Cheap, Easy House Fixes to Spruce up your Home

Staging tips and advice on how to get your home ready for a sale are everywhere. Pressure wash, refinish, recarpet—these are the pricey fixes that most people associate with getting your place ready for show. But, what if you don’t have the big bucks to spend on a home that hopefully won’t be yours in the next few months? If that’s the case, or if you just want to tidy up your home a bit, this blog’s for you! Here are some quick and easy spruce-up tips that will help perk your place up for $20 bucks or less.

• Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Clean up your walls, folks, with these miraculous wall sponges which I found at Home Depot for less than $5 bucks. They are two sided sponges which miraculously wipe away scuff marks, pencil marks, crayon marks, and other general signs of wear and tear on your walls, without having to repaint!. You dampen the white side of the sponge, scrub the marks lightly and they will disappear! I’ve personally only used them on white or light colored walls so I’m not sure how well they will work on darkly painted walls, but I do know they work great on the light colored walls. Be sure and test on a small portion of your wall first, as the performance may differ with respect to color or finish of wall.
• Natchez Solution. This stuff adds new life to your wood cabinetry by restoring shine and glow. I’ve seen this stuff used on some pretty trashed cabinets and short of refinishing the entire cabinet, it did quite the job!
• Oxiclean. Maybe you already know about this one, but I haven’t found anything better for carpet stains. Dilute a little Oxiclean in warm water and scrub it into carpet stain. It might take some elbow grease and some rinsing as well, but it seems to work on most things. Again, always good to test on a small, non-obvious part of your carpet first.
• Pastels. Yup, that’s right, pastels, from any old art store. When I first moved into my house, the downstairs bathroom had dark wallpaper in it. Beautiful, but apparently the previous owners had decided to lock their cat in the wallpapered bathroom, hence, the claw marks. A well-matched pastel was just the trick to make the cat claw tears much less noticeable.
• Hagerty Chandelier Cleaner. I think there are a couple of different brands around, but this is one that I picked up from Home Depot. If you have a difficult to reach, difficult to clean, chandelier light fixture, try one of these spray cleaners to make it sparkle without meticulous cleaning. To use this stuff, you’ll need to spread out tarps below the chandelier to protect your floors. Then climb up on a ladder to get as close to the fixture as you can and spray liberally on. The dust and dirt just sheets off as the cleaner drips to the floor, so there is no rubbing or polishing involved! You will notice a big difference right away, but be sure and leave your light off for at least 24 hours for the fixture to completely dry.
• Easy Off Oven Cleaner. To remove high temperature cooking stains on stainless steel appliances, try applying Easy Off Oven Cleaner to the stain. Use according to package directions, but be sure and apply a small amount to a nonobvious area to test before use.

Do you know of any other amazing products or quick fix-up tips to share with other homeowners? If so, please comment below and add your tip below.