Inexpensive But Not Cheap Home Improvement Projects

There are in excess of 12,000 annual online searches for cheap home improvement projects but I think most people mean inexpensive.

Here are a few projects that are inexpensive, durable and will dress up your landscape in style. Especially in the challenging real estate market projects like these will give you a value added edge.

The one up top is a concrete bench with legs made from fence posts. The mold was made from melamine board with a Portland mix from the local Redi mix plant. I mixed in some gray colorant and polished the slab with a wet polisher with diamond pads.

There are mixes on the market which are more user friendly than the typical Portland. Sure Crete Designs and enCounter both have unique mixes that can be popped out of the mold in 4 hours and polished in 8 hours.

Prietech, a mold manufacturer, has unique molds that will enable you to pop the concrete out of the mold and avoid the polishing step. Use of the correct projects make it possible to make simple projects for outdoor use that can be poured in the morning and complete in the afternoon.

These are inexpensive but not cheap home improvement projects that will endure. I made about 10 of the benches and sold 8 of them for about $350.00 each. Other than time each bench cost about $50.00 to build. People love them. They get better with age and the legs weather nicely.

The birdbaths were a bit more effort. The molds required a bit more skill and a lot more concrete. I didn’t bother polishing them and left them natural with voids exposed. They cost about $200.00 each to make and sold 6 of them for about $1,200.00 per birdbath.

After 1 year of being exposed to the elements they look better than new. Everyone who bought one really likes them. Apparently the birds do to. Definitely inexpensive but not cheap home improvement projects.

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