The pandemic crisis that’s now been raging on for more than one year doesn’t show any sign of stopping soon. It’s safe to say that people can expect to have some degree of disruption in their daily lives that is caused by the pandemic’s effects.
If you’ve been feeling bored or emotionally drained lately and you’re looking for some ways to use your spare time productively, you should consider doing improvements to your home. Incidentally, home improvement activities have been on the rise throughout the COVID-19 crisis and some research shows that it may well continue until 2022.
As it’s still only the early months of 2021, there’s still plenty of time to push through with your long-delayed home improvement plan, especially if you have the money to spend on such projects.
Here are five home improvement ideas you should explore amid the current crisis:
Mind your siding
Your home’s sidings play a big part in creating a great first impression among your visitors and the casual passers-by from the street. As such, they sure deserve to get some attention from you, especially if they’re already in a particularly rough shape.
Aside from calling in the professionals for your more challenging siding repair and maintenance needs, you should also do some DIY-style tasks that would bring back your sidings’ old beauty or improve on it.
You should consider doing a quick power wash (only if it won’t damage the siding or cause water damage) to easily remove whatever dirt has accumulated over the years. Once the sidings have been thoroughly cleaned up, you could give them a fresh coat of paint that would make your home pop. Just make sure to choose a paint color that won’t ruin your home’s overall design or theme.
Turn a spare room into a home office or study area
If you have kids who are doing distance learning, then it’s imperative to give them their own spot in the home where they can study in silence and comfortably at that. You may also need to do some work stuff at home (if you’re not doing remote work), so you also need a place of your own. As such, one great pandemic project you could embark on is to remodel a spare room into a study area or home office.
You may choose to outsource this to a reliable contractor or bring in the family muscle or some friendly neighbors or friends to give you a hand. Just follow minimum health protocols if you’ll go this route to keep everyone safe.
Install an outdoor living amenity
Many homeowners who did home improvements during the early months of the COVID-19 crisis decided to add some outdoor living amenities to their property. This entailed turning their outdoors into an extension of their interior spaces.
For example, you may consider getting an outdoor fire pit or fireplace that sports a plug-and-play design, or you could spend a few hundred dollars more for a custom-built one.
Other equally great outdoor living amenities you may choose from include a patio, deck, outdoor kitchen, seating wall, and gazebo or pergola. Just pick the one that your budget can cover, as well as what your available outdoor space can accommodate.
Remodel the kitchen or bathroom
If your kitchen has seen better days and you want to give it a fresh lease of life, then kitchen remodeling is in order. You can have a licensed contractor work on the project since it might involve some complex construction tasks, but if you’re confident enough with your skills and you have the essential building tools and equipment, then consider it your next DIY endeavor.
You could also turn your attention to your bathroom and make it more functional, attractive, and safer for everyone, especially if you have a senior parent or a toddler in the house. You may install a new tub, replace the old floor tiles with heated ones, or have a custom bathroom, cabinetry to make the space more functional.
Grow some greenery
Yet another awesome home improvement idea you should consider is starting a small garden, which is incidentally among the most popular pandemic activities among homeowners.
You may consider having both ornamental plants and vegetables such as tomato, lettuce, cabbage, beans, and the like. By growing decorative plants, you’ll give your property a much-needed aesthetic boost while with a vegetable garden, you’ll have ready access to fresh and healthy produce that would somehow secure your family’s nutritional needs, particularly for veggies.
