As the weather gets warmer, you might find yourself with a little extra time and motivation to spruce things up around the house. A common way of doing that (despite the groans of children everywhere) is a little spring cleaning. A winter cooped up has a way of gathering dust and stale air. Opening the windows, fluffing the pillows, and giving everything a proper cleaning can give your home a refreshed feeling.

If you’re not satisfied with just tidying up, or if your summer activities are a little more mechanical in nature, you’ll probably have a bit more fun repairing, building, or crafting something. If you’re itching to break out the hammer, we’ve got some suggestions to get you started.

These projects are for inside and outside your house, for making your summer more fun or making chores a little easier. From regular summertime home maintenance to creative projects you can do with the kids in your life, here are 14 relatively simple DIY projects to keep you busy and get the most out of the warm seasons.

Temperature records continue to get broken on a regular basis and a looming El Niño event threatens to make things even worse. Reliable air conditioning can be crucial during the summer months, especially as climate change brings increasingly extreme weather conditions. If your AC isn’t working come spring, you should probably address it promptly.

If you’ve already ruled out the usual suspects (like blocked airflow, leaky ducts, and refrigerant leaks), you might be dealing with failure of the compressor or fan. Each of those are controlled by a capacitor tucked inside your air conditioner’s casing. A capacitor holds onto a charge to help gadgets start up and keep running. Depending on the type of AC system you have, you may have several capacitors for running the compressor and fan(s) or one large capacitor that runs everything.

You can test the capacitance of your capacitors (ability to hold a charge) with a multi-meter and replace them if needed. This is a simple matter of disconnecting the pins on the old capacitors and connecting the new ones. However, while the job can be easy, it can also be dangerous. Always make sure to turn off the power to your AC system, short across the capacitors with an insulated screwdriver before working with them, and always work with a buddy.

Painting your front door is like giving your home a fresh face of makeup. It can change your home’s personality, giving it an updated look. If you’re searching for a relatively simple project, painting the door is quick and easy, making it affordable and approachable.

This isn't a job that takes a whole lot of planning

Choose a primer and paint that are compatible with your door material, pick a color, and you’re off to the races. Doors come in many sizes, but standard dimensions are about 80 inches tall by 30 inches wide. Assuming you’re only painting the outside face of your door, you’re working with about 2,400 square inches or 16.67 square feet (1.55 square meters) of surface area, a little more if there’s any decorative elevation changes in the surface.

Paint coverage varies from brand to brand, and certain colors might require more coats than others so your mileage may vary a little bit. That said, you can usually get 300 to 400 square feet per gallon. The Lowe’s paint calculator estimates you can paint a standard door with 0.2 gallons of primer and 0.1 gallons of paint, finishing the job in well under an hour. A tiny little pint of paint is probably more than enough.

Gardening can be a good way to supplement your at-home food supply. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a time-honored way to spend time outside in the sunshine and fresh air.

Raised garden beds let you plant flowers, vegetables, and more without actually breaking ground. They can be especially useful if you live in a rented space where digging into the backyard might be discouraged. They’re often also easier to maintain, easier on your back, and more productive than in-ground gardens, with proper maintenance.

Raised garden boxes can look a lot of ways

They can be as small or as large as you like and built in whichever shape you prefer. If this is your first DIY garden box, keeping it simple is probably safer. You can build a simple garden box by cutting 2x4s and screwing them together in a square or rectangular setup. Stack the boards at least three high or about 6 inches, so there’s enough soil for your plants’ roots to take hold. Building a raised garden box is a relatively simple project with a big pay off throughout the growing season.

Cleaning is rarely fun, but pressure washing can quite literally be a blast. If you’ve got a fancy, high-end pressure washer sitting in your shed with its own built-in pressure system, then you’re ready to get to work, scrubbing away the dirt between sidewalk tiles or washing away discolorations from your home’s siding. Just make sure to select the right pressure for the surface you’re cleaning, to prevent damage.

