Hey everyone, today I'm going to show you five DIY home improvements that can be done for under five hundred dollars. We're inside the house flip I just completed. We spent a lot of money and put a lot of work into it to completely transform this 50-year-old home. We spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on this renovation, but not a lot of people have this kind of budget when it comes to home improvements. So, the improvements I'm going to show you today are very simple, and you can do them yourself, but they can dramatically improve the value of your home.

The first improvement is painting, and let's start with exterior painting. Tired and traditional exterior paint colors make a house look dated and old. A lot of times, painting is the only thing that I do on the exterior, and it makes a huge difference. If you hire a professional to paint the exterior, it can cost five thousand dollars on a 1500-square-foot house, but if you do it yourself, you can spend well under $500. There are many steps that you have to follow to paint the exterior of a home. You want to power wash the walls, repair any holes or cracks with an epoxy filler, caulk the trim around the windows and doors, and cover the doors and windows and exterior lights with plastic and painters tape. Usually, you use a paint sprayer to paint the exterior body, and the paint sprayer costs about 100 to 200 dollars. To paint a 1500-square-foot house, you need about five gallons of paint, and assuming a gallon of paint is about 25 dollars, that means you'll need a total of 100 to 200 dollars worth of paint. To paint the doors and trim, you use a paintbrush to get into more detail. If you've never done exterior painting before, it might be a little scary, and you may want to start with interior painting first.

On the interior, you want to get rid of any old colors, like yellows and browns, and any vibrant and dark colors. For example, in this home, we had an orange kitchen, a gray and purple living room, a pink room, and two blue rooms, and we decided to unify the paint color in the house and use this soft cream color to make the home more bright and inviting. When you hire professionals to do interior painting, it costs four to five thousand dollars to paint the interior of a 1500-square-foot home, but if you do it yourself, the cost is much lower. To paint a 1500-square-foot home, you probably need about four gallons of paint, which will cost about a hundred dollars, and you are going to need paint rollers, plastic, and painters tape. A paint roller only costs about thirty dollars, so you can control the cost really well, and it will definitely be within five hundred dollars.

This was a stone fireplace before, and it was difficult to refinish it, so we had to demo it and use tiles instead. The tiling here costs about four thousand dollars, which is really expensive. If you have a brick fireplace that looks old and dated, you can easily paint the bricks and get an updated look. To paint a brick fireplace, you want to purchase a roller that's designed for rough surfaces, and you want to apply two coats of tinted primer so the paint can go on more easily. And for the paint, you want semi-gloss so the fireplace can be cleaned more easily. To purchase the roller, the primer, and the paint, it will probably only cost you about a hundred dollars, so you can save a ton of money by painting the fireplace yourself.

This is a single-story home, so we don't have any railings, but if you do have railings in your home, an easy way to freshen it up is to give it a fresh coat of paint. No railings, depending on how big they are, usually cost four to five thousand dollars to install, and if you were to hire a professional to paint the railings, it would likely cost one to two thousand dollars, but it's mainly for the labor. So, if you paint the railings yourself, you will only have to pay for the materials, which are sandpaper, primer, and oil-based paint. The primer will cost about ten dollars, and oil-based paint costs about fifty dollars per gallon, so you can save a lot of money by painting the railings yourself.

Before I share more affordable DIY home improvements, smash the like button below and subscribe to the channel to see more home remodeling tips and tricks. I wrote a book, Flipping Houses: A Quick Start Guide. It's a comprehensive guide for beginners. Grab your copy on Amazon today if you're interested.

The second home improvement is incredibly simple too; it's replacing the light fixtures. Usually, in an older home, the ceiling lights and chandeliers are very dated, and they are eyesores. If you replace the light fixtures, it doesn't cost you a lot of money because light fixtures can be purchased fairly inexpensively. I usually purchase new pendant lights and new ceiling lights for about fifty dollars each, and the new vanity lights I choose cost about thirty dollars each, so you can replace these light fixtures very easily, and it will change the look of your home dramatically. The rule of thumb for choosing light fixtures is that the brighter, the better. So, I often choose pendant lights with multiple branches and light bulbs that are the brightest. They will brighten up your home and make it feel more inviting. Replacing light fixtures is a very good DIY project because it's fairly easy. But before you proceed, you want to switch off the light so you don't risk electrocuting yourself, and you want to know which wires to connect so you can do the right job.

The third improvement is replacing the outlets and switches. Outlets and switches are small, but they are noticeable, and they are small details that can be overlooked. In older homes, you often see these yellow or almond-colored switches or outlets, and sometimes you have old school switches that are toggle rotary single pole or push-button switches, and you want to replace those with rocker switches like these that are about three dollars each, and you also want to change the faceplate that costs about 70 cents each, so this is a super affordable upgrade. Similarly, if you have old-fashioned round corner outlets, you want to replace them with square corner outlets like these, which cost about three dollars each, and the faceplates cost about 80 cents each. Replacing the outlets and switches is not hard, and it doesn't take a long time. But make sure you know exactly what you're doing and switch off the breakers so you don't risk any danger.

The fourth improvement is hardware. In older homes, we see a lot of old hardware that's in a brass or bronze finish that is usually knobs, and you want to replace that kind of hardware with modern hardware so your door can look newer. You can choose any finish, like black chrome or brush nickel. I often use brush nickel because it's very classic and timeless. Door levers like these cost about 20 to 30 dollars each, so they're very affordable. Black and brass hardware were popular for some time, but now it seems like the fat has faded and people are going back to the basics, which are chrome and brushed nickel hardware. If you really like black or brass, you can still use the hardware, but just be aware that

Your home may feel dated in a few years. The installation of door handles is very easy for a construction layman like me; it only took me about five minutes each.

The fifth and final affordable home improvement is landscaping. If your front or backyard is bare, has dead grass, or has overgrown plants, improved landscaping can really go a long way. If you like this look here with contrasting rocks, mulch, and colorful drought-resistant plants, it's actually pretty easy to achieve. To stay within your budget, you want to choose smaller plants that can grow big, like quarter-line lavender or fern; they can all grow very quickly. To purchase a small plant, you may spend 10 to 20 dollars, but if you buy bigger plants, they can cost 50 to 100 dollars, so by purchasing smaller plants, you are saving a lot of money, and usually mulch is a lot more affordable than rocks, so you definitely want to use more mulch and fewer rocks. But the drawbacks of mulch are that it needs a lot of maintenance and every year you need to refresh it But if you are trying to stay within a certain budget, mulch is probably the best way to go mulch usually costs 40 cents per square foot, so for a 500-square-foot space like this, it costs about two hundred dollars to put in mulch and there are many different colors to choose from; there's red black and brown I like the brown color because it looks more natural. If you like the look of Green Space you can also see it along by yourself if you hire a landscaper to put in salt for a 500 square foot space it will cost about three to four thousand dollars but if you sit along yourself the seed is very cheap it would cost less than a hundred dollars but you do need to do a lot of work to get the soil ready first you want to kill old grass and weeds and you want to loosen and level the soil and make sure it has enough nutrients you want to use a starter fertilizer for about twenty dollars and you want to cover the seeds with soil cover or peat moss an important step is to water the newly seated long at least three times a day to keep the seed consistently wet for at least a week so there's a lot of water usage involved and you may want to think twice before installing a lawn if you want to see the before and after of this entire renovation check out this video here I hope the tips were helpful, and if you enjoyed them, smash the like button below and subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, and see you next time.

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