So if you’re looking for some small upgrades that can make a huge difference in your space, you’ve come to the right place. Reddit users have recently beensharingsimple changes that significantly upgraded their homes, so we’ve gathered some of their best tips below!
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Cat. She’s pretty small but easily the most important thing in here.
Blackout curtains for sleeping. Such a game changer.
A dog. Best thing I’ve ever bought.
Wall decorations. Literally anything at all. I lived my whole adult life without decorating at all because it seemed pointless and like a waste of time and money but man after meeting my soon-to-be wife and helping her move in and put up her decor, its astounding how much my house felt more like a home. The improvement of my mental state and comfort level was unexpected and eye opening. It inspired me to decorate my basement with common man-cave stuff like a flag of my favorite football team and bar signs and LED lights and its my favorite space in the whole world now. I feel dumb for scoffing at the idea of putting stuff up on my wall and wonder how much more I would have enjoyed living in my previous places.
A better shower. If you can’t redo the whole bathroom, just replace the head. This also works if you rent, just keep the old one in a box, so you can bring the nice one to your next house.
My wife and I getting separate blankets. No more fighting about who takes the covers while we’re sleeping. Highly recommend 10/10.
Some of these answers aren’t small at all!!An actual small upgrade… Look at what areas of your house collect random piles of things, and put a basket or holder of some kind there. Example: My coffee table has the remotes, coasters, random books, etc. all laying around, so I got a pretty decorative basket that now I can put those items in. Another example: My kitchen counters were collecting random dog treats and dog-related items that I used frequently and wanted easily accessible, so I bought a breadbox-like-thing that holds them!Things look so much more organized when you just put them in a container in the spot that they naturally get placed.
Creating the habit of washing my dishes before bed. It took me 30+ years to develop the habit but it really changes the feel of the kitchen and my desire to upkeep everything else.
I had a window above the stairs the neighbors could see through, so I went on Amazon and spent 40 bucks on some plastic window film that makes it look like stained glass. It turned out AMAZING and lasted forever.
Methodically buying phone chargers with long enough cables to not have to ever move one again.
Getting rid of grey walls when I started feeling the black dog rear its ugly head again. Life’s too short to spend it living in a fogbank. Bring colour in wherever you can.
A decent pillow.Plants.
Improved its curb appeal. Fixed up the front flower bed. Power washed the walkway. New shudders. New storm door. Redid the driveway. New mailbox. Sounds like a lot but if you do a new project every 6-12 months, it’s financially feasible.Edit to add: shutters* because I’m a dumb a*s.
Soft close cabinets and toilet seats.
Attic heat exhaust fan. Our attic used to get up to 140F on the hottest days, and on those days our ceilings were hot to the touch. The whole house was consequently uncomfortable. Now the attic fan is thermostatically controlled to 90 degrees, and the whole house is cooler.
Lost my neighbors. Everything got instantly better around me!
Raised every piece of furniture off the ground with little metal legs, just enough for the robot vacuum to get the dust under there too. Still new to the place, but it should help with my allergies on the long run.Short term, guinea pig is now allowed floor time in the entire living room and she loves it.
We replaced our shallow double kitchen sink with a single industrial sink. So much easier for filling pots and doing dishes.
Under cabinet lighting in the kitchen. Huge, huge impact on the look and feel of our home, minimal cost and work involved.
Fitted 4 solar panels to my shed roof attached to a lithium battery and inverter. Not the cheapest upgrade at about £1000. But unlimited free electricity in my shed. Can plug all my power hungry man stuff in there and it’s guilt free! and when there’s a power cut I just run an extension lead into the house and I’m good! and way simpler than grid tie in system .
King-sized bed.
Towel warmer in the master bathroom. We not only get warm towels (it’s on a timer) but also don’t need to wash our towels as often because they don’t start to smell after a few days anymore. 10/10 would recommend.
Spending a day mounting my artwork. It felt so much more like my home after that.
Putting extra shelving in the pantry. Why the previous owners only used one wall when there’s three is a mystery.
The toilet paper roll holders that are U shaped and don’t have the spring thing.
This is your reminder to change your central air filter.
I got one of those floor vacuums like they have in hair salons. It just sits in the corner and I sweep stuff into it. I didn’t realize how rarely I swept until I got that thing.
Motion lights on the stairs. It is functional and looks great.
Replaced dated lighting fixtures - fixtures are now properly grounded, the interior looks more updated, and there is more/better light.
When you open the pantry door the light comes on and when you close the door it goes off.
Asking my ex-wife to move out.
A roomba.living in a house with many small siblings, you have no idea how much time a roomba saved.
Dishwasher. It has changed our arguments over dishes.
I installed outlets with integrated USB power on every wall.
A thick Memory foam mattress.
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Solar tubes. House would’ve been really dark without them, especially the kitchen and entry, we only need lights when it’s dark out.
Tushy bidet.
Under-sink water heater. Don’t have to waste 5 gallons of water just waited for it to get even warm.
Rice cooker. I save so much time and energy. Plus there’s less washing up to do since all I need to wash is the pot inside, instead of a saucepan, a wooden spoon, and a colinder.
