5 Home Improvement Job Ideas That Will Add Massive Value To Your Home in 2024

1. Renovate your kitchen

We made renovating your kitchen #1 because the kitchen is usually the most important room in your home when it comes to real cash value. Think about it: eating and drinking are two of the most fundamental things humans do to stay alive, so it makes sense that a kitchen is often the biggest determining factor for homebuyers when they finally make the decision to either purchase a home or pass on it.

Renovating a kitchen can be a highly complex process that requires hiring a contractor to complete, or an extremely simple process that most DIYers can do themselves with a little bit of time, focus, and eye for aesthetics.



When a new countertop, sink, and dishwasher are desired, it’s probably best to hire a contractor to renovate your kitchen for you. This jobs require a bit of know-how, especially when it comes to cutting cabinetry and countertops to fit the sink and dishwasher inside. The cuts will need to be pretty exact, so in these sorts of situations, hiring an experienced professional is best.

On the other hand, if you’re satisfied with your current countertops, cabinetry, and fixed appliances, then the rest of your kitchen can be renovated by a DIY home improvement enthusiast. Deciding what color scheme you’d like for your kitchen will be step #1, and you’ll want to stick to this color scheme as you design the rest of your kitchen. Appliances like your refrigerator, microwave, and oven-stove combo (if they’re electrical) can easily be moved around your kitchen to create a new and fresh aesthetic. If you have a particularly large kitchen, then consider building a large island in the center for food prep, and possibly a breakfast bar on the outward-facing end (more on this in #5). A kitchen island can be easily built with wood or careful brick-laying.

When it comes to renovating your kitchen, consider beforehand how much time and money you’re willing to dedicate to this project. It may not be so practical for one homeowner, but another homeowner’s best bet when it comes to adding massive cash value to his or her home. Renovating your kitchen can also be very time-consuming, which is fine if you’re willing to work day and night on the weekends for a few weeks; but if you aren’t, then perhaps hiring an expert kitchen remodeler may be the best way to go. 

2. Convert an extra bedroom into a bathroom

If you have an extra room in your home that you don’t use very much (and many families have at least one), you may be able to add serious cash value to your home by converting it into another bathroom. Adding a new bathroom is the only thing on this list that will add just as much (or perhaps even more) value to your home as renovating your kitchen.

You will need to determine first how practical this job is. Keep in mind, it will certainly require routing new piping to the room, which will necessitate hiring a plumber, as this is a job even the most experienced DIYers aren’t able to do themselves. But if you’re willing to invest in a plumber and new piping, converting an old, unused room into a new bathroom is worth considering. The most expensive part of this job will be paying your plumber - but it’s all downhill from there. Sinks, countertops, and even baths and showers have become more affordable than ever before, and many models can be ordered right at your local True Value hardware store.

Make sure when you choose your appliances, countertops and cabinets that they all color- coordinate with one another, and then pick a paint for the walls and floor tiles or planks that will compliment them. Many newer bathrooms have been utilizing “all-white” themes, which often give a nice, clean, modernized look.

Usually, a new bathroom adds at least ten thousand dollars to the cash value of a home, but will usually add much more than that, making this a worthwhile project for the patient homeowner who won’t mind hearing some loud drilling upstairs for a week or so. 



3. Put a fresh coat of paint on the walls

We’ve touched on our blog before about the massive value just a little bit of new paint can add to a home, so we’ll cover it a little more in depth here.

Much like clothing, paint colors on (and in) homes come in and go out of style, so a new paint job in your home every decade or so will help maintain the cash value of your home, and often increase it.

For the outside of your home, there are three current and particularly stylish color trends. The first, and one that’s stayed in style for quite sometime, are your standard medium and dark blues. Blues are one of the few timeless classics for exterior paint colors, and often pair particularly well with white white window trim (another little tip for those of you with a little extra time to paint). Another modern trend are the earthy colors, like browns and greens, which often stand out and look particularly unique in neighborhoods with paint jobs from last decade.

For indoor paint jobs, one emerging trend of the ‘20s are the uses of different shades of greens indoors. During a time when people are beginning to prioritize mental health above all else, painting the walls and cabinets inside your home green will often induce a feeling of relaxation when inside it. Juxtaposed against the exciting, high-energy red walls of the last couple decades, green creates the opposite effect, and induces a sense of calm, making green one of the most popular color choices for indoor paint jobs in the new decade.

