16 Before-and-After Room Makeovers

From one end of the house (the entryway) to the other (the mudroom), it seems, readers’ rooms could use a little zhooshing up. But whether the problem is a lack of organization or a dearth of pizzazz, Real Simple has the solution. Find smart tips—and inspiration—in this gallery of before-and-after shots, and apply them to a room of your own.

Entryway

Kitchen

Home Office

Playroom

Bathroom

Mudroom

Every entryway has the challenge of setting the tone for the rest of a home, and this bare front hall wasn’t particularly inviting. The homeowner wanted it to be more welcoming—and to function like a mudroom without looking like one.

With the walls painted deep red, the foyer now greets guests warmly. A (dirt-catching) striped woven cotton rug draws visitors into the house. A narrow farmhouse-style bench encourages kids to sit down and take off their shoes. Footwear and backpacks can be stashed in four wicker baskets in the new console. The new, larger mirror reflects the sunlight that pours in through the now-curtainless window and makes the room seem larger.

A jumble of flea market finds clutters the entryway, while its color scheme lacks presence.

Darkening the foyer gives it drama and accentuates the brightness of the repainted living room walls. Grouping found art gives the collection cohesiveness.

With papers piled up across the countertops, it’s hard to find a cleared spot for food preparation.

Kitchen counters are freed up by mounting basics—calendar, phone, to-do lists—on the wall. A rolling file cabinet (which slides into the adjacent pantry when not in use) keeps paperwork in order, while a mounted hideaway cutting board and retractable bookstand save valuable counter space.

Small, dark, and cluttered, this kitchen isn’t exactly an inspiring place to start the day. The worn solid-oak cabinets make the kitchen feel even smaller than it is. And though the counters are crowded, the walls are going unused.

To lighten the room, cabinets are painted white, a matching front is ordered from the manufacturer and attached to the dishwasher (takes only minutes to install), and the fussy valance is removed from the windows to let in more natural light, making the kitchen appear larger without comprising privacy. Walls are made useful with a mounted microwave and a hook rack beside the stove that makes it easy to grab frequently used pans, utensils, and potholders.

The kitchen is treated as a showcase for pottery and plants instead of a practical work area. The counter space is sparse and a never-used table takes up valuable turf.

The table is removed and replaced by a base cabinet with drawers and a countertop that is 10 inches deeper than average—creating some much-needed surface area. The excessive decorative pieces make way for more useful items, like a wine rack for bottles that had been strewn about the floor. With the clutter cleared, there’s an easy flow between the three key work areas: sink, stove, and refrigerator.

A hodgepodge of photos, crafts projects, books, and mailings doesn’t leave an inch of space to work in this home office. The bright fuchsia rug clashes with the yellow walls.

The clunky desk is replaced with space-saving sturdy shelves to house the computer and keyboard—long enough for two people to work at. The mountain of papers, whittled down, is sorted and stored away in a file cabinet; photos go into tin boxes, and magazines are kept in bulk bins. A coordinating rug and office chair balance out the color scheme.

A lonely console table near the front door serves mostly as a temporary resting place for things waiting to be put away—though not even the mail, which the owners tend to spread throughout the house. Dark blue on the walls makes them heavy, so the room feels close.

A new desk takes advantage of unused wall space, adding shelf and drawer storage and a place to sort and file mail and other papers. Household records are kept within easy reach in magazine file boxes. A coat of yellow paint provides instant lift and a sunny look.

Papers, books, and accessories run rampant over a desktop, leaving little room to actually work. A cumbersome desk chair and wastepaper basket are nothing but clunky, and despite the overflowing workspace, the walls remain bare.

By installing 20 twelve-inch-round magnetic boards over the desk—claiming the wall’s valuable unutilized space—the room gains a graphic backdrop for hanging notes and magnet-backed mesh baskets. Hanging shelves provide a haven for books and magazines; cord bundlers and clips corral unruly electronics cords. The desk chair and wastepaper basket are upgraded to sleeker models.

A double bed crammed into the corner, cordoning off half the room, makes the space feel claustrophobic. Ungainly dark carpet visually brings the walls in closer. Plus, the room needs an overhaul on its dual functionality, from a guest room/home office to a nursery/home office.

An energetic yet soothing color enlivens and enlarges the room, creating a calm, airy space for both doing business and bringing up baby. With less clutter, each side has room to spread out a little. The double-purpose room is integrated by keeping to a consistent color scheme that’s pulled together by a bold patterned piece. Leaving most of the floor bare reduces allergens and increases the feeling of spaciousness, and a roller shade can let in daylight or block it out during nap time.

With no room to spread out in the small office, the desk is overloaded with school reports, unpaid bills, and children’s artwork piled in haphazard layers. And the office has become a dumping ground for everything from junk mail to homework.

The addition of five adjustable shelves makes smart use of vertical wall space and high ceilings. With papers now neatly stowed in boxes, bins, and cabinets, the desk is freed up for its intended purpose: reading and writing. A wire-mesh file mounted on the wall to the left of the desk creates an “in and out” system for mail, and a yellow desk stool adds a pop of color.

The playroom is ill equipped to stow toys, games, and crayons, which means most of it gets spread out over the floor—or stuck in makeshift containers, like the play kitchen. Artwork is statically and messily taped to the wall.

A 16-foot-long wall provides enough cubbies for each toy, marker, and paintbrush to have a home. A “hanging gallery” made from strung curtain wire encourages constant rotation of paintings and provides an inexpensive and sturdy way to showcase children’s masterpieces. Three different areas for creating are carved out: the art area, the worktable, and the reading nook—a cozy place with a bookcase stocked full of favorites, good lighting, and cuddle-worthy seating. Window shades are in a soothing robin’s-egg blue.

Between the scattered stuffed animals, the prolific artwork with no home, the books in disarray, and the random pieces of dress-up clothing, the room constantly looks as though a major storm front roared through.

An existing, matching shelving unit was cleared to house books and games neatly. Clothing is stored in the drawers, and out-of-season items go in bins on top.

In this small and dated 1960s bathroom, the blue tiles, white vanity, yellow walls, and multicolored shower curtain create visual havoc. A large, flat mirror that was installed to open up the room does more harm than good, since it has no storage, forcing bottles and tubes to be left out on the sink and on the open shelf over the toilet.

The walls are painted with white semigloss paint, and white towels replace the yellow ones. A fun polka-dot shower curtain is both a room brightener and a mood lifter. The blue-and-white scheme makes the room feel larger and more coherent. Hanging a medicine chest eliminates the exposure of clutter. A polished-chrome center-set faucet rejuvenates the old basin, and new chrome hardware on the repainted vanity updates the timeworn cabinetry.

Instead of solving the organization problem, a mudroom’s large built-in desk serves as a clutter magnet. The narrow, high-traffic space has no sense of order and purpose.

Bright colors and smart storage, such as lockers that roll out for easy access to shoes, remake the area into a way station for kids to get ready for school. The desk is made useful as a base for a bookcase turned on its side, with labeled boxes slid onto the shelves.

The overtaxed hallway lacks the design and utility of a proper mudroom, and the drab color scheme does little for the scarcity of natural light. A dumping ground for boots, helmets, jump ropes, and other athletic equipment, the basement space is in need of an organizational overhaul.