Home Projects

First-time homeowners Nick and Sarah Wissinger bought their home in 2016 and, after having only rented apartments before, were grateful to finally be able to decorate in a way that felt like them. Their plain-Jane master bedroom gave them the perfect opportunity.

The couple snagged the retro trailer for $500, and while that price seems like a steal, you get what you pay for—meaning there was a lot of work to be done.

Here's a short list of checks that home maintenance experts think you should run through before the first big chill hits where you live.

Like many half baths, Jo Char's powder room is tiny and windowless. Logically, she initially went with a light wall color, but all that did was make the room feel "sterile and anemic," she writes.

Myra McKeon's kitchen was, well, totally fine. "The before was functional and by all means great," she writes. "The style of the kitchen would be liked by most, but it just wasn't my particular style."

Last month, we featured a Melbourne apartment tour that won over readers with its rainbow headboard, above. Most fun sleeping spot ever? Or *ever* ever?

Depending on where you live, your entryway may be as large as an entire room or as small as the patch of wall next to your front door. But don’t confuse a lack of space with a lack of potential.

If your home is due for a redesign, and you’re looking to go bold with a color combination that will pop, you could choose a classic pairing that you see everywhere—or you could opt for a wow-worthy and unexpected duo.

If you're lucky enough to live in a space with brick walls, wooden beams, a gorgeous fireplace, exposed ductwork, or loads of built-in shelving (or a combination of the above), we envy you!

Luxe for less!

Name: Austin & Danielle (of Forage + Fodder)Type of Project: Kitchen & Garage RemodelLocation: Austin, TexasType of building: One story, Single-Family House, 1250 square feet We’ve been following along with Danielle and Austin’s kitchen and garage renovation every step of the way, from its ‘Texas suburbia’ style beginning to the beautiful new kitchen and master suite they have now.

Name: Lorna Ziller Type of Project: Open plan kitchen, dining, and sitting room remodel Location: Moonah, Hobart, Tasmania Type of building: Brick cottage After planning, dreaming, destroying and shopping, Lorna’s new kitchen and living space is here! Take the full tour now. Afterwards, she crunches the numbers and offers some hard earned DIY wisdom — as well as shares her favorite things about her sleek new space.

Name: Graeme & Rebekah Molloy Type of Project: Kitchen Remodel Location: Chautauqua Park, Des Moines, Iowa Type of building: 1920 Tudor Graeme and Rebekah’s kitchen was seriously outdated, and had a crazy layout to boot. Join them on their renovation journey to a new dishwasher, complete with old-house problems, scheduling snafus and charming Pinterest finds. We’re sharing all their photos, budget, lessons learned, and the final reveal!

Because we ask a lot of our entryways.

Meghan Clemons had a standard wood staircase in her Pennsylvania house, but she wanted something a little different.

Why have a room serve only one purpose when it can have a few?

Andrea Latham's entryway had fabulous bones, but it wasn't living up to its potential, and it wasn't very functional either.

The once-tight quarters included quirky floral (not-in-the-good-way) wallpaper on the bathroom and kitchen ceilings.

Staying in tune with the change of seasons helps in some small way to feel in sync with the Bigger Picture.

Aside from the embarrassment of a disastrous attempt at fixing stuff around the house, performing your own fixes could very well wind up costing your more money than you’d planned on spending.

Y’all have been sharing some really fantastic before and afters with us this year, so we wanted to take a sec to highlight a few that stood out as especially brilliant and inspiring.

It took about three weeks and cost around $6,400 to complete this bold black and white bathroom renovation.

Suchada Eickemeyer and her husband bought their house in 2016, just as she was beginning interior design school. She knew that she would be able to put her newly-acquired skills to good use in the home's kitchen.

"I wanted a kitchen with an open aspect that I could love, enjoy, and utilize," writes Vicky Flynn of Liverpool. Instead, she had a "dark, gloomy, decrepit space" with a leaky tap and "some interesting shades of brown."

Sure, Kalila's 1975 kitchen had been updated a bit with a cooktop, dishwasher, and refrigerator. But overall, it was a wood-filled, windowless room desperately in need of a renovation.

Get ready to see a lot of plant action.

Because when it comes to choosing a wall color for your home, the sheer number of paint options can be daunting.

People often think of patio season as starting and ending with summer, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

When Andrea Jensen and her husband were house hunting, they narrowed in on a Southern California area they loved. However, "the neighborhood came with a steep price tag," Andrea writes, "so we knew whatever we bought in our price range would require a lot of work."

Allison Schaeffer and her husband Noel had a large loft space at the top of their stairs that wasn't serving much purpose—but had serious potential.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s $32 Design Challenge. Finding the perfect piece of furniture is hard enough… but then it can be surprisingly tricky—and expensive—to style it just right for your home. We challenged five staffers to style five different areas of the home, from the entryway to a desk, with a budget of just $32. Follow along with the whole series here.

It even includes a plant propagation station!

The half-moon dowel is more or less having a moment.

Bye bye, golden wood cabinets!

Electrical fires are the third leading cause of home structure fires, according to The Electrical Safety Foundation International. But fortunately, there are a variety of preventative measures you can take to help ensure that one doesn’t happen to you.