Since we already covered kitchen renovations, we should mention here that when it comes to painting your kitchen in the new decade, very warm and vibrant shades of yellow have become the go-to choice for homeowners, especially ones that love to cook, and spend a lot more time in their kitchens. For those with a little extra time to paint (and money to spend on different colors), complimenting your newly-yellow tinted walls with white cabinets will really create a nice ‘pop’ in your kitchen style. 

We recommend Valspar paints for your home, which are easily color-matchable and have come in hundreds of different colors for you to choose from. 

4. Build a fireplace bay

Installing a fireplace is another relatively inexpensive home improvement job that creates massive return on investment when it finally comes time to sell your home. That said, many DIYers are unable to take on such a task by his or herself, and usually requires hiring a contractor to install it. Even though otherwise, buying the materials and completing the job yourself would be pretty inexpensive, once you add contractor labor into the mix, it then turns into quite an expensive endeavor... unless you go electric.

The electric fireplace market has exploded over the last decade, and is now a two billion dollar industry worldwide. Electric fireplaces add realistic fire images to your wall and a great source of heat to your home at a tiny fraction of what it would cost to pay a contractor to install a real fireplace in your living room. This effectively turns an expensive endeavor into an inexpensive and fun DIY home improvement project.

Even the highest-end, most top-of-the-line fireplace insert will only run your around two thousand dollars maximum, and one can even purchase a medium-grade electric fireplace insert that still offers great heating capability and realistic flame images in the mid-hundreds.

Once the electric fireplace is purchased, it’s then only a matter of building the frame, and adding wood wall paneling, stone, or brick to cover the frame. Keep in mind, when constructing the frame of the fireplace bay, the electric fireplace should sit neatly and snuggly in the center of the wall. The bay itself doesn’t have to be particularly large. Just eight square feet should be plenty to house your electric fireplace, as well as run any cabling inside it (if you want to mount your TV above the fireplace, which many homeowners desire). Kefauver Lumber True Value has a huge lumberyard and a huge selection of brick and masonry supplies to build your bay wall around the frame, as well as all the tools and hardware a DIYer would need to get this job done. 

5. Install a breakfast bar in your kitchen

Installing a breakfast bar in your kitchen is another easy DIY job we’ve mentioned before on our blog that will add significant value to your home using just a little bit of elbow grease, so we’ll take this opportunity to expand on it here.

Installing a breakfast bar is an easy DIY task that almost any homeowner is capable of doing his or herself, provided the space is available (and it usually is even in the smallest of homes). The best place to install a new breakfast bar is usually behind a kitchen counter that faces out toward a living room or dining area. If your kitchen doesn’t have an outward-facing counter, then right in front of a window is the next best place.

The beauty of this home improvement task is your new breakfast bar can be as big or small, and elegant or simple as you’d like it to be. Even a breakfast bar that’s just a few feet long can add major cash value to your home.

A nice, two and a half inch thick piece of natural wood is inexpensive and great material to build your breakfast bar out of. We recommend adding a stain or finish to it to make it look more elegant. Then, it’s just a matter of deciding how you’d like to connect it to your home. Some breakfast bars have to legs in the front to support particularly heavy loads. But may

other bars just float, which will add a touch of elegance and simplicity to your kitchen. If you choose to float it, make sure to pick up thicker pegs to connect it to the wall, so it’s able to hold larger loads. Then, it’s just a matter of drilling the appropriate sized holes in the back of the wood to fit it on the pegs. Make sure your float pegs are level on the wall, and that your peg holes are also level on the back of your material and will slide easily onto the pegs when you’re done. If your pegs and holes aren’t level, you’ll have to start again. There’s nothing more irritating to a homeowner than looking at a piece of unleveled furniture. It’s the bane of any homeowner’s existence. 

Conclusion

There are a myriad of other ways a homeowner can add massive cash value to his or her home that we will cover in future blog posts. But the ones we mention here are often great starting points for most homeowners. You need not try to complete all these to increase the value of your home. But there’s undoubtedly at least a couple ideas we mention here that are practical for your specific situation. Pick one or two, and start from there, and then watch the value of your home skyrocket!



Happy home-improving!