More consumers are dusting off their cordless drills, tape measures and jigsaws, or at least are shelling out for paint, spackle or flooring products. Home remodeling is on an upswing, according to the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. A byproduct of rising home sales during this past year, new homeowners are spending more at big-box stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot for their DIY projects. Home sellers are also adding to the increased sales at home improvement stores as they spruce up a home before putting it on the market. TV programmers, meanwhile, have been paying attention — and adding new home-improvement series or renewing old ones.

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Eight designers share secrets about the costs of assembling finished spaces—and the numbers may surprise you!

Surveys such as Remodeling magazine’s “Cost vs. Value” report detail how much it costs to complete a variety of major popular home improvement projects each year, including the always popular kitchen and bathroom redos.

But those numbers don’t reveal many of the additional expenses that give a room a truly finished look: a good paint job, built-in cabinetry, furnishings, carpeting, lighting, accessories, and so much more. Buyers and sellers who haven’t recently decorated or remodeled have no clue how quickly costs add up — sometimes exponentially.

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Mary Saunder disliked the cabinets in her kitchen from the moment she moved into her Maryland, home. “They were metal, the color of bronze,” Saunder says, “but my husband’s motto was ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.'” When her husband passed away last February, Mary decided it was time to act. “I couldn’t stand it any more,” she says. But rather than spend the $25,000 or $30,000 redoing the kitchen with new cabinets would have cost her, she settled on a simpler, cheaper and far less intrusive solution.

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So you think you can’t afford an upgraded, tricked-out pad? Not so fast! Every owner deserves to come home to a place that’s beautiful, comfortable, and accommodating to their lifestyle — without going into debt. Even if you haven’t become a homeowner yet, understanding which champagne-style comforts can be inexpensively added onto a home after closing can provide powerful inspiration for sticking to your beer budget. Here are a few of those little, affordable luxuries.

The mantel is often the focal point of the living room in winter, but it can be hard to know how to decorate the fireplace once warmer weather arrives. Do you play it up with fresh colors and artwork, or let it hide out behind strategically placed chairs and plants? No matter the approach you prefer, these 14 styling ideas should spark your imagination.

Just as with ties and hem lengths, wood flooring styles change. Colors get darker or lighter; planks get narrower or wider; woods with more or less grain show swings in popularity; softer or harder species gain or lose fans; and the wood itself may be older, newer, or even pre-engineered with a top layer or veneer-glued to a substrate to decrease expansion and contraction from moisture.

Here are key categories for consideration…