Every entryway needs these three things: a mirror, a dish for keys, and something pretty to motivate you on the way out the door (or welcome you home). See how they all come together!

It's becoming chillier outside, which means it's officially the season for cozy nights in, pumpkin-flavored recipes (if that's basic, so be it!) , and, of course, candles.

Yes, it's totally possible!

A firepit isn't like other yard goals (a new deck, a hot tub, a perimeter full of privacy-lending trees), because all you need to add one is a tiny yard and a little motivation.

Welcome to Apartment Therapy’s $32 Design Challenge! Finding the perfect piece of furniture is hard enough… but then it can be surprisingly tricky—and expensive—to style it just right for your home. We challenged five staffers to style five different areas of the home, from the entryway to a desk, with a budget of just $32. Follow along with the whole series here.

Joanne Gultig's UK bathroom had green carpet, and that really says it all.

Your entryway is the first area that guests see when they walk into your home, so it's only natural that you want it to look welcoming, at the very least. But shouldn't it go a step beyond that?

When Lucy and her husband bought their UK home four years ago, their sitting room and its Victorian fireplace were every shade of neutral.

A dark and dated back room is now an airy and bright master bedroom with gorgeous exposed ceiling joists.

It was about two years ago, my partner Emily’s 2006 MacBook laptop began showing the visible signs of being well used…very well used. The white polycarbonate front edges cracked after years of palm pressure and the heat discolored the once pristine white laptop to a yellowish hue most often equated with British dental hygiene.

As soon as Hope Mendes and her husband saw their Cobb, California, cabin, they knew it was the place they'd been searching for.

Alanna and her husband Jesse purchased their tiny, two-bedroom Melbourne cottage when they were in their early 20s. The kitchen hadn’t been updated since the 1980s and was so small, the couple couldn’t comfortably cook in there together at the same time.

Cali Gabrielle must be a magician, because she made an ugly old house turn into an absolutely stunning home.

Sarah Robertson has made a career out of designing kitchens—and she finally made one of her dreams.

Sure, they're a pretty way to store bottles of wine and cocktail mixer sets, but bar carts can also serve so many other purposes around the house.

Initially, Jessie Ecker only planned to paint her fireplace surround black, but she decided that it looked so good and modern that she would keep going and paint the paneling around it.

When it comes to kitchen design, there have really only been two options: cookie cutter IKEA or cost prohibitive custom—and not much in between. While the former is getting a lot nicer with the recent crop of third-party sellers creating design-forward cabinet fronts and various other elevated touches, the latter hasn’t seen much in the way of innovation or accessibility.

Remember Precious Moments dolls? Canadian artist Keith Busher is turning them on their heads—or, rather, transforming their heads.

The previous owner had lived in this old house for about 70 years and it required updating.

When we see a bathroom renovation roll in for under $200, it gets our attention because, let’s be honest, a light fixture alone can cost well over $200!

IKEA's GLADOM tray—at only $20—is a strong contender for the newest classic piece to come from the brand.

At first glance, Nidia Serrano’s monochrome bathroom seemed like one we’d all love to come home to at the end of a busy day.

How do you design a living room when it has an uneven fireplace sitting oddly in the corner? Kristyn Jackson was baffled.

Galvanized stock tanks and troughs are essentially huge tubs which can be turned into or reused as any number of things. Depending on the context, they can read modern, industrial, or farmhouse. Learn all the ways you can hack them and create something spectacular and useful for your home. Bathroom Tubs: Jayme used a large round tank as a bathtub in her in warm and inviting modernist home in Philadelphia.

Curious to see what all the hype's about?

File the tip under “just because you see it on Pinterest doesn't mean it's a good idea.”

Lucinda Mitra and her husband inherited a bathroom from their UK home's previous owners that was "completely livable, but somewhat tired and dated," she writes.

"Nice bones." That's how Alison Caporimo and her wife described their New Jersey home the first time they walked through it.

This vintage RV has been torn down, fixed back up, and glittered, dangled, and frocked within an inch of its life.

While painter's tape promises clean lines, it can come with issues. And, of course, there’s the time requirement: It takes forever to apply.

When Becca and Tim first saw this home in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, the roof was damaged, there were five different types of tile in a 2,000 square foot area, and the whole home had suffered from neglect.

Here are nine useful or fun ways to use your food coloring and bring the rainbow to projects outside of the kitchen.

This three-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv used to be a neglected and gray apartment. You have to see it now!

The powder room didn’t quite make it to the top of Laurel list of must-immediately-make home improvements—until she found out that a wall had to be taken out completely and rebuilt for proper support.

Alexandra Madison loves “taking old spaces and making them feel new and fresh,” she writes, so in a few weeks and with less than $600, she gave her dining room an entirely updated feel.

When Katie and ​David​ purchased their home in Memphis, the house had all of the charm of the 1940s—but the bathroom left much to be desired.

Paint is one of the easiest ways to transform your home. And while simply picking a new color and rolling it onto your walls will do the trick, sometimes you're looking for something a little more exciting. Thankfully, the 2020 IKEA catalog dropped this week, and it's full of great ideas for your next home project.