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I am certainly not a professional interior designer but I love making small mostly-DIY changes to my home for various reasons. I’ve been in my house for ten years and am still making changes I wish I was able to do immediately when I moved in! Patience is a virtue.

Obviously large home updates have a big impact on the look and feel of our homes but here are five small home updates with big impact as well:

Painting

Recently one of those small changes was painting my two-story foyer. When I moved into my home it had a lot of gold paint inside and outside and I’ve slowly painted over it, making the house my home. The two-story foyer was something I couldn’t do, I hate heights! I also hate paying someone to do something I’m perfectly capable of doing myself. Thus several years went by… then several more.

I hired someone back in July of last year and the foyer was painted this past September. Goodbye gold!

Before:

After:

The space has brightened up dramatically! The color is Benjamin Moore White Dove, a classic. I did get a new front door spring of 2022 and the added windows opened up the foyer light as well. I wouldn’t consider new doors to be a small update though!

Also see my previous blog posts on painting kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets and countertops.

Creating an Accent Wall: Wallpaper

I put peel and stick wallpaper in my laundry room about nine years ago and it didn’t come out perfect but good enough for a laundry room. Last year I decided to tackle a side wall in the hallway from my kitchen to my dining room. I went with better quality wallpaper and it made a huge difference.

Creating an Accent Wall: Hand Painted

This is a project I thought I blogged about and never did! I have a formal living room that needed help. I removed the curtains from the four windows and left them exposed. My wrap around porch is outside this room and we needed more light in there, keeping the windows wide open served that need. The wall opposite to the front door, where there are French doors to the family room, is where I decided to hand paint a pattern.

The key to this is to not think about it too hard, just go for it. Being slightly not perfect makes it even better.

Rugs

And not just buying new rugs, moving around what you already have. I’m a firm believer in shopping your own home. Look around.

Once my foyer was painted I realized I previously bought a lot of decor that made me want to try to like the gold walls. It had to go. I did order one new rug to use but then moved around ones from other spaces until I found what worked.

My next project is hiring someone to replace all the rugs in our bedrooms on the second floor. We have wall-to-wall carpeting. We’ll see how that goes.

Art and Pictures

Sometimes all I need to update a space is to move around the art or get new frames for pictures on the walls. This is my foyer this past holiday season with new frames from Target (linked here).

This can be said for any type of decor, just change it to spruce up an area, but I think the rugs and what is hanging on the walls make more of an impact in the look of the space.

Let me know if you have any questions about these small updates! Have you made any small changes to your house that have made a difference in the look and feel of your home?