Slowly But Surely. Fix up your home the way you envisioned it.

Improving your home can often be an expensive and overwhelming process. Here are some strategic tips you can use to set up achievable goals for yourself:

Create a priority wish list. Select each room and write down your vision for it. Your vision might be colors furniture or usability. Perhaps, you have one room that you want to make more practical for you purposes or your kids moved out and you want to create a home office or yoga room. The list you create should have each room set by priority. Within each room, set clear priorities of what you want to do first.

Calculate cost and budget each room. Determine the cost of each project and total the cost of each room. If is not financially feasible for you to complete all the tasks for a room, then decide which ones you could accomplish. Might be just a bucket of paint to change the colors of the walls or might just be painting the molding.

Commit to allocating your time to improvements. Revisit your priority list. Figure out how much time each improvement will take. Make sure your available time matches your projects. For instance, if one month you are planning to take a course or travel, you might need to change your priority list around and work on a room that will take less time.

Whether you are making improvements to your home for you to enjoy or to improve its value to sell, you might consider consulting with an interior designer and compare the cost and benefits of hiring a professional vs. the cost, time and stress of doing it yourself. There’s a great sense of accomplishment to doing it yourself. There’s also a priceless feeling to coming home to a new room. Remember that even working with a professional, you can do one room at time.

Staying within budget and setting up realistic expectations as to your available time will greatly help you reduce stress deriving from home improvements.