Renovation Ideas for your Home
by kevinw1
Lots of inspiring renovation ideas for updating your home to increase its comfort, function and value.
47 Renovation Ideas to Inspire Your Imagination
If you want to make changes and improvements to your home, but you're not sure exactly what you'd like to do, you're in the right place! Here's a great collection of renovation ideas to get your own imagination working on changes you can make.
Renovation Ideas for Ceilings, Walls, and Floors
Customise ceilings
- If you have an attic above the room, can you make it a cathedral ceiling?
- Can you add or remove beams or mouldings, remove "cottage cheese" or add custom texturing?
- How about a tray ceiling, or soffits round the edges?
- Paint your ceiling a color instead of white!
- Add beaded board paneling with 1x's covering the joins.
- Wallpaper the ceiling.
Customise walls
- Wainscoting or full-height wall covering can be built from traditional wood panels or planks, ready-made plywood "beaded board", drywall panels, masonite paneling, even heavily-textured wallpaper such as Anaglypta, with wood mouldings around.
- Add a chair rail, picture rail, crown or cove mouldings.
- Paint - different colors for different wall sections or different walls.
- Decorative paint effects (the over-the-top ones are out of fashion now, but subtle can still work)
- Tile wainscot in some rooms.
Customise floors
- Refinish wood floors that are worth keeping
- Clean and regrout (different color?) good tile floors.
- Paint vinyl floors for a temporary fix
- Paint wood floors that are beyond refinishing.
- Add hardwood, engineered wood, laminate:
- Refinish in tile in ceramic or stone
- Throw down new area rugs
- Install wall-towall carpet, linoleum (can be installed with patterned inlays), sheet or tile vinyl
- Use cork in several different forms for a warm, sound-insulating, resilient floor
- Beautiful inlay work is possible in multiple woods, and also in linoleum, stone, or tile
- Try historic mosaic patterns in hex tile, or modern small square mosaics in everything from one color to amazing custom shadings and patterns.
- Consider using thermal mass where you get sun hitting a floor in the winter, to absorb heat during the day and release it at night
IKEA kitchen renovation ideas
More Ideas for Your Home's Exterior
Customise the exterior
- Paint trim and wall sections different colors (play with B&W photos first to see how different options will look).
- Add or change trim.
- Change doors.
- Add or remove or change a porch or deck.
- Put a second-floor deck on top of a closed in front porch, or on the roof!
- If you need to re-roof, consider a different material. Long-lasting metal comes in everything from white to reflect the sun's light and heat, through a wide range of wild or subtle colors to black.
Customise doors
- If you have historic doors, don't replace them unless you must
- Plain-jane doors can be replaced or changed with mouldings or smoothed out with new door skins.
- Paint can bring out or hide texture or mouldings or panels.
- Trim can be improved if it's been originally applied in a skimpy way, or if historic moldings have been removed or replaced.
Customise windows
- Add or change moldings
- Replace windows or just sashes
- Paint in muti-colored schemes to bring out moldings and contrast with the room, or to blend in.
- Window treatments can be added or changed: shutters, blinds, shades, drapes, curtains, insulating panels.
- Consider interior or exterior storm windows if you have historic single-pane windows that are worth keeping.
Renovation Ideas for your Home's Systems
Energy-efficiency or energy-generating renovations
- Solar PV (photovoltaic) electricity-generating system
- Solar water heating
- Solar air heating through the walls
- Insulation and weatherstripping everywhere.
Emergency-proof your home by having multiple systems for each necessary aspect
- Heating (electricity, gas, wood, solar...)
- Cooking (electricity, gas, propane, wood...)
- Water (city water, well, spring, rainwater collection...)
- Sewage (regular plumbing system, greywater system, composting toilet...)
- Lighting (regular AC power, solar panel, wind-up lights, kerosene lamps, candles...
What are your renovation plans?
Renovation Ideas in Books
 | The Smart Approach to Home Renovation Thinking about remodeling but perhaps a little unsure of what to expect? The Smart Approach to® Home Renovation is the latest title in the best-selling series of Smart ... |
 | The Modern Kitchen Pantry: How to Design, Create and Use Your Pantry If you've ever wanted a pantry for your home kitchen - or to make better use of the one you have - this booklet is for you. Immensely practical, with the help of author and ... Only $3.99 |
 | All New Kitchen Idea Book (Taunton Home Idea Books) With some 370 color photographs from todays leading designers and architects, this book will help you create a kitchen for any style and budget. A complete guide, the All New ... |
 | Basement Ideas that Work Finding extra living space without adding on might be only a flight of stairs away. Homeowners with a basement have the unique opportunity to turn unused space into a great ... |
 | Bathroom Ideas that Work From the publisher of the bestselling Idea Books comes a new design sourcebook series that moves beyond inspiration and provides the essential information homeowners need to ... |
 | Ideas and How-To: Additions (Better Homes & Gardens Decorating) A wealth of inspiring ideas for adding living space, from a modest bumpout to a new room to a full second story.Ideas and before-and-after floor plans for every type of ... |
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Comments
People used to do it all the time, with that heavy textured wallpaper even. Takes two people and a couple of brooms to hold the paper up against the ceiling. I bet the paste gets everywhere though...
Good list of decorating suggestions. I can't imagine how you would wallpaper a ceiling though.