I mentioned in my Wednesday post (game room makeover) that this month we celebrate 20 years of being in this home – I just can’t believe it!  It feels like only yesterday my sweet little almost two year old Gabe was running all over the place as our friends helped us move in.

We have changed every room to our liking, some more than once as my tastes have changed from bold and colorful to serene and neutral.  We still have a couple of big projects that will have to wait until we save $$ – new kitchen countertops and backsplash and a primary bath upgrade.  While we aren’t looking to sell anytime soon, I have made all our recent choices with resale in mind.  As we are getting older, the thought of doing big projects in order to sell just seems ridiculous!

Over the summer, we knew that we wanted to do some long overdue upgrades, so I started looking at items we wanted to replace.  No surprise, we found great prices and a wide selection on Amazon on the following projects:

1)    Upgrade kitchen faucet – I still had the very basic, builder grade faucet from when we moved in!

2)    Floor registers/vent covers for our main level.  I spray painted ours black when we did our hardwoods a few years ago, but I wanted a more stylish look as ours were very plain.  We had two different sizes and a total of 10 vents to replace. 

PRO TIP: measure every single vent before you purchase! I ordered all one size when in fact, we had two slightly different sizes – only about an inch different, but these aren’t something that you can “make it work”!

3)    Flush mount lighting – over the years, I have upgraded almost all of our lighting fixtures except for the flush mounts and our foyer light.  (I am still searching for perfect foyer light – not sure what I want!). We had the very basic “boob lights” that our builder put in and I HATED them!  I also didn’t want my husband to have to do any sanding, refinishing, or painting of the ceiling once we took down the old lighting, so I chose new lights with the same or larger diameter base as the old ones.  We had six fixtures to replace throughout the house.

Pricing:

Kitchen faucet:  $86 (includes tax)

Floor registers:  $183.47 or approximately $18 each

Flush mount lighting:  $33.99 each = $203.94 plus tax for all six lights

Edison bulbs for lighting: $57.75 for 18 bulbs, which gave us a few extra bulbs. Each light took two bulbs.  Approximate per light cost including fixture and bulbs = $44 each

Approximate TOTAL for all three projects: $550.00

Time investment & difficulty:

Kitchen faucet:  my husband replaced this after church one Sunday.  It took maybe two hours, only because we cleaned out the cabinet under the sink while we had everything pulled out. Not difficult if you have a basic understanding of plumbing.

Floor registers:  My husband and I did these right away when the packages arrived because I was so excited!  They pop right in, so this only took us maybe 30 – 45 minutes, as we did some cleaning as part of the process. Super easy task!

Flush mount lighting:  This project took the longest of all that we did.  My husband installed the downstairs lights (two) one afternoon after work.  It took him about 2 hours or less.  He did the four upstairs lights later on a Saturday afternoon while I was at a conference.  The two downstairs lights were in a hallway to our powder room, and at the door to our garage.  The upstairs lights were in the hallway (two), and the water closets to each of our full bathrooms. This project was not difficult if you have a basic understanding of electrical wiring.

We spaced these projects out and did them in our free time.  There wasn’t any pressure to get them done, and they weren’t messy or drawn out.  All in all, it took maybe a week from the time we started shopping to having these projects complete.  That is a great feeling!

What upgrades are you looking to do in the near future?  Tell me all about it in the comments below, or email me at hello@kinshipandvine.com

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