I only have one bedroom in a rental house with three roommates, but for my bedroom, organizational storage.I bought a small shelf, I bought a small coat rack, I bought short rolling bins that go under my bed, I bought tall square bins that sit on the shelf in my closet.Removed a lot of the clutter with these things, almost like my room is bigger now.
Doggie door… game changer.
Mine are mostly kitchen based because I cook dinner pretty much every night.A couple of those magnetic wall mounted knife holders, frees so much room on my countertops.Wall mounted spice rack and glass jars. Keeps my spices where I can see them and monitor levels. Much easier to access than storing them in a cabinet or in the pantry.Wall mounted hooks for pan storage. No longer need to make a ton of noise grabbing pans from the corner cabinet, pots are still down there, however.All three cost me maybe $70 and have vastly improved my quality of life in the kitchen.
A built into the wall bench in the walk-in shower. Now i walk into the shower fully clothed to pensively sit on my bench while brushing my teeth. I also sit on my bench while showering my toddler, shooting water at him from the handheld shower head, just sitting on my bench resting while he’s having fun. Helps kill the time and entertain the toddler. I’m sure it will also be very useful if we get sick or old. Just shower sitting down on our bench.
Insulation from walls to ceiling and roof. It cost a small fortune but its so worth it. Cool in summer warm in winter.
I dont know if it counts as small but the cost was fairly small as i provided all the labor. i think i have about 2500 total into a 6,000 gallon koi pond in my back yard, this includes a huge sunshade so the fish dont get over exposed to the sun and helps with birds while providing a nice shady place to sit and watch the fish.not only is it nice to have a pond to watch fish but the water/plants have attracted all kinds of wildlife that were not present before. koi were babies when introduced to the pond, are roughly 2ft with one being closer to 3ft.
Motion activated light switch for the laundry room. Never have to worry about turning off the light when leaving with an arm full of clothing.
Those little battery powered lights that light up only when someone passes.just enough to not to kill yourself because some little s**t left a wooden train on staircase, but not enough to wake up whole family.
Bought an espresso machine cuz i was tired of how expensive Starbucks got. Life-changer if you’re into coffee.
Dimmer switches on all lights and heated towel racks.
A riding lawnmower. 45 minutes to cut instead of 2.5 hours.
Raising the countertops to 42" in my kitchen and bathroom. It’s not really an upgrade, but for a tall family, it really makes a difference in comfort.
Smart outlets for Christmas lights, both inside and outside. I have them scheduled to turn on at sunset and turn off at midnight.
A fold down table on the wall near the dryer to either use to hold a basket or fold clothes on. A wall mounted drying rack that pulls out when needed.Light switches that have a remote to dim/turn off the lights. It’s great when we’re watching tv and don’t have to get up. It’s so lazy, but so great.Removing the very small, old ground level deck that was here and having a new concrete patio installed. This is our first house having an actual backyard and now we have a nice patio to spend time out there.
Replace the toilet seats and locks.Paint before you move in.Remove popcorn ceilings if you have any.
Gooseneck kitchen faucet.
When we built our house we raised our kitchen bench to be 105cm instead of the standard 90cm and it honestly makes such a difference to our back when doing meal prep and washing up.Going to other peoples homes where they have the standard bench height is awful, bending over..
Smart lights in my bedroom lamps! I now have a ‘routine’ setup so every morning my lights automatically turn on, and my alexa starts playing nice wake up music. It makes waking up in the mornings SO MUCH EASIER. I think the bulbs were like $7 each?
A whole-house humidifier system.Used to have nosebleeds all winter and massive static electricity issues - kept a small metal rod in my pocket at all times to ground myself before directly touching anything conductive and my cat was generally terrified of being pet from October - April because of the powerful static shocks.IIRC, it was around $400 for the unit and I DIYed the install in about 2 hours.EDIT: For perspective, the static electricity issue was so bad that I killed a thermostat, a small stereo shelf system, an Xbox controller, and a television remote through static shocks the winter before getting the humidifier.
Two things made a surprising improvement to my quality of life:* For $140 and about an hour of time, I installed a Reverse Osmosis water filter under my kitchen sink. I now have amazing fresh clean filtered drinking water on tap.* Using a $150 GC my sister gave me for my birthday, I picked up a RoboRock Q5 robot vacuum ($70 out of pocket after the GC). I have it running on a daily schedule at 2pm while i’m at work, and my hard floors are always immaculate.
Bidet. We only put one in the master bath because young grandkids come over and we don’t want them to spray the room. Now that bathroom is the only bathroom in the house I’ll go poop in. I also no longer like staying in hotels until they catch up. I feel like some kind of caveman wiping with paper now.
I got a Dorai stone bath mat and never looked back; Never having to think about moldy bath mats were so nice I ended up getting the stone dish mats and those have been serving me well so far.
Dimmer switch/lights for night/morning use.
A whole home water filter.
Keypads on your entrance with internet connection* Don’t have to take keys when you exercise* Did I Forget to lock the door? I did and I’m 100 miles away. Beep bop boop done.* Walk to the front of the house form the back but the front door is locked. No keys, no problem.* Hey Hon when did you get home last night? Uhuh.. the log says not!
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