In this article, we collated some of the best ideas that fit the bill. Each idea can be considered mind-blowing for a variety of reasons. Some skyrocket the value of your home, others make it a more comfortable place to live. The rest are just not as well-known as they should be.
Wrap your roof
What? What do you mean wrap my roof? Ok, so wrapping your roof is not the most jaw-dropping improvement you can make. However, what makes it jaw-dropping is the amazing benefits it gives relative to the cost and effort involved.
You can either get an actual rubber membrane that you pull over your roof or an elastomeric roof coating that you paint on. The best products can reflect up to 80% of the sun’s rays and reduce your cooling costs by up to 20% alone. On top of that, it protects your roof for up to 10 years.
Depending on the size of your home and the product, it should only cost between $1,000 to $2,000.
Customize your layout
One of the best things about mobile homes is that the construction materials and methods used to build them make it easy to customize their designs. Most manufacturers even allow you to choose the floor plan and layout of your home. Additionally, they will custom design it using CAD (computer-aided design).
These same characteristics make it easy for you as an owner to customize your home yourself. Walls in mobile homes can be removed, added or moved relatively easily and affordable. It might seem quite drastic to start knocking out walls, but if you want one of those stylish and minimalist open plan designs or to create your own little home office space, the option is available.
If you are afraid of the whole house coming down on you, don’t be. A unique feature of mobile homes is that they actually rely very little on support from inner walls. Yes, you will need to know what you’re doing to avert a disaster, but it is doable for the DIY-enthusiast.
If you don’t feel like taking the chance, there is a construction-free alternative. Room dividers are no longer limited to the dreary and dusty grey-brown contraptions from the offices of the past. You can now get extremely tasteful and functional room dividers that are even suitable for the home. Just look at some of these options from Home Depot or these quirky giant sized Lego-like blocks, EverBlock.
Luxury mobile home makeover
Luxury and mobile home doesn’t seem like they belong in the same sentence. After all, most of us associate them with affordable housing (which they certainly are), not a glamorous lifestyle. Prepared to be amazed by these mobile home ideas.
Today, there are even multi-million dollar mobile homes. Most of them reached their lofty price tag as a result of aftermarket upgrades. It has even given rise to entire luxury mobile home parks with even some A-list celebrities making them their home.
Flipping your standard mobile home into a truly luxurious living space doesn’t have to cost millions of dollars. You would be surprised what new cabinets, a coat of paint, smart design choices, some new furniture, and lighting, as well as an eye for design, can achieve. Here, you can find some ideas to help you turn your mobile home into a luxury mobile home. This collection of fantastic mobile home makeovers from Today.com will show you just how simple and effective it could be.
Add a porch
Do you ever wish that you could enjoy the fresh outdoor air from inside your home? A porch is about as close as you are going to get. Many people choose to live in a mobile home to get a little closer to nature and enjoy a more laidback lifestyle. Few additions to your home bring you as close to those goals as a porch.
The great thing about a porch, and the reason why it’s such a popular aftermarket addition, is because it’s relatively easy to construct one that stands on its own and doesn’t bear on your home. Therefore, it won’t interfere with your home’s structural integrity or affect its HUD code status.
A porch can massively improve the curb appeal of your home and make it feel more like a stick-built home. It also adds some extra living space and will positively impact your home’s value.
Level your mobile home
Tell most homeowners that their home is not level any longer and they will likely scoff with disbelief. After all, it probably doesn’t feel skew nor seem possible to fix even if it were. It’s actually pretty common for mobile homes to become unlevel with time as they settle into their location or as the soil shifts with time.
This can lead to the home slightly sagging in some areas (usually corners). This might not have any immediate effects but can have serious ramifications if left to get worse for too long. With a water level, it’s easy to check if your home is level. You can also fix it yourself if you aren’t afraid of a little DIY following our guide on How to Make Your Mobile Home Level.
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Make your home a smart home
Today, everything is getting smarter; from our phones to our cars to even our homes. Who can blame us for wanting a living space that can adapt to our lifestyle, take care of everyday chores for us, and help us complete mundane tasks? Most people will only think of real estate when considering upgrades like these, but your mobile home is just as easy to make smart.
Smart Appliances
The first move you can make on your way to a smart home is to buy smart appliances. There are now smart products for almost all ordinary home appliances. The most prominent examples are smart refrigerators and smart laundry machines. These appliances can help you save energy, sync with other devices, and be controlled remotely as well as having a bunch of other handy features.
