Home Bloggers' Crafty Ways to Save

Masterminds: Shelley and Cason Smith, who make upgrades to their Salt Lake City home affordable by doing the work themselves. They share the projects at thehouseofsmiths.com.
The Inspiration: "We wanted to give the short baseboards in our kitchen nook more height but didn't want the trouble or expense of ripping out the old moldings and putting in new, taller ones," says Shelley. "In the past, we've faked the look of paneled wainscoting by securing wood trim directly to the wall, rather than to plywood or MDF sheets, and then just painted it all. So we figured, why not try the same trick with our baseboards?"
How They Did It: Shelley and Cason nailed bead molding to the wall about 2½ inches above the existing baseboards. By finishing the molding and everything below it with the same paint, they achieved the look of one tall baseboard.
What It Cost: $6 for three 8-foot strips of bead molding; the paint was left over from another project