DIY Trends That Add Value- Three popular DIY trends and their impact on property prices.

 Three popular DIY trends and their impact on property prices.

1.     Wood Panelling

Wood panelling is a popular way to add a touch of classic elegance to a room, or used creatively it can add a contemporary spin to a boring space. You could easily add value to your home this way. All you need are some MDF boards and a few basic hand tools.

Is panelling your walls a good idea though? It’s not just an aesthetic improvement to a boring plain wall. Panelling provides extra protection from scuffs and scratches in high-traffic areas like hallways and even the stairs.

For busy families, they might even help to avoid those buggy wheel bashes (although it won’t stop hand prints and toddler art from appearing on the walls).

One of the best things about adding panelling to your walls is that it’s an easy DIY job. You don’t need to be an expert carpenter to revitalise your home, and it doesn’t need to cost too much either.

First things first: Measure up your walls. You can choose vertical, horizontal, or just about any shape panels you feel like! Make sure they’re evenly spaced by dividing the wall length by the number of panels you want. Use a spirit level to get everything straight and mark the corners with a pencil.

The ideal material to use is 10 mm thick MDF. It’s not too expensive and it’s easy to cut. Get your local builder’s merchant or big DIY shop to cut the sheet into equal strips, called battens. Alternatively, look for DIY panelling kits that provide all the materials.

Use these battens to create a panel effect on your walls. Cutting them to length to make your panels is easiest with a chop saw, but you can use a regular hand saw and a mitre box if you don’t have one.

Attach each piece to the wall with grab adhesive and fix them in place with panel pins and a hammer. The effect is instant, fun, and can even add serious value to your home.

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2.     Create Beautifully Lit Spaces

One of the easiest DIY projects can make a huge difference to the look and feel of your home. Whether you do it to make your life more comfortable or want to improve the look of your house before selling it, lighting makes all the difference. And it really can be as easy as changing a lightbulb.

Create an elegant, contemporary, and classically beautiful space in any room with layered lighting and even app-controlled smart lighting. LED lighting has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. There’s an awesome range of colours to choose from, and they promise to last for nearly ten years before changing.

One of the added benefits of smart lighting is the extra level of security it can bring. Off on holiday? Set your lights to come on in the evening and it never looks like an empty home.

If you want to add a touch of class, and even add some serious value in the kitchen, simple battery-powered LED strip lights might be just what you need.

According to Woman & Home Magazine “Lighting can make all the difference when it comes to the appearance of a space”, and installing them doesn’t require any special tools or experience. We also have some more great kitchen lighting ideas to try out.

You can use spotlights to enhance the height of a ceiling or draw the eye to a particular feature. Replace a boring ceiling light with track lighting that allows you to customise the lighting in each room as you see fit. Or, get right on trend with a bamboo lamp shade that will add texture to plain walls in seconds.

3.     Colour Yourself Happy

The influence of colour is everywhere around us, and you can harness this powerful tool in your home to add value when it comes to selling up. A splash of colour added to the right walls, ceilings, and even floors, can make a big difference to how the room is perceived.

You might be surprised that it’s not just the colour that can have a positive effect on your room, but also the paint’s finish. Matt, eggshell, gloss, and satin are just four types of finish that can add unique textures and feels to a room. Check out our beginner’s guide to paint finishes before you dip your roller.

You can bring the natural feel of the outdoors indoors with earthy green hues and nice natural tones. Said to promote harmony and balance, greens are the best colours to add to a room that feels cold or a bit clinical.

Painting your walls is a relatively low-cost way to transform the look and feel of a whole home. It doesn’t take much in the way of special equipment, and with a few tips, you too can paint like the pros.

Something that professional painters and decorators do is to spend more time preparing surfaces than painting them. If you take the time to clean off the dirt and dust, wash the grease off sticky kitchen walls, and fill any cracks, your paint job will look miles better.

Don’t overload your brush with too much paint, and (safely) remove things like light switches and plug sockets for an unbeatable and professional-looking finish.

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