There are amazing and inexpensive ways to make a mobile home look like the home you’ve always dreamed of. From finding the perfect easy way to make wood paneled walls look like dry wall, to making custom curtain rods, Darlene shares her creative and inspirational story:

I live in a mobile home with very odd windows. When I wanted to purchase curtains and drapes, I found it almost an impossible task. I had completely remodeled the home from new carpet, new floors, all fresh paint and wanted new drapes. However, my first project was the walls. The whole place was paneled and I hated the dark paneling. In my desire to make it to look more like a real home, I took spackeling compound and a putty knife and filled in all the paneling grooves. I only had to go over it once and with the knife I scraped it down after applying the spackeling and when it was dry, I painted it the colors I wanted. It really did not take me that long to do the job, but as a woman, there was no way I could replace that paneling myself and I was trying to get this job done as inexpensively as possible. After the walls were painted, you could not tell in any way that they were not dry wall. So, on to my curtains… I made all of my curtains with fabric I was lucky enough to find that was on the clearance table of a local store. Then the rods presented a problem because they cost almost more than the mobile home! (Just kidding). For my kitchen window, which is actually two windows side by side, I used four plastic hooks that were a cream color and matched the walls of the kitchen. I then took a piece of PVC pipe and cut it in two pieces the width of the window. A simple saw I purchased at the dollar store was enough to cut it. I then took craft paint and painted the pipe. I put my curtain on it when it was dry and hung it on each hook and I had a perfect curtain rod that cost me less than $5.00. I also got new handles and knobs for my cupboards and painted them with the same craft paint. My cupboards were dark wood; I got some light wood contact paper, took each door off, and fitted a piece of contact on the front, and it looked like I had new light pinewood cupboards. I painted my ceiling molding with the same color craft paint. I painted my walls cream, new cream carpet, a country green print border and all the craft painted items to match. It looked great! It did not cost me a fortune, it looks great, I love it, and to this day no one believes the contact paper is really that and can not believe my curtain rods are merely PVC pipe!

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Need some ideas for that guest bathroom in your house? Try a rustic, earthy theme.

Read about how Brenda and her husband transformed their bathroom using tools and fixtures from Home Depot:

When we first moved into our house, back in June of 2006, everything was dated. That included everything in the bathroom, all the fixtures were still original, and this house was built in the 1970’s. We knew it would take some major work. One day, I was looking at the awful wallpaper, which had Eagles, the Liberty Bell, and America written on it. Knowing it had to go, I started ripping it off, that only took about an hour. The walls underneath were where the problems were. The walls were a mess for some reason, so spackling and sanding took us two days. While waiting for spackling to dry my husband gutted everything. We checked out a few local hardware stores, but they were all kind of expensive. We finally found a deal on everything that we wanted at Home Depot. They were actually cheaper than all the other places we looked at. We got everything we needed there: new toilet, vanity, and fixtures, as well as the flooring and all our paint needs. I wanted to go with an earthy feel for the bathroom; it’s a small bathroom in our downstairs area, with no window. So I wanted to bring some light into it. We put down multi-colored small slate tiles, which my husband hated every second of. He used the wrong tile cutter, we found out later, so it made the job take a lot longer, and was a lot harder. He used a tile cutter, and we found out he should have been using a wet saw. Live and learn I guess. The sink faucet we picked looked like an old well pump, so even the sink kept with the theme. We finished by painting the walls a very soft lavender, almost grayish in color. It brings out the color in the slate floor, which is my favorite part of the room. Then I, decorated the one wall with a brown wrought iron art work, and flowers every where they could go. It ended up being beautiful! It has a real earthy feel to it; it’s my favorite room in our house.

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