Summer Home Improvements That Won’t Cost An Arm And A Leg

Summer is here, and the warmer weather invites you to exercise your DIY bone. Fixing up your home has multiple advantages, adding beauty to your days, enhancing your property value and even easing stress.

However, you might feel a bit of sticker shock when checking the lumber prices at your local hardware store. What can you do on the cheap? Here are five summer home improvements that won’t cost an arm and a leg.

1. Pressure Washing Your Exterior

You might not think your home’s exterior looks too bad if you keep your yard tidy and don’t let the paint peel. However, a thin layer of grimy dirt probably coats all your exterior surfaces like a vague semi-translucent gray blanket, making everything look as aged and dingy as an old photograph.

However, renting a pressure washer from your local hardware or farm supply store doesn't take too much. Nor is it tricky to get the knack and watching the lines of filth rinse away is eminently satisfying. It’s like watching a before and after painting video for a fraction of the effort. You might find that you enjoy the work so much that you decide to start a side hustle tidying up your neighbor’s homes on the weekends.

What can you pressure wash? Just about every exterior surface, from your driveway to your porch steps to your siding. You can transform your entire look in a single afternoon.

2. Xeriscaping Your Yard

What is xeriscaping? This landscaping method employs native vegetation that minimizes water and maintenance needs. It helps you green your footprint, reducing the need for sprinklers and chemical fertilizers to grow a lawn full of a crop you can’t eat.

Best of all? This technique gives you your weekend back, liberating you from the lawnmower. You may still have to weed and rake a few times a year — but you can leave home for a month without your neighbors complaining.

Xeriscaping is also affordable. You don’t have to do a complete overhaul, ripping out every bit of sod and starting fresh with rock. Instead, begin with one small area of your yard — you’ll get to see what your finished project will look like, allowing you to tweak things as you go.

For example, if you have one spot that consistently browns year after year, why not remove the grass in that location and replace it with a small garden featuring native plants? You might even find free species by collecting seeds or accepting cuttings from friends who already embrace this design.

3. Painting

Painting may have the biggest ROI of all the home improvements you can make. It doesn’t cost too much to pick up the supplies you need — you may be able to redo your entire house for a few hundred dollars.

Although the work is labor-intensive, it’s also a snap for nearly anyone to master. You don’t need mighty muscles. Your best tools are a hefty dose of patience and some quality painter’s tape. However, if you want to elevate your experience and have a bit of extra cash, consider investing in a spraye r that will make short work of your labor with no brush strokes or drips. You can also rent this equipment at big-box retailers like Home Depot.

4. Organizing Your Garage

Are you seeking to improve your curb appeal and raise your property value, even if you don’t plan to sell? A well-organized garage with plenty of storage space will wow passing buyers despite the lack of the “for sale” sign in your yard. It’s one of the most desirable characteristics many look for in new homes.

Fortunately, it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to purchase some pegboard and hooks for organizing your gardening tools. A few steel cabinets might set you back a hundred bucks or so, but they provide the perfect place to store hazardous chemicals like antifreeze safely away from children and pets. Look to the sky — you might have plenty of places for high shelves around the exterior of your garage door opener that also provide stash spots away from tiny fingers.

Finish the job with a fresh coat of epoxy on your floor. It instantly elevates the look of the space, hiding current oil stains and preventing new ones from forming. It also keeps tiny cracks from forming, making your garage look aged.

5. Adding a Deck or Patio

Outdoor living was popular pre-pandemic — now, it’s all the rage. If you have an existing deck or patio, consider enhancing it. For example, you might consider adding plexiglass inserts to a screened-in deck to create a greenhouse effect over the winter, making the space usable even in cold weather.

If all you have is a concrete slab, a fresh coat of epoxy and a decorative railing can transform your stoop for a few hundred bucks. You could also build decking around it, expanding the space. Then, add features as you can afford them, perhaps planning an outdoor kitchen for next year.

At the minimum, a few elegant potted plants can make your stoop much brighter and more welcoming than a simple slab. Scour yard sales for planters on the cheap and pick up a few inexpensive packs of seeds to coax mums and marigolds into bloom by summer’s end.