Even if you don’t have the biggest budget for renovating your home, you can still make impactful changes by investing a little sweat equity. Just take the following projects, for example; from garage conversions to IKEA hacks, these home improvements were carried out by creative, motivated, DIY homeowners who kept cost effectiveness in mind.

A Designer Couple Revamp a Tiny Seattle Condo For $13K

When Clay Anderson, an architectural designer with Olson Kundig, and his partner Alex Almerico, an interior designer with NBBJ, purchased a 505-square-foot condo Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, they knew it was "in need of rethinking" but had potential. “We knew that this tiny condo was worth the investment but [in order to renovate] we needed to be smart with our resources,” explains Anderson.

Photo by Luca Sforza of Lensit Studio
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The couple set a tight $13,000 budget and selected their materials carefully. “Sweat equity and having carpenter friends helped, too,” adds Anderson. The major goal of their renovation was to maintain some of the condo’s historic character while transforming the unit into a more efficient living space with a clean, modern aesthetic.

A Weekend DIY Turns a Neglected Garage Into a Backyard Hangout For $13K

A year after moving into his 1925 bungalow, Ben Carstensen, an experiential designer in Portland, Oregon, was determined to get his backyard ready for the summer. The focal point of the backyard redesign was his conversion of half of the detached garage into a screened porch. At 540 square feet, “the garage was large and underutilized,” says Carstensen, who aimed to expand the footprint of his home and create an “additional outdoor space that could be utilized even on a rainy Portland day.”

Carstensen, with the help of his parents, tackled the project over a long weekend and transformed half of his garage into a screened porch over just three days. They framed up a wall to divide the garage in half, then removed the interior and exterior wall cladding on the screened porch side in order to replace it with screening. The money saved on labor enabled Carstensen to splurge on select furnishings.

A Denver Kitchen Gets a Beautiful IKEA Makeover For Just $7.8K

In order to keep her renovation costs down, Colorado-based fashion and lifestyle blogger Tabitha Shakespeare chose to renovate the 100-square-foot kitchen of her 1940s Denver home with IKEA cabinetry and appliances. She also decided to tackle the installation of the tiles and the shelving herself; however, she opted to hire the Denver–based firm Idea Guy Assembly & Installation to install her cabinets.

Shakespeare concluded that unless you have plenty of free time on your hands, you should definitely hire a professional to install an IKEA kitchen. “We've built our fair share of furniture, but this was a whole other ballgame,” says Shakespeare. “We estimated it would have taken us two to three weeks to do ourselves, so the time we saved having someone else do it—and do it right—was well worth the extra money.”

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A Portland Designer Jazzes Up His ’50s Kitchen for Less Than $26K

Ben Ediger of the design-build studio Spacecraft gave his tired midcentury kitchen a much-needed update with a $26,000 budget by using humble materials, like plywood and laminate, in clever and creative ways.

When Ben and Emily Wyant bought the 1959 Portland, Oregon, rambler in 2016, the kitchen lacked appliances and had two layers of linoleum on the floor. On top of that, the plywood cabinets were hidden under so many layers of paint that the doors were sticky and the drawers wouldn’t close. The creative couple’s renovation of the 81-square-foot space focused on inexpensive materials that are durable and aesthetically pleasing. Ben also took on much of the labor, putting the budget into a wood-wrapped feature wall and custom cabinetry, which he designed and built by himself. Money was also saved by getting seconds from local tile maker Pratt & Larson for the flooring; lighting and hardware from Schoolhouse Electric; and sourcing solid surface counters at Home Depot.

A Creative Couple Rehab a Vermont Cabin For $18K

In 2017, Jenny McClary and Allie Leepson, a couple based in New York City, bought a small cabin in Vermont on a whim. The couple recognized that the property had good bones; the interiors just needed a few small tweaks to give it a more modern look.

After the purchase, Jenny and Allie spent 4.5 months replacing flooring, swapping out hardware, painting, and wiring new lights in order to achieve a more streamlined style. They left the knotty pine paneling in place, not just because it was in good condition, but also because of the rustic, Vermont charm that it gives the home. “We also think it makes our cabin smell amazing,” the couple share.

Related Reading: 5 Fantastic Home Renovations in California That Cost Less Than $200K

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