Budget friendly ways to make changes and add value to your home post-lockdown

AD – This post is a paid collaboration with Trussle

I think you probably know this by now but I spend the majority of my time thinking up ways of making homes look and feel as good as possible on a budget; you could say I am a little obsessed. At home instead of watching the TV, I’m actually staring at the alcoves thinking about budget-friendly storage, instead of chatting at the dinner table I am most probably staring out into the garden thinking of DIY projects to do next year. During lockdown the ideas have been racing around my mind at record pace; the list of projects to update my home is very, very long but the budget is very, very small! It is far too easy to get used to things looking and working a certain way in our homes but with just a few tweaks we can make a dramatic difference.

In my work as an interior designer, I am constantly handing out little interior design tricks here, bits of advice there, as well as putting them into practice in my own home. That is why I am very excited to be pulling all of my tips to update and renovate on a budget into one piece for fee-free online mortgage broker, Trussle. Now more than ever after months of lockdown, we want to make changes after spending so much time at home. You can read my 9 Ways to Update your Home Interiors on a Budget now.

However, it is an uncertain time – with 1.8 million homeowners on a mortgage holiday and the end of the furlough scheme approaching – so many of us are looking to cut down on our outgoings where we can. Since the lockdown began, Trussle has seen a huge leap in enquiries for remortgages, with Trussle’s customers saving an average of £344 a month by remortgaging to a more suitable deal.

If you’re a homeowner wanting to make some improvements to your home but need to make some savings, why not see if you can remortgage to a better deal and cut down on your monthly outgoings? Trussle’s new remortgage calculator for homeowners shows you how much you could save and it compares the latest deals on the market every day,  alerting you if it’s time to switch your mortgage to a more suitable deal.

And what if you want to sell? There have been reports of a rise in property searches since the end of the property market freeze and with the stamp duty holiday announcement. With this in mind, homeowners need to make changes to add as much value as possible to their property, ensuring it looks great whilst spending as little as possible on renovations.

This is where I come in. I have shared lots of ideas for updating our homes post-lockdown to make them feel more spacious and more organised, as well as things we can do to make our homes feel more like us and less generic. I’ve also been looking at ways to fit in a home office whether that’s in a bedroom or living room. And for anyone who needs to do some budget friendly DIY to add value in order to sell, I have lots of advice on the best ways to do that, from quick and easy kitchen updates to bigger DIY projects that will make a dramatic impact when it comes to putting your house on the market. You can read my guide here.

As for me, I plan to carry on with our renovation inside after our huge lockdown effort in the garden. First up is a quick update in the living room by painting inexpensive laminate cupboards, next comes sanding the hallway floor and maybe the stairs (I’ve been dreading that job!) and then I will be moving on to some DIY wardrobes for the bedroom.

I hope my guide to budget friendly ways to improve your home will be useful for you whether you are planning changes to make your home work better for you or whether you want to sell. There are also lots of ideas that can be used if you don’t own a home and rent so please do take a look.

Katy x