3 Easy Quarantine Home Improvements
Tired of Netflix? Tired of baking? Tired of Zoom calls with all of those sort-of friends from high school? We thought you might be.
As enjoyable as all of those things are, they don’t require quite as much mental and physical exertion as, say, a home improvement project, of which there are many you can complete on your own, without professional intervention, during quarantine.
Need some inspiration? Here are just a few of our bright ideas.
1. Give something a fresh coat of paint
Like many of the recommendations that appear on our list, this could require a trip to your local Home Depot or Sherwin-Williams, so be sure to wear a mask when you’re out, because… you know, health. (Oh, and if you can swing it, try to patronize a local business—keep your hard-earned dollars in your local economy!)
Not up to going out or making a purchase? Explore your basement or hall closet for leftover paint cans to use on projects around the house. Whether you’re using new colors or old colors, and whether it’s a bedroom door or a chair for your kitchen, feel free to get funky and experimental with what you’ve got.
That’s the advantage of quarantine: no visitors, no worries! If you realize after the fact that an electric yellow door is a horrible combination with plum-colored walls, then, by all means, change things up!
2. Rearrange your artwork
We’ve written at length about hanging up artwork—and the importance of keeping things at eye-level to retain a sense of visual cohesion and elegance in your space. So, be sure to check out that content if you need a refresher on our best practices for displaying artwork.
But what if you want to rearrange what you’ve already got? To experiment with clustering frames or stacking frames, in lieu of presenting them in solitary, standalone fashion?
Again, quarantine is a great time to experiment.
Just make sure that your walls can handle a hook and nail, and that you’ve got the necessary equipment; if you’ve got a hammer handy, outside of the nails and hooks, you should be good to go. (Although a spirit level always helps with making sure things are balanced—to make sure things aren’t crooked, track one of these tools down, or use the built-in leveling app available on your iPhone.)
3. Replace old or burned-out bulbs
Burned-out lightbulbs are one of those eternally neglected items on everyone’s home improvement to-do list. Which is weird, because, as far as home improvement goes, switching out dead lightbulbs—or replacing functioning lightbulbs with more energy-efficient ones—is hardly a taxing activity.
Nevertheless, homeowners just seem to have better things to do with their time. But, since we all seem to have no excuse not to, given the circumstances, why not do an audit of the lights around your home? Assess which need replacing, and which need updating, and then act accordingly.
Who knows? With an energy-efficient upgrade, you could wind up saving a couple bucks on your next electricity bill.
Now, this is by no means a comprehensive list of home improvement projects. We just wanted to give you a few options to get things kicked off. Let your inspiration take you where it takes you on your quarantine home improvement journey—from the entire Mortgages team, we wish you good luck, and Godspeed!