With the holiday season upon us, you’ll spend some time decorating your home, putting up a Christmas tree, and maybe even installing holiday lights. It’s also an opportunity to make some improvements to your home that will be beneficial throughout the rest of the year. If you don’t have room in your holiday budget for a major remodeling project, here are some ideas for simple things you can do for your home:

1. Paint your kitchen or bathroom cabinets. If your cabinetry is looking a little worn, don’t spend a bunch of money to rip them out and replace them. Sand the surfaces, remove any substance buildup with a mild cleaner, and paint your cabinets a vibrant hue to help your kitchen or bathroom pop.
   
2. Paint your exterior. You don’t necessarily have to undertake a comprehensive housepainting project. But a few cans of paint can go a long way toward refreshing the front facade of your home, or you can change the trim color to increase its curb appeal.
3. Replace your front door. This can help improve your home’s security as well as its aesthetics. If you like, you can choose a door with geometric or frosted glass panes, a digital locking system, and materials that will help you keep cold air out and save energy.
4. Add some flower boxes. It’s an excellent way to “green up” your entry area without digging in your yard to create a flower bed. There are a wide variety of perennials and other flowers that bloom in wintertime to beautify your porch or front step during the holiday season.
5. Make a stone path. Instead of dumping new concrete to build a walkway to your front door, simply use flagstones to mark a path for your visitors. Dig out about an inch of sod under each stone and spread a thin layer of crushed limestone to keep each paver flat.
6. Repair your sidewalk. Again, pouring concrete may not be needed. Using some Portland cement or concrete filler to seal and patch cracks and holes can make your sidewalk safer and less prone to ice buildup in the wintertime.
7. Put in some landscape lighting. With today’s consumer turnkey lighting systems powered by solar energy, you can buy as many path, sidewalk, or driveway lights as you need and install them yourself – without having to install wires or power sources.
8. Clean out your gutters. This is a convenient chore to complete while you’re up on a ladder hanging Christmas lights. Clean gutters can help prevent water overflow from clogs as well as inhibiting the formation of ice dams on your roof.
   
9. Install a gutter heating system. Helmet Heat by Harry Helmet not only provides a self-regulating heating cable to melt ice and snow in below-freezing conditions, but it also repels solid debris from sliding or falling into your gutters.
10. Improve the quality of your interior air. The SafeAir Solutions system by Harry Helmet uses UV light technology to disinfect the air inside your home. It kills 99.9% of airborne viruses and bacteria, inhibits growth of mold and fungi, and eliminates pathogens that contribute to asthma and allergic symptoms such as nasal congestion.

With everything else going on during the holiday season, you probably don’t have time to undertake a major home improvement project. But any one of these jobs can be completed in a minimum amount of time — and can produce impressive results which will be notice by holiday guests!

Written by Chris Martin