Feeling cooped up inside during the cold winter months? Now is the perfect time to tackle some indoor home improvement projects that can refresh your space. From touching up paint on baseboards to regrouting your bathroom tile, here’s our list of DIY winter home projects.

Paint a room (or two!)

Whether your interior walls are showing wear or you’re just not into that sage green accent wall anymore, painting is a quick and inexpensive way to refresh and renew any room in your home.

Touch up baseboards

Baseboards and trim are prone to nicks and dings and general wear. Painting your baseboards is one of the best cosmetic improvements you can make in a room.

Wash your windows

Winter is a great time to wash the inside of your home’s windows. You can tackle the other side of the glass when the weather warms up.

Regrout your bathroom tile

The grout that fills the joints between tiles in your bathroom shower or kitchen backsplash may become loose or crack over time, become discolored due to water exposure and mildew growth or look dirty or faded as time goes on. Removing old grout and applying new grout can make your tile shine again.

Refresh your floors

Hardwoods are a beautiful and classic feature of home decor. Like other home features, hardwoods need regular attention to maintain their appeal. Over time, dents and scratches can appear on your floor due to use. Sanding and refinishing hardwoods can improve their condition. Refinishing hardwoods can be a DIY project; however, a professional floor refinisher can rejuvenate your floors quickly and correctly.

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Sometimes choosing a home improvement project to work on can be overwhelming, but don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. If you’re having trouble deciding what to work on this weekend, here are three easy projects that take less time and effort than you may think. These small improvements can make a big difference to how your home looks and feels without costing you tons of time and money.

Install a Smart Thermostat

Smart thermostats offer you more efficient control over your home’s temperature, helping you save money on heating and cooling costs. Many people don’t realize how easy it is to replace your regular thermostat with a smart thermostat. Unless you have an older home with an outdated thermostat, you probably won’t even need to hire an electrician.

Controlling your home’s temperature from your home is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what smart thermostats can do. Some units can “learn” your heating habits and automatically adjust your system’s schedule, saving you from ever having to adjust the temperature manually.

Everyone can benefit from installing a smart thermostat, but people with integrated heating and cooling systems will benefit the most. If you cool your home in the summer with a stand-alone air conditioning unit, consider options that allow your smart thermostat to communicate with them wirelessly; otherwise you’ll lose some of the advantages during the summer.

Build a Fire Pit  

Building a fire pit is one of those home improvements that sounds like a much bigger job than it actually is. If you want a simple stone fire pit that sits above the ground, you can get everything you need inexpensively from your local hardware store. All you need are stones to form the exterior wall, a metal insert, and a bag or two of fire rocks to form a two to three-inch layer in the bottom.

The simplest fire pit can be assembled in just a few hours, but you can also up the ante and build an in-ground or smokeless fire pit if you’re feeling adventurous. No matter what kind of fire pit you build, don’t put it too close to your house. Embers can easily damage your roof, something that is unlikely to be covered even if you have a plan with all the best home warranty options for your home.

(Note: Before installing a fire pit, check your local city ordinances to ensure you meet local laws.)

Repaint Interior Rooms

Repainting a room can give it a whole new look and feel, making it an easy way to breathe new life into your home without doing major remodeling. A room’s color dramatically affects how you feel in the space, so it’s important to design your rooms with their purpose in mind. People often like to use cool, calm colors like blues and greens in offices and bedrooms and inject some energy into gathering areas with bright yellows or reds.

Painting is relatively inexpensive compared to other home improvements, especially if you already have brushes and rollers. Choosing what color you want is usually the most time-consuming step, so make sure you have the colors you want picked out before painting day. Otherwise, you’ll spend your precious painting time agonizing over whether aqua or aquamarine is better for the guest bedroom.

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