Small Heritage Home Upgrades You Can Tackle Over The Summer

When the weather is beautiful, you might want to spend more time outdoors rather than indoors slogging away at your home restoration project. If you still want to see some progress and transformation through the summer months, it might be time to think about some high impact but low stress projects.

Save the big transformations for the autumn, and focus on the little projects you can complete in a weekend, and then get back to enjoying the sunshine. If you’re renovating a heritage property and want some home makeover inspiration, try these small home upgrades this summer.

Swap heavy fabrics for lightweight alternatives

Having two sets of soft furnishings for your home will allow you to easily update your home in the spring and autumn.

In period properties, heavy weight fabrics will not only look the part, but they can also be very functional in winter. They can help to stop draughts and insulate your home, helping to keep things warm and cosy.

When summer time rolls around, you might not want these heavy fabrics creating visual weight. Switching out curtains, throws and pillows for lightweight alternatives is a simple way to update your home with minimal effort. You can store heavy curtains, rugs and throws and bring them out again when the temperature drops in winter.

Replace mismatched door knobs

Replacing a door knob is a hugely satisfying task that most people can tackle in a few hours. The visual impact of just one door knob can be really powerful, so imagine how satisfying it is to replace all of the mismatched door knobs in your home.

Rather than trawling the salvage yards and vintage shops trying to find enough matching and functioning door knobs to create a set, we recommend faithful replicas of vintage designs.

With a reproduction door knob, you get to enjoy the original styles of the period, paired with modern and functioning mechanisms. Your door knobs will last longer and you won’t have to worry about materials breaking down over the years.

Update kitchen and bathroom hardware

There’s an interior design mantra that says you should invest in the things you touch every day. So once your door knobs have been replaced, you might start to think about the other elements in your home that could use an update.

Updating bathroom and kitchen hardware (matching the metal tones to your door knobs) is a beginner-friendly DIY task that most people can achieve in a day. Make sure you feel confident with basic plumbing tasks before you complete this one, otherwise bring in a professional to handle the switch.

Create a kitchen herb garden

If you don’t fancy tackling any big garden projects in the heat, you can always bring the outdoors in with a kitchen herb garden. All you need is a sunny windowsill and a planter box large enough to house a few different varieties of herbs.

You can also plant beautifully scented flowers like lavender to help fragrance your home. If you want to deter flies from entering your home, you can also plant basil, marigolds, rosemary and mint.

Introduce pattern and colour with wallpaper

Repainting might be low on your list of priorities in the summer months, but this doesn’t mean you can’t breathe new life into your home. Wallpaper can bring texture, colour and pattern into a room in unexpected ways.

Creative use of wallpaper can transform a space, either using large-scale wall murals, or by concentrating on a smaller space like a cloakroom or hallway. Hanging wallpaper is a fun weekend project that can deliver maximum impact without breaking the bank or breaking a sweat.