Save up for worthwhile investments. Amy lived with bare plywood floors for a year while she socked away a few thousand dollars to install hardwood flooring. "I was just a poor new homeowner," she says, "but I was not about to live with somebody else's dirty carpet," which she ripped up before even moving in. The new wood unifies all of the rooms, making the house feel more spacious.

Tackle projects one at a time. That means limiting their scope so that each task is doable within a fairly short window. Because the side patio doors and entry door had water damage, replacing them became a top priority. And finishing the interior was more urgent than landscaping, so Amy started there. Then she moved on, overhauling rooms as money allowed, moving to the garage, then the front yard.