Last weekend, Justin and I rented a scaffold for 24 hours and painted our living room ceiling Urbane Bronze. It was such a dramatic way to make a high-impact change in our living room in just one weekend – it got me thinking about other weekend projects we’ve done over the years that have had a high impact on our home.
I started digging through my DIY archives and it turns out, in addition to painting our living room ceiling a bold color, many of the projects we’ve done in the past few years are true weekend projects. They’re not elaborate, time consuming projects like our DIY home office, but they’re a step above smaller changes like hanging artwork or swapping out a light fixture. I decided to round them up and put them in a post together in case anyone out there is looking to make a change in their house in a short amount of time – all these projects can get done in the timespan of Friday evening to Sunday afternoon (or less!)
I included a little blurb about each project but to read more about each of these DIYs, including the tutorials and sources, you can click on the project title hyperlink text to go to the original blog posts.
The very first DIY we did in this house was creating a shelving system for the playroom. We essentially screwed four inexpensive, ready-to-assemble bookcases together, added trim to the front to cover the seams, attached a long oak board to the top, and used stained 1x2s along the edges to make the wood look chunkier. It required some paint touch ups at first but I got smart and covered the shelves with clear contact paper which helped a TON and it has held up so well over 3.5 years of play!
We opted to be surprised in my first two pregnancies and did not find out the sex in advance. After Vi was born, her all-white nursery felt super plain, boring, and sterile. I wanted to do something but didn’t want to go too big in case we had a third child (good thing, huh?) so I chose to do a pink scalloped wall. It made such a big impact and while it only lasted two years before Ollie came along, it was 100% worth it.
Justin and I first made these shelves on a DIY date night using scraps from our garage – it was a fun, simple project to do together and we installed them in the little nook under the stairs. I loved them so much that I asked him to make a couple more for Ollie’s nursery. I think it’s such a cute and functional way to display books and make them double as artwork in your room.
I have now painted three kitchens (this one, this one, and this one!) and I will say it absolutely can be done in a weekend, but it will take the full weekend! In terms of cost-to-impact ratio though, it just doesn’t get much higher than painted cabinets. You can totally transform the look of your kitchen for about $150 or less in paint + supplies.
A smaller scale project is to paint a bathroom cabinet – this makes a big impact in a fraction of the cost and time!
One of my favorite projects in our basement kitchen renovation was painting the laminate counters to look like marble. It turned out so well and thanks to this kit that had everything I needed, it was pretty easy to create! This could also easily be done in a bathroom to change the look of the counters.
This wasn’t a project from our house, but we created this geometric accent wall for a friend-of-a-friend’s bedroom using inexpensive 1×2’s. It took under 24 hours and cost less than $70 in supplies – a quick and easy way to create visual interest on their large bedroom wall.
Ikea Vittsjo Shelving Unit Hack
When it came time to update Justin’s office, we used large pieces of plywood to create the look of one giant shelving unit from three individual Ikea Vittsjo shelves. I’d say plan for a full weekend for this project, as it did require some tedious measuring and cutting, but for us, each shelf went a little quicker than the last as we got our process down and we love the end result.
It doesn’t get much simpler than this shelving option: cut a 1×8 board to size, stain + polyurethane, install a few brackets into the wall, and place the board on top. Granted, we had previously taken down the cabinet that hung there and painted + stenciled the wall, but cabinet removal + a simple patch and paint job + DIY shelves could definitely be done in one weekend.
Create a Frame for a Frameless Mirror
You know those plain builder-grade mirrors that have no frames and bring no personality to a space? Turns out, it’s pretty easy to upgrade them with a frame! We did one for my nephew’s nursery one weekend and it made the mirror look so much more elevated! For what it’s worth, that dresser is also one of many that I’ve upgraded – painting a piece of furniture can definitely be another great weekend project!
simplify the chaos 