Home Assistant
To help you multitask between all of these appliances, something like a home assistant might be useful. These devices use voice commands to follow your orders. They can help you shop online, control other smart devices, and even make bookings. The biggest products on the market right now is the Google Home, Apple HomePod, and Amazon Echo/Alexa.
Control The Temperature
The last big smart home addition you can make is to install a central temperature control or programmable thermostat. These units maintain your home’s ideal temperature and conserve energy by learning your habits and adapting to them. You can even set schedules or individual room temperatures. It’s also super convenient that you can control them from an app instead of having to go to the unit every time an adjustment is needed.
Futuristic Locks
Another feature of a smart home could be keyless locks. These locks are usually extremely secure and can be controlled from a phone or via another small device. They can be used to “parental control” certain rooms or to unlock your home for a guest if you aren’t there. Some can even be opened using some kind of biometric scanning.
Other Techie Gadgets
Smart lights, fire alarms, vacuums, and coffee makers can round off your “smart mobile home”. We have collected 11+ Solutions To Design or DIY Your Smart Mobile Home here.
Re-panel your walls
Most older mobile homes (and even some newer ones) have wall panels that can only be described as a design catastrophe. The previously popular wooden panels of the olden days are exceptionally dated by now and most owners will want to make it one of the first updates they make to their mobile homes.
You might ask: “So, what am I supposed to do? Just cover them up?”. Actually, that’s exactly what you should do!
One of the perks of living in a mobile home is that it’s exceptionally easy to re-panel a home. You can either get rid of the previous panels entirely or, in some cases, simply fix the new panels right over them. These panels are also quite inexpensive and are a good trade if you consider the massive effect it will have on your home’s appeal.
You also aren’t limited by options. You can get mobile home wall panels for the interior or exterior that consists of wood, vinyl, metal or drywall. There is also an endless number of design choices with exotic options like faux wood or stone appearance.
Strengthen your home
The manufactured homes of today are a far cry above their older mobile home counterparts when it comes to their safety and quality. This is mostly thanks to the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1976. However, if you have an older model or you want to feel extra safe, you could actually strengthen your home yourself.
It’s a surprisingly common DIY project to add extra support slats to the frame of your mobile home. Some do it to strengthen their home against threats posed by extreme weather or because the home might not be properly zoned for that area. Others just do it to give an older home a life extension.
The standard studs within a home are 2×4”. You can go up to 2×6” if you want to add some extra support. You can also increase the frequency of the supports or just replace those that might have suffered some physical or water damage.
Make an addition to your home
One of most people’s chief concerns when moving to a mobile home is the smaller living space. This can be particularly true when it comes to single-wides. However, you can make additions to your home and build on complete sections if you wish. You only need to know what you are doing in terms of the HUD code if you don’t want your home to lose its compliance if that’s important to you.
We already talked about a porch, which is probably the easiest and one of the most useful additions you can make. Other popular additions include a sunroom, storage unit or carport. We have created a guide to give you more information on doing additions like this here.
Other cool mobile home ideas
- Indoor herb garden: There are plenty of good reasons to create an indoor herb garden. For one, having plants in the home has proven emotional and mental benefits. Secondly, you will always have fresh herbs at the ready for your cooking. And lastly, it looks amazing! This list of amazing indoor herb garden ideas shows how you can implement one without using up a lot of space.
- Outdoor beach firepit: No matter where you are located, it will be all too easy to imagine you are sitting around a beach bonfire with friends with a beach firepit. It’s a smart idea too as the sand will naturally stop the fire from spreading. It’s also easy to do as the DIY Network shows in this guide.
- Get creative with storage: We could almost write an entire article just on creative storage solutions. In a mobile home, this is often extra important as you don’t have all the free space available as with a stick-built home. Ottoman storage, floor-to-roof storage, and using shelves instead of walls to separate rooms are just some examples. We have prepared a list of handy, inexpensive, and DIY storage solutions for mobile homes.
Get going now!
We are always on the lookout for new incredible mobile home ideas to help you improve your home and your living experience. Regularly check our blog for new tips, tricks, guides, and more.
We hope that this article has opened your eyes to the many opportunities you have to create your perfect mobile home living experience, and we hope they spur you to action. Here’s to good living.
