Home Improvement
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Make Shade and Add Privacy With Interior Shutters
Sunlight streaming through windows can be an annoying distraction. Not to mention the neighbors who have more evening hours to look into your brightly lit living room. You could install shades to foil prying eyes, but swinging wood shutters would definitely be more beautiful.
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Renew Old Flooring With Paint
Refinishing isn’t an option on a limited budget. So to update the space, you can paint the floor in a light checked pattern, using beige and white to warm up the cool blue walls.
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Install a Low-Cost Stair Runner
Want to get a good grip on slippery stairs? Try a DIY runner.
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Add Crown Molding the Easy Way
Crown molding makes it to the top of most remodeling lists because it adds charm and value to a home, not because people enjoy spending a Saturday trying to get the corners just right. Luckily, there’s a simple way to beat miter-saw frustration.
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Give Kitchen Cabinets a Flawless, New Finish
Your cave-like kitchen feels that way because the dark cabinets have sucked all the light out of the room. But a brighter makeover doesn’t necessarily mean replacing those gloomy boxes with all-new one. As long as the frames and doors are structurally sound, you can clean them up and brush on some new paint—and within a weekend take that kitchen from dreary to sunny. All you need is some strong cleaner, sandpaper, a paintbrush, and a little elbow grease. What you don’t need is a whole lot of money, as the transformation will cost you a fraction of even the cheapest new cabinets.
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Lay an Eco-Friendly Layer of Insulation
It’s bad enough to have to get up in the morning, let alone get up and experience the icy shock of a cold floor. What you need is some warmth underfoot, a little cushion as you pad across the house. Enter cork. Resilient yet durable, stylish yet earthy, a natural cork floor can turn any cool room into a cozy haven.
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Refinish Your Home’s Handsome Wood Door with Integrity
The years and the elements hadn’t been kind to the exterior of this 94-year-old, thick, cypress door. Flakes of varnish still clung to the wood in spots, while the rest of the surface was rough and dried out from the effects of water and sun. Wood entry doors everywhere suffer from the same assaults, and many end up in the trash, replaced by low-maintenance, mass-produced metal and fiberglass surrogates. But you can breathe new life into your old door with a few affordable supplies.
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Add Architectural Interest with Stair Brackets
The newel post and balusters get all the attention, while the exposed side of most staircases is largely ignored. But with the addition of decorative stair brackets, a bland stringer can become an elegant eye-catcher. Here we used simple-to-install, affordable wood brackets that go up with adhesive and nails.