Many people dream about remodeling their beloved homes. You’ll find countless posts of dream designs and makeovers all over social media, dozens of TV shows dedicated to big home overhauls, and so much more. Whether you’re looking to renovate your home to simply upgrade your space, or are a seasoned serial flipper. Update a dated home is an exciting undertaking and can be a fun project. Home renovations pay off by making your living space nicer and by adding value to its bottom line.
Some people cringe at the thought of undertaking a big remodeling job–and with good reason! Depending on the project, a renovation can last for months; this can be a serious pain if it denies you access to parts of your home, especially an important one like the kitchen or bathroom. They might drag on for weeks or months if you need to obtain the proper permits, or if appliances or materials are on backorder. In short, they can be a real headache.
How to Update a Dated Home without Remodelling
Fortunately, not every remodeling requires an extensive renovation that’ll rip up the whole house. There are several ways you can update a dated home without remodeling. We’ll show you how. Admittedly, there are sometimes no ways around a big renovation if you want to create that dream kitchen or build that magazine-esque foyer. But, we recommend you at least consider the 10 tips we’ll share in this article before you do!
Reupholster Some Furniture
This is probably the greatest example of reusing that you’ll find. If you’ve had a couch, ottoman, easy chair, and so on, for several years, it’s probably showing some age and wear and tear…especially if you have kids or pets! However, just because the nice leather or microfiber is a little beat up doesn’t mean the furniture itself needs to be thrown away.
Often, it’s a little cheaper to have your existing furniture reupholstered. You can choose from virtually any material, pattern, and design, and it’ll look like brand-new furniture. This is a great option if you spent a significant amount of money on quality furniture, and don’t want to throw it away. You don’t have to always reupholster the furniture either: sometimes you can revive it by having the fabric professionally cleaned, or getting the leather re-stained and treated. Either way, we strongly recommend this option before getting new furniture for your home update; it could save you some money in the long run and drastically change the mood or color palette of a room.
Paint, Paint, Paint
Paint can be considered a mini-renovation in and of itself. The walls may be the foundation of the house, but the paint is the foundation of the design. No matter what decorations, light fixtures, and furniture you place in the room, the mood of the room boils down to the paint color. If you’re looking to update your home, a new coat of paint can be a very good place to start. It could be necessary too, if you’re purchasing a home that might have had lead paint.
Paint is also very forgiving. You can purchase several shades of a color and give them a test run at home, and then paint over the whole thing when you make your decision. You can do this as many times as you like, too. And, unlike ripping up the floor or walls, most rooms can be painted in a day or two, plus some time to dry, so you’re not being cut off from a part of the house for long.
Let There Be Some New Light
Paint is the foundation of the mood in a room, and lighting is a close second–after all, it doesn’t matter what color the room is, if it’s not lit well enough to appreciate all the designs. There are several fairly quick ways to increase or alter the light in a certain room.
First, the simplest and cheapest. Start out by changing out the lightbulbs. If you are using incandescent or lower-end LEDs, the lighting could be harsh or too weak. Switch them out for some newer and nicer LED bulbs that are brighter and project a more natural light. Smart LEDs are nifty too, if you’re a tech-savvy person.
Another option is to switch out the existing fixture in the room. A cheap way to do this is by giving the existing fixture a new coat of paint and some new lightbulb covers; the more premium way is to simply buy a new fixture. Take a tour through your local home improvement store for some inspiration. They’re usually fairly simple to install, too.
New Hardware
This is a cost-effective way to add a new touch to your home and can be applied to just about any room in the house to continue the theme. Admittedly, it’s not going to update your home as much as the rest of the list, but it’s very simple and quick and can add to the overall feel of the home.
You can buy a bunch of new hardware in bulk for your kitchen cabinets, door handles, switch covers, and thermostats. In about an hour, you can install them into every door and cabinet in your home. It’s a great way to change up the accent color of your home; if you’ve decided to paint the cabinets or doors in your home, this is a great way to seal the deal with a quick touch. You can also do the same with faucets and taps in your house too. Note that you can do all of this in stages, and it’s limited mainly by your budget and imagination.
“New” Cabinets and Vanity
New hardware is a good way to upgrade the kitchen, doors, and bathroom, but if you really want to give the kitchen and bathroom a new splash of color, and you’re feeling a little bit more ambitious, you can go ahead and paint them a new color. Like we said, painting is pretty forgiving and easy to pull off. Most cabinets and vanity doors can be taken off the hinges with the help of a screwdriver, so you can more easily paint them over. If you’re not confident in your painting abilities (we sure are!), then you can always hire a professional painter to do it for you.
