It’s easy to get comfortable in your home and overlook the flaws, like that chipped tile in the kitchen or those stains on the carpet. You may also be blind to the fact that your décor is severely outdated.
Whether you’re interested in giving your home interior a facelift for aesthetic reasons or you want to modernize in order to elevate your property value, there are tons of ways to upgrade. Here are a few to consider, with different potential price points in mind.
- Declutter
Don’t have a lot of money to spend renovating your kitchen, living room, dining room, and more? No problem. There’s one easy way to update your space that requires no expense whatsoever.
The modern design style is typically punctuated by clean lines and uncluttered spaces. One great way to improve and update your space is by going through your home, room by room, and clearing out accumulated clutter that’s built up over the years.
Follow the formula of the old TLC show Clean Sweep by hauling everything out of a room and separating stuff into three piles: keep, donate, and trash. Anything broken or otherwise unusable can go in the trash, items you haven’t used in months or years can be donated, and the items you still need and use will return to the room, after you’ve thoroughly cleaned. In the end, you’ll be amazed by how refreshed your home looks.
- Add a New Coat of Paint in a Trending Color
Home improvement might require more than simply cleaning and decluttering. If you want a bigger impact in terms of creating a modern appearance, a coat of paint can do wonders at relatively little expense.
Whether you never got around to changing the neutral color on the walls when you bought your home, or you’ve gone wild with colors that now hearken back to a different design era (and date your décor in the process), paint can update your home interior in a snap.
A trip to the local paint or hardware store will help you immensely, as they often provide pamphlets populated with modern color palettes to choose from, and experts are happy to help you choose. You could also look for what’s trending online.
Outdated colors in the home will definitely become an eyesore over time, and considering how quick, easy, and inexpensive painting is, this is a great way to update your interior every few years.
- How to Modernize Your Home with Wallpaper
Wallpaper has long been considered a staple of the past when it comes to home décor. You can likely find in your Grannie’s parlor. Lately, however, it’s enjoying a revival thanks to new materials, more convenient and innovative methods, and modern colors, patterns, and even textures.
So, how can you incorporate wallpaper in a modern way? First, if you have old, outdated, and crumbling wallpaper, you’ll want to get rid of it, and this is going to be a real pain. Sorry, but papering over old wallpaper is a recipe for disaster, so dig in and tear down the old stuff. Once your walls are ready, consider new options for wallpaper.
Brands like Chasing Paper offer peel-and-stick wallpaper that will blow your mind. Not only does it come in a vast array of modern colors and patterns, but it’s incredibly easy to use. You just peel off the backing and stick it to your wall, smoothing it to remove air bubbles. When you want to change it up, it peels off the wall without marring the surface underneath.
If you’re looking for something customizable, consider paintable wallpaper options like those offered by Graham & Brown. These textured wallpapers can be displayed as-is to add depth to your walls or painted any way you want to customize the look of your home interior. With modern choices, it’s easier than ever to get the luxurious look of wallpaper without making your home look like its stuck in the past.
- Update Window Treatments
We often hang window treatments and then forget they exist. We forget to clean and maintain them, and over time, they can start to age our overall interior design. Updating could be as simple as adding drapes over existing blinds, or you could trade up to solar shades. Consider what will best upgrade your décor and suit your practical needs.
- Consider New Light Fixtures
When it comes to home improvement, people often focus on larger upgrades at the expense of minor details. However, you really can bring your home into a new decade by swapping out light fixtures, faucets, and even small details like doorknobs and cabinet pulls throughout your home. When considering how to modernize your home, don’t forget that the devil is in the details.
- Replace Flooring in High-Traffic Areas
Flooring may not be the focal point of your design, but it still plays an important role in the overall look of your interior. Dirty, stained carpets, warped floorboards, and chipped tiles can make your home look dingy and unkempt.
Regular maintenance, like steaming carpets and refinishing wood or stone flooring, can help, but at some point, you might want to consider an upgrade to make your home look like new again, and modernize in the process.
- Upgrade to Frameless Sliding Glass Doors
The popularity of indoor/outdoor living spaces is relatively new, and if you want to know how to modernize your home to the best effect, you really can’t go wrong by blurring the lines between interior and exterior living. One fantastic way to do this is with frameless sliding glass doors from Cover Glass USA.
These window walls make the view into a stunning focal point in your home and let in scads of natural light. When opened, however, they virtually incorporate the outdoors, erasing the lines between inside and out so your living space expands into your yard.
There are numerous ways to upgrade your home in order to modernize, some you can do on your own and some you’ll need help to complete. You’ll just have to create a budget and consider which options offer the greatest value and the most potential enjoyment.
Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.
