything you like! Every little nook in your home could be turned into something practical or pretty, so don’t dismiss anything as empty space.
The best thing to do with these unused spaces is to turn them into storage. Creating an odd-sized cupboard could be perfect for hiding away kids’ toys, out-of-season clothes, or even everyday items that don’t have a home yet.
If you have no need for extra storage right now, then this space is ready for when you expand.
We constantly gather more things as we move along with our lives, so having more storage can help you prepare for this future problem. And you will be dealing with it in style.
23. Exposed Brickwork
Exposed brick has been a favorite for years now. It gives your home a lovely rustic feeling without creating too much work for you. It is affordable for most people, seeing as you simply have to remove the plastering to find the artwork hidden behind.
However, if your home isn’t made out of bricks, you can still accomplish this look. Instead of pulling back the plaster, you need to cement it on.
This means finding the bricks that best suit the aesthetic you are going for, either cutting them in half or sanding them down to half their size, then cementing them on the wall.
You want them to be halved so that it feels as though the bricks are the right size. Keep them as they are, and anyone looking will realize that they are too thick for the wall. Make them too small as they won’t have the “exposed” texture you are hoping for.
Because of this technical balance, you should ask a professional to help you, making this affordable design more expensive.
24. Embrace Original Features
If you live in an old building, the main reason for your renovation could be to see what lies beneath. The beautiful artwork hidden due to changing fashions could prove to be more stunning and historical than anything you could add to the property.
If you unearth a fireplace, murals, or unique tiling, you should embrace these long-covered masterpieces and make them the focal point of the room. You could give them a tidy-up and add to what has been lost, or you could keep them as the partially destroyed aesthetic of history.
Embracing the figures could mean finding other rustic items that could complement the findings, including scrap wood tables, the artwork of the time, or similar color patterns.
25. Get Rid Of Awkward Layouts
Renovations are the perfect opportunity to remove the layouts that don’t work anymore. Maybe the previous homeowner had some wacky ideas, or perhaps you have a better vision for the space in front of you.
Either way, breaking down those awkward designs can help you find more space and create more light than you had before.
As we said before, you don’t need a wall to separate two spaces. Using dividers or painting the room in one color and the other in another could be all you need to create separation.
This helps you keep the space open while avoiding strange layouts that can be hard to fit furniture into.
Ideally, you should have a space that can fit “normal” sized furniture, so you don’t have to spend tons of money on custom builds all the time.
26. Bring Moldings To Life
Most period houses had wonderful moldings along the sides of the ceiling. They are delicate and elegant, but sometimes with a spark of whimsy. If your home has one of these decorations, you could paint them to bring them back to life.
Normally a classic and pure white is all you need to give the moldings the attention they deserve. However, depending on the rest of the room, you may need a little more.
Ideally, the color and “pop” from the room should come from the walls and the furniture; white should be trailed along aspects of the room to pair with the ceiling.
However, if your whole room is white, the moldings will blur into the background. Consider painting them a pastel color instead to keep the room light while drawing focus to the ceiling.
27. Make The Most Of Sloping Ceilings
If you have a loft conversion or a room with strangely shaped ceilings, you don’t need to write off the area as unusable. Instead, create feature ornaments or beauty spots to tie the room together.
You need a decoration in the room anyway, but if you don’t have a lot of “standing” space, you should save as much of it as possible for maneuverability.
You can put a small chest of draws under the sloping ceiling, saving the walking room for movement and making the sloped area usable.
You can do the same with small and thin tables for plants or trinks too.
28. Split Level Living Ideas
We have already mentioned lowering your living room space to create the illusion that you are lying down when you watch a movie, but you can take that idea one step further.
Instead of taking out a square in your living room, you can instead lower the whole floor. Adding these extra steps can make a boring open-plan seem more engaging.
The extra levels give your eyes more to look at, as the floor itself becomes an artistic extension of you.
This style first became popular in the 1960s, and if you have items or artwork that comes from that era, too, then this change in level could tie those elements together.
29. Fancy Floors
Speaking of floors, if you like the idea of making the ground part of your aesthetic but think adding an extra level is more of a tripping hazard than art, try using fancy floor tiles.
These are tiles that create a picture when placed together. The picture could be an optical illusion, where it seems like there is nothing below you or that the floor is three-dimensional.
Perhaps the image looks like carved wood, but in reality, the tiles are just well painted. Or maybe the fancy nature comes from the placement of tiles to create an image personal to you or simply beautiful to look at.
Tiles can add sophistication to your flooring, and they are easy to clean, making them perfect additions to a home.
30. Stencils
Lastly, a super simple and inexpensive way to change up your home is to use stencils. You can make the stencils yourself or buy them online.
They can be used on furniture, walls, ceilings, or any surface you please.
Stencils have holes in them which you can paint over using a brush or a spray gun. Ideally, you should use paint that matches the surface.
You can make the images any color you desire and pick whichever pattern you like. Because you are only painting, you can paint over the image if you end up not liking it, making it a super low-risk renovation idea.
You can try out the idea by cutting out the image with the desired colors first and then taping them to the area you hope to paint. Keep it there for a couple of days and see how you feel.
Summary
Have a look around your home and see which of our ideas best suits the space you have. Weigh up your options with your budget and consider which makes the most sense for you.
A paint job is always a safe bet and can instantly revitalize your home, whereas an extra story added to your building can give you much more space.
Understand what you need from your extension and how these ideas could create that for you.