Ty Pennington's simple home tips can uplift your mood

USA TODAY Co.’s Project Home Improved gives you the tips, tools and techniques to help make your house a better place.

This year, we’re partnering with home-renovation expert Ty Pennington to empower you with the knowledge necessary to pull off large and small projects that will improve your home.

Ty’s first tip: Embrace a little bit of small freshness and see where it leads you.

“What I mean is make some fresh changes. And what I mean by that, it does really elevate your mood. And whether that's just painting a new color on one wall, like an accent color, to add just a little bit of fun.”

But what if you don’t want to bust out the brushes and a gallon of paint? The Extreme Home Makeover veteran says you don’t need to go big right out of the gate.

“Just some bright-colored throw pillows on your couch will change the mood,” Pennington said. “And the other simplest thing to do is just add some greenery, some plants.”

But be ready, Pennington said: Those small steps will draw you in and before you know it, your home upgrades will be taking on a life of their own.

“Believe it or not, when you bring those new elements of color into your room, it's going to make you also start thinking about, "Well, maybe I should also work in this corner and make this a little nice." Once you start, it sort of triggers things to make the whole room seem better.”

Ty Pennington’s simple tips for starting a home improvement project:

Start with:

• Adding color to a wall,
• Adding a piece of art to a wall
• Adding colorful throw pillows
• Even just plants and flowers

“The minute you bring them in, you're also going to do the other side of the room because you want it all to look so much better. And that's change.

“I think we just all need a little bit of change and freshness in our homes to keep our minds and sort of, our mood uplifted. And your environment that you live in really does affect that.”