After catching a couple of Freestyle episodes on HGTV, I got inspired to look around the house for things that might work in the room. As we were sitting and staring at the awful setup of our TV area, my mother-in-law suggested a dresser that we would have never given a chance. We used some paint that we had from a different room and changed the drawer pulls for $25. It’s allowed us to have a better look in the area, while also providing extra hidden storage in the room.

We also used another piece as a side table. I’m trying really hard to get away from all the furniture matching in the room.

Finally we changed out the art in the room for free. Each year our son has brought home a “large” piece of artwork from school. We found some basic black frames for them, and they’ve worked out great.

Although the makeover was not free, we were able to make some pretty dramatic changes for under $100. So look around your house, you may be surprised at what you can use to change up a look.

I was glad that my first cracked tile was on a corner, because I was afraid I’d do more damage to others. It really only took a flathead screwdriver and hammer to pop the tile off of the counter. The main trick was to get as many big pieces up at a time and then remove little pieces as necessary. One thing that took a little more care was removing the grout near adjacent tiles. I worked as close to the cracked tile as possible, so I wouldn’t knick the good tiles.

This fix was not hard at all. It just took time and effort to get it done.

He already had chosen a space theme for his bedding, so my mother-in-law (Jimmie) came up with plans based on that. From there, we began our project and kept within a budget of $200.

• Bed in a bag: $60 — This came from Bed Bath & Beyond and was the main piece we started with for the room.
• Floor Pillows: $20 — Jimmie bought the fabric and made these for the room.
• Valance: $15 — Extra fabric from the bed skirt and some additional fabric to extend it down the window.
• Paint: $45 — The bottom color is washable paint, so it should be more durable in this space. To save money, we purchased a paint that was offering a mail-in rebate.
• Wallies: $25 — It took us a while to figure out what the layout would be for these. In the end we used one wall for the smaller ones and one wall for the larger ones.
• Lamp & Shade: $0 — Jimmie used the bed skirt fabric for this and I painted the lamp a metallic silver.
• Trash bin: $0 — This was also painted metallic silver to match the lamp.
• Wall Art: $0 — My mom gave this to us.

Grand Total: $165

We are all very happy with this project. It no longer feels like things are just mixed and matched. Everything has a place and our son loves being in his “new” room.

• Curb Appeal
  Every time I watch this show, I want to go to a home improvement store. One of these days, I AM going to paint the exterior of the house and get new grass.
• Design on a Dime
  This show has great ideas for a great price. It really is a matter of just putting in the effort and taking a risk.
• House Hunters
  Not really a get excited to change stuff show, but very entertaining. I’m always so surprised at how much people can afford for houses. Another surprise is how much people spend on places with one bathroom, no garage, etc.
• Mission: Organization
  People that know me aren’t shocked when I tell them about this show. I love all of the bins and such they suggest for storage. I like their approach of categorizing things by importance and giving away items to charity.

The vent project was not as successful as I had hoped. Mostly because of human error. We bought cans of primer and metallic color for this, instead of using a brush. That was a good idea for sure. However, I wasn’t really experienced with how even and light you have to spray, so that caused some issues. I ended up getting drippy paint and then tried to fix it too quickly. It’s noticeable to me, but it was an inexpensive fix to get it to blend in better in the kitchen. Our plan now is to watch for sales so that we can get a stainless steel vent for that area.

Overall a successful project that wraps up under $500. As I’ve said before, it’s not a professional job, but the price is definitely right. It took a lot of work hours, but I learned so much through the experience. I’m getting more comfortable in making changes in the house on our own. I’m amazed at how much money you can save by doing the work yourself. For us, the less money it costs, the better.

Now that it’s complete, I’m extremely pleased with the results. First off, it complements the color in the room and the border in the kitchen. It also breaks up the color on the couch and wall. They used to both be a shade of beige, so that takes care of my husband’s main issue in the room.

In the room, we added some pillows to the couch, plants in the room, and changed the insides of the china cabinet, to better reflect the look of a den.

BEFORE

AFTER

I, for one, do not feel there is too much; nevertheless, we’re about to change one of the main walls in the den. My personality was against this idea at first glance. I’m really kind of a uniform look person, but I’m willing to take a risk. It’s only paint and if we don’t like it, we’ll just do something else.

We decided to extend the accent wall to an adjacent wall under our bar. It really complements the existing tile and will allow the barstools to blend in better than the current setup. It’s a darker color, so we also decided that it really wouldn’t look good in the whole room.

Finished product pictures coming soon…

One of the perks of this project is that we’re installing a new faucet for the sink. I really liked the kind that is able to pull out and be used as a sprayer, because the single sprayer by itself never seems to work well.

We learned a lot from last time’s experience that we’re going to keep in mind. One is that the plan is to do all the layout first and mark the cuts, so we don’t have to keep the tile saw for the whole day. That will save about $20 on the rental fee for that piece of equipment. We’re going to pay attention to keeping the thinset (tile adhesive) off the tops of the tiles as much as possible. It doesn’t mess them up or anything, it’s just not fun removing it once it’s dry. One last thing is to make the grout in small batches. I messed that one up big time by making all of my grout at once last time. Had I thought about that more, I would not have had to buy an additional bag for this project. I’ll keep you posted and will put up pics soon.

In September, we’ll be tiling the side of the kitchen that has the sink, and I think it will go so much better, now that this first remodel part is complete.

So when Jimmie brought the boys back on Thursday, she was amazed at the cabinet transformation. After some discussion (not including Scott), we decided to see how easily the countertops would come up. To our astonishment, it did not take a lot of effort at all. Long story short, we updated the countertops in less than 24 hours. It actually took longer than that for the curing and sealing, but after a week, the cabinets and countertops are finally finished. Again if you’re thinking of doing a project like this yourself, here are some pointers from an amateur:

1. Rent a tile saw. We initially bought a $17 tile cutter that stunk. We were working with 12 inch tiles and almost went through a whole box before we gave up. Had we rented the saw from the get go, we would have saved a ton of time. It cost $50 bucks, but that was totally worth our sanity.

2. Make sure to clean off the tile glue REALLY well of the top of the tiles, so that it doesn’t dry on top. This was probably the worst part of the whole project because it took a lot of work to get it off the tiles.

3. Make small batches of grout. I did not need all the grout and ended up wasting a bunch that way.

4. Clean the grout off the tiles more than once. This was not nearly as bad as the glue, but it wasn’t fun either.

This part of the kitchen remodel cost about $250, bringing the total remodel cost (including cabinets) to $400. Again, it doesn’t look like a professional installed the tile, but it completely beats the harvest gold counters we used to have. I definitely would not recommend doing a project like this alone. Thankfully Jimmie did all of the tile cuts and planning. I really only glued, cleaned, grouted and sealed. I am of the opinion the cutting was the hard part.