Either way is substantially cheaper than installing brand-new cabinetry. Paint can cover up scratches and chips pretty well. You can also re-stain them if they’re made of wood. Again, this is cheaper to do, and often quicker to do, than tearing out and replacing the existing cabinetry. Note that if your existing cabinets are damaged or dilapidated, a new paint job or stain is not going to cut it, and you’ll likely need to replace it.
Countertops
There are so many different types of material you can make a countertop out of–granite, marble, onyx, porcelain, tile, wood, plastic, you name it. Countertops, especially islands, are a focal point in the kitchen. You’ll be entertaining, congregating, serving food there, and more–why not make it a pretty place?
Countertops are fairly straightforward to replace. Sometimes, they can merely be re-finished or re-sanded or polished, if it’s a genuine stone countertop. If it’s a plastic, vinyl, or Formica-topped counter, it can be replaced similar to reupholstering furniture. If you’re feeling especially adventurous, you can replace the whole thing. Visit your local stone surfacing store or home improvement store, armed with the measurements of your kitchen. It’ll be more expensive than simply re-surfacing your existing one, but it’s not going to take a very long time to install. It must, however, be installed by professionals.
Update the Doors
We think doors just don’t get enough love. They’re still a very important part of the house and need to be treated as such. We already mentioned a quick way to change it up by swapping out the hardware. But why not stop there?
Much like the kitchen cabinet doors, it’s not terribly difficult to take a room door off its hinges–it just takes a screwdriver/drill and a few pairs of hands. Once it’s down, the world is your oyster. You can sand down the door to get to the original wood, which can be re-stained. Or, you can simply paint over it. You can make each door the same color and equipped with the same hardware for continuity’s sake, or you can customize it to each room–this is especially nice if you have kids, who might appreciate their own design. The hardest part about this one is simply taking the door down, and finding a place large enough to paint over the door. But, it’s way cheaper and easier than replacing the door entirely.
Another way to update the doors is to simply add some molding around them. While this used to be a fairly intimidating task, that was best relegated to a carpenter (and still can be, if you’re willing to pay the fee for a professional), you can often get pre-cut molding at your home improvement store. All you need is a measuring tape, hammer, and nails, in order to add some molding to your door frame (or anywhere in the house, really). It’s a quick and fairly economical way to add an elegant touch to your doors.
Replace the Carpet
This is one of the more involved ways to update a dated home, but it’s still reasonably quick and can be accomplished in a day or two, though it will require the help of a professional to rip up and then install new carpeting.
This is similar to paint, in the sense that it sets the tone of the whole room. But unlike painting, carpet is not as forgiving, and it’ll be a project to undo anything you change. Carpeting is a great way to expose existing hardwood flooring if it’s underneath, which opens up a road of possibilities. You don’t also have to replace the flooring with more carpet: you can also add new linoleum or “tile”, some of which can be placed by yourself, helping save on money and time.
Give Those Windows A New Treatment
Window treatments are one of the quickest ways to betray a home’s true age, or disguise it. Old, antiquated curtains and treatments can easily date the home, but they’re quite easy to replace. A less-is-more approach is often recommended to window treatments; it not only gives them a more modern look, but also lets in more of that welcome natural sunlight, making the space appear much larger and more welcoming overall.
There are endless options for updating the window treatment, and many of them are very cheap and simple to install. You can go with some simple and elegant bamboo shutters, breezy and airy light curtains, or simple Roman shades. Have as much fun as you like with it! Window treatments are reasonably forgiving too, and you can swap out curtains and shades fairly easily, so all is not lost if you’re not pleased with the end result.
Landscaping
We’re ending this list with a great one, the great outdoors. Let us just say that there are multiple ways you can improve the exterior of your home to bring it into the twenty-first century. However, they tend to be expensive. That’s not so much with landscaping.
Adding new plants is a great way to make your home’s curb appeal more temporary. If a tree or plant is dying or dead, cut it down and replace it with a new one (this is also practical, as a weaker tree may fall down and pose a potential hazard). Add in plants with new touches of color, or lay down new mulch to better match the exterior. It doesn’t matter how modern a home is on the inside; if the front yard looks its age, it’ll stick with guests because that’s the first part of the home they’ll see.
Conclusion
Updating a dated home is quite possible, and the changes are equally as enjoyable as if one began from scratch. In other words, by concentrating on selective improvements, one can bring new energy to the interior living areas and achieve the looks of the twenty-first century.
Thus, with the help of these simple and economically viable interventions, you can refresh the appearance of your home without the need to undertake massive renovations. They all work to enhance your living standards and at the same time enhance the value of the house as well as its marketability. One should accept change and appreciate the beauty that comes with a modified stylish home and welcoming atmosphere.
