It’s been an interesting year to say the least, and money has been tight for a lot of people, meaning many have had to budget more strictly than usual to make ends meet. Because of that, your home improvement plans might have had to take a back seat over 2020 while you figured more important things out. Still, tweaking things around the home for the better, particularly in the bathroom and kitchen, doesn’t need to be too complicated or expensive.
If you’re working to a tight budget but want to spruce things up at home, take a look at these cost-effective but highly impactful bathroom and kitchen improvement ideas.
The bathroom
- Replace the tiles: tiling is often the centrepiece, or at least the dominant feature, of your bathroom design, so it’s important it looks the part. If your current tiles are looking a little jaded or cracked, it’ll reflect poorly on the whole bathroom aesthetic. Invest in some new shiny tiles to bring your room design back to life.
- Add a new mirror: not just for the sake of your own vanity, but for the spacing and lighting of your room. A good mirror can really open up a smaller space and make it feel more open, plus it has design appeal in itself as a standalone item.
- Add a towel rail: practical but stylish, a towel rail gives you an additional storage option to tuck your towels on for better organisation and also an opportunity to incorporate your towels, as well as the rail itself, into your design.
- Freshen up the grouting: just like your tiles, if your grouting is old, grimy and peeling away, it will be inescapable in bringing the rest of the room’s aesthetic down. Old grout can make new tiles look just as aged so, whether you’re doing it as a standalone job or to complement new tiles, make sure it’s not ignored.
- Give it a lick of paint: a fresh coat of paint is a quick and effective solution for virtually any room in the house, and the bathroom is no different. The easiest way to incorporate some colour and life into an otherwise typically plain, clean space.
The kitchen
- Install new worktops: if you can’t afford a full kitchen overhaul, one of the most impactful things you can do is redo the worktops. They’re the first thing you see on entering any kitchen and what you spend most of your time looking at when you’re in there, so it makes sense to prioritise them in your makeover.
- Get new cupboard doors: are your cupboard doors looking a bit tired and sounding a bit creaky? It might be time to replace them with some younger, fitter models that don’t whine at the hinges with every open-and-shut motion. Like the worktops, your cupboard doors are a prominent feature that can really make a difference to the aesthetic of the room.
- Create a feature wall: feature wall possibilities in the kitchen are vast and really enable you to inject your personality into an otherwise practical area. You can choose a mural design, put up some mementos or even an oversized clock – whatever you’ll enjoy seeing most as you put together the evening meal.
- Use splashback tiles: we’ve already discussed the advantages of some new tiles in terms of their look, but splashback tiles in the kitchen add a practical easy-to-clean element in alongside the visual upgrade.
- Update the flooring: If you’re still working with some lino from 30 years ago, it’s no doubt dragging the whole of your kitchen down. Flooring needn’t be an expensive fix, and it will help create a cleaner look in your space.
So, if you’re wondering if home improvements can be done on a budget, these ideas should show you that they can. Pick the most impactful moves for your bathroom and kitchen right now, and remember: you can always add to these later as and when more money frees itself up.
