No (Major) Renovations Required

Ten easy and affordable ways to make your home a dream home.

We all have fantasies about the perfect house. But given these economic times, it's hard to imagine trading up. Now the good news: You don't have to go anywhere to find your dream home. It's right in front of you.

Here, local designers share their tips on how to transform any home without a big, costly renovation job.

1. Replace your cabinet doors, not the cabinets.

In smaller kitchens, try light-colored cabinet doors or doors

with glass panels to help open up the space.

An even lower-cost high-impact solution is to repaint them --

check out colors you like in design magazines -- and replace

cabinet hardware with updated knobs and pulls.

2. Reframe your pictures.

"It can really change a room," says Polly Lewis of Lewis Interiors. Frames in the same room don't have to match exactly, but should be in the same family. She suggests replacing outdated frames (especially flat metal frames and natural-colored wood frames) with something richer and says pay attention to matting. "Instead of bright white mats, go for softer white or ivory, colored silk mats, and layered double mats," she says. "A small picture or photograph looks great with a larger mat around it."

3. Tear down those heavy curtains.

"Lighting is one of the first things you should improve in your home," says Kara Butterfield of MakeReady. She suggests removing heavy drapes and letting in more natural light with shades or sheers. For nighttime, soften unflattering overhead lighting by adding dimmers, and install low-voltage bulbs in some lamps so you can create atmospheric light. Have multiple light sources in each room: some task lighting and some standing light. "Think of it like candlelight," Butterfield says. "It should be beautiful."

4. Splurge on bedding.

"Sleeping in a really great bed can make you feel like the world has changed," says designer Heather Wells of Heather G. Wells Ltd. Architectural Interiors. She suggests high-thread-count cotton percale sheets, new 100 percent down pillows and comforter, a cashmere blanket, a down-filled mattress-pad cover, and a new mattress set. If you're unsure about a color scheme, Wells suggests all white for a "spalike feel" or whites and ivories with muted taupe or charcoal for a look that's more masculine but still very soothing.

5. Give the loo some love.

Short of a gut job, "the bathroom can be refreshed simply by re-grouting the tiles, changing the shower curtain, choosing great new towels, and painting the walls," Butterfield says. "For a more modern look, remove the cabinet doors and leave the shelves open with matching organizational baskets for storage. And bring in glass vessels from other rooms in the house for storage: a glass hurricane for storing a hair dryer, a tall glass vase for rolls of toilet paper." Stainless-steel buckets and metal trays also add sparkle to bathroom storage.

6. Use counter intelligence.

"Replace laminate countertops and backsplashes in your kitchen and bathroom with stone countertops and a pretty tile backsplash, but leave the configuration alone," says Wells. "You will have a whole new room without the dust and fuss of pulling it apart." Wells suggests shopping for the counter at a local stone yard, where she says scrap pieces are often available at a discount.

7. Make over one room.

If you overhaul your kitchen or bathroom, Wells says, it will have a major effect, and "it's much less expensive than doing a whole new house." In the dining room, try a new look: Repaint it in a deep color like eggplant or chocolate brown, Wells suggests, and add dark accents to match and place an orchid on the table. You could also experiment with a fresh style you like (contemporary, bohemian, all-white). Wells has created rooms in Adirondack-style and nautical-style, both of which, she says, create the feel of a vacation space at home.8. Get organized.

No matter how beautiful the design of your home, if it's cluttered and messy, it will never be an oasis. A neat and well-ordered home is far more attractive and relaxing, so "organize and purge," Wells says. Use baskets or bins to keep things in their place, and study your patterns so you know where you need a peg, a shelf, a receptacle for mail you're keeping, or a recycling bin for junk mail.

9. Make an entrance.

Your foyer is the first thing you -- and your guests -- see once inside your house. Make it grand, no matter what the size, by adding a luxe wallcovering (like a hand-silk-screened print by Mod Green Pod, available through the Designer on Call program at the Boston Design Center) or a rich shade of paint. Replace dated or plain light fixtures with elegant ones, and add a table or console, so you can change the arrangement on top seasonally, suggests Lewis.

10. Freshen up the front.

Spruce up the exterior of your home with a new (or newly painted) front door and something pretty and welcoming on or near it, like a stylish door knocker or pots of plants and flowers, Wells suggests. She likes repainting the front door in a beautiful high-gloss color that contrasts with the hue of the rest of the house.