Ever look around your home and made plans to add a lick of paint here and to replace a rattling door handle there? Of course you have. We all do it. There are two things holding us back. The first is time. The last thing you want to do when you finally get a break from work is jump into some overalls and pull out your screwdriver for some alone time with the creaky floorboards at the top of your stairs.
Finding time is hard. But when you do, you may run into issues with money. For most of us, money is not in endless supply, and home improvements just to get things back to the way they were before they fell apart can feel like a gut-punch of an expense. Let’s look at home improvements and repairs on a shoestring budget.
Make do and mend
Make do and mend is an old saying that gets brought out of retirement each time someone wants to give non-specific advice on saving money. The sentiment is simple enough. Repairing a table leg rather than buying a whole new table is always going to be cheaper (also see appliance repair Tacoma). Let’s stretch this a little further. I once knew a neighbour to replace all of the windows and frames in their house due to one little crack in an upstairs window that occurred when shifting a TV stand and an ornament fell off. Now, you can either make do, or mend the one pane. Easy savings.
Fake your flooring
Floors get scuffed and dirty and occasionally need to be replaced. That’s life. However, a hardwood floor and installation costs can set you back the price of buying seasonal timeshares in villas around the world and living there instead. What you need is peel and stick flooring. The effect is as close to lifelike as possible, and will cover a multitude of damaged-floor sins at a fraction of the price.
Concrete worktops and kitchen counters
If your worktops are worn and you need a new look but don’t have the budget for some of the more common – and expensive – solutions like granite, you may want to get involved in concrete. Yes, concrete. This doesn’t mean creating a whole worktop from scratch – you’re going to be using the existing countertop as a base. It’s fast, simple, cheap, and looks incredible – nobody will be able to tell it’s concrete.
