Upgrades Make Your Days Better
Everyone talks about things they have or have done around their home that they love, but there are a lot of things that are never talked about yet provide some of the best day-to-day improvements out there. Not all are easy, not all are low-cost… But they all improve something in a way that makes you stop even thinking about them (which is why they never get talked about). Below are a few things that I have found to be excellent upgrades that made every day a little less stressful.
Soft-Close Cabinet Doors and Drawers
Given how much time some of us spend in our kitchens, this is an area where some of the best upgrades can be. And starting off the list is soft-close cabinet doors and drawers. It’s nice to not have to hear them banging or having to be gentle when closing them because others are sleeping, but it also makes for better overall longevity. They always close with the same level of force and reduce overall wear and tear on the cabinets themselves.
One of the most basic aspects of these is that you pretty much only have to “try” and close the cabinet about 80% of the way. Once the door (or drawer) gets to that point, any extra momentum is dampened by the hinge and then the hinge takes over to close it the rest of the way at a constant and smooth rate. Since this is basically a hinge or drawer slide swap, existing cabinets can typically be upgraded with the new (internal) hardware to provide this feature at a cost that is very low on the overall scale of home improvement projects. Plan on around $30 or so per door (about $60 for a two door cabinet) and about $60 per drawer. This is a DIY friendly upgrade, but patience and some attention to detail will be very helpful. Watch some videos for tips and hints. With a kitchen remodel costing tens of thousands of dollars, this upgrade at under $1000 for most kitchens will make it feel like an entirely new room.
Bottom Cabinets as Drawers
Here’s another kitchen upgrade, but one that you can’t easily do without replacing cabinets. This is one to be thinking about when you’re planning on a kitchen remodel (or designing out your kitchen in a new home).
Upper cabinets work great with shelves and doors. Lower cabinets, however, are immensely more useful with only drawers. Yes, you will have a slight reduction in total cubic inches / feet of storage space, but you will actually store more items in your lower cabinets because things will be so much more accessible. How many times have you stashed things you “never use” way in the back of a lower cabinet and then skip using it (even when you really should) simply because it’s so hard to get to? With all of your lower cabinets having drawers, you will find yourself taking those items out and using them.
We have all of our pots and pans in drawers along with things like enameled cast iron Dutch Ovens, large glass bowls, and a variety of other large and heavy objects. They’re actually quite easy to store and retrieve so we use things very regularly that we had previously just left stuck way in the back of cabinet that required circus act contortionism to store and retrieve in the past.
Under-Cabinet Lighting
Ok, one more for the kitchen… Under-cabinet lighting affixed to add light to your countertop workspace. This is one of the least expensive, most DIY friendly updates you can do in your kitchen and once you add this lighting, you will wonder why you waited so long to do it.
There are rechargeable, battery-operated, and plug-in type lights available. Most will offer a stick-on type installation while some also have clips that can be screwed into the bottoms of the cabinets as well. I personally have lights that come in sets with multiple LED light “bars” that plug into one another and have plastic clips that screw into the cabinet (they can also be attached with double-sided tape). mine use a plug-in driver to power them and I have these connected to controllable plugs that are linked together. Turn on one, they all go one. Similar for off.
I’ve had these lights for a while, and this is the third house I’ve used them in. The reason I call this out is purely to demonstrate that they do not have to be a permanent installation and removing them afterward is straight-forward. This is not only a DIY friendly upgrade, it’s renter friendly as well!
This sort of upgrade can typically be done for under $200 with many kitchens being able to be upgraded for half of that or less.
Stick Vacuum
This may not really be a true “upgrade” to a house, but it’s definitely something that can make a difference in the level of comfort in the house. When we bought our current house, it had a central vacuum system installed (fully functional). In fact, this is actually the second house I’ve owned with a fully functional system in when I bought it. And it is the second house I’ve owned where I have zero interest in using it.
Central vacuum systems seem very convenient until you realize how much space it takes to store the hose and powerhead components and how unwieldy they are to move around the house. While it isn’t any fun toting an upright (or even a canister) vacuum up and down the stairs, a 28 foot hose and a powerhead assembly are equally clunky to try and drag along while you’re climbing the stairs.
We opted for a rechargeable stick vacuum that I installed into the closet immediately inside of our front door. It was pretty simple to cut a pass-through in the sheetrock of the interior wall along with low-voltage brackets so I could easily pass the charging cord out to an outlet. The vacuum is reasonably light, powerful, can do quite a bit of work on a full charge, easy to empty, and takes up way less space in the closet than the central vacuum pieces did (they’re in the basement now). Add to that the fact that our house is pretty much all hard surface (oak hardwood and tile with a few area rugs) and it’s easy to see how one can vacuum the entire house in about 20 minutes or so and spot cleanings are even quicker. This upgrade makes it super easy to keep the floors clean throughout the house.
It’s hard to put any sort of cost estimate on this one because there are a lot of different choices out there, but it’s likely to cost at least a couple hundred dollars for a decent vacuum that will hold up.
Soft-Close Toilet Seat
Much like the soft-close hardware for the kitchen cabinets, adding soft-closing toilet seats / lids also makes things a bit simpler. A simple flick of the fingertip sets the closing in motion and you just walk away. No slamming, no banging, no disturbing anyone else in the house at any time of day. And because it’s easy to close (no bending), it makes it much more likely that it’s always closed after use.
This is absolutely DIY -and- renter friendly, and under $50 or so per toilet.
Final Thoughts
There are all kinds of things that might fit into a post like this but these are just a handful of things I wanted to share. What sort of things did you do to your home to make it more comfortable for you?