If you don’t already have access to a pressure washer, a regular garden hose and a pressure attachment can achieve reasonable results in a pinch. For bigger jobs, you can always rent a pressure washer. The results might not be quite as good as a professional pressure washer, but it’s better than nothing and probably as powerful as you need. Pressure washing your outdoor surfaces not only saves you money, it can also be fun. There’s something so satisfying about wiping away grime with what is effectively a super powered squirt gun.

There are few natural signs more closely associated with spring than the morning chorus of songbirds. Once upon a time, birds were even more common but we humans have taken over large portions of the ecosystem with our cities, suburbs. It’s probably our responsibility to at least make those spaces as hospitable as possible to the birds that are still here.

Building a bird house can provide a small, safe space in your yard for our flying friends to rest and nest. Not all birds will hang out in bird houses, but they can provide a home for birds who usually build their nests in hollow trees. Adding bird feeders or a bird bath into the mix can make your yard even more inviting, which will delight the bird lovers in your life as well.

Fortunately, building a bird house can be a relatively easy DIY project to take on. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) provides plans for a simple bird house built from a couple of boards, screws, nails, and a few basic tools. And if you’ve got small children who want to participate, PBS offers plans for a bird house made from a recycled milk carton, popsicle sticks, construction paper, and a few other materials.

If you have a deck connected to your home (or any other wooden outdoor structure), it probably sees the most traffic over the summer. And if you live in a place with harsh winters, it may also have just finished taking a beating from the elements. Harsh winds, frigid temperatures, and freezing water can chip away at your deck’s protective and aesthetic finish.

Spring is a great time to inspect your deck, sand down any damaged areas, and cover them with a fresh coat of paint or stain. With a little bit of maintenance your deck should be ready to handle the summer festivities for years to come.

Maintenance schedules vary based on the type of lumber, fasteners, and finish used, not to mention the environment and frequency of use. The proper wood finish not only makes your deck look good, it also helps to repel water and prevent damage. If you’re looking for guidance, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has studied how different deck materials age in varying conditions and come up with recommendations for building and maintaining a deck.

Let’s face it, many of the outdoor light fixtures on our homes leave a little something to be desired. Unless your home was recently built or renovated, it probably has exterior lights which are aging or not as functional as they could be.

If you’re interested in replacing your existing wired lights with new permanent outdoor lights, it often only takes a trip to the hardware store, a decorator’s eye, and a screwdriver. It’s important to follow all safety precautions when working with electricity, like cutting the power and wearing appropriate safety gear. However, most of the work should already be done, leftover from the old lights’ installation. All you should need to do is unfasten the mounting screws and detach the wires, then reverse the process with your new lights.

If you want to replace or add wireless lights, your task should be even easier. There’s a large selection of solar or battery powered, motion activated outdoor lights on the market which can be mounted to the outside of your house without any electrical know-how at all.

We love a project that diverts materials from the landfill. In this case, we’re not just making something out of trash, we’re using the trash can itself.

This project utilizes one of those small wired trash cans typically found in bathrooms or beneath office desks. If you’ve got an aging tiny trash can you’re looking to move out of your home, it could find a new purpose on your patio or in your garden.

All of the openings in a wire trash can provide plenty of ventilation and drainage. You could line it with coconut fibers to hold in the soil without losing the benefits of such an open container. Connecting a chain to the top could turn it into a hanging planter. If you have two trash cans to work with, you could flip one over and use it as a base, then stack the other on top for a taller structure. You’re limited only by your imagination, materials, and space limitations. Experiment with form to find a layout that works for you.

Is it even spring or summer if you don’t break out the grill once or twice? As soon as you start to feel the warm sunshine on your face, it’s easy to start daydreaming about hamburgers, hotdogs, and cold drinks. But before you turn on the propane or pour the charcoal briquettes, giving your barbecue grill a thorough scrubbing can improve your grilling and dining experience all summer long.

The battle of barbecue grease versus elbow grease can be tough, but worth it

Cranking up the heat can help get rid of some of the leftover debris. For the rest, you’ll probably need a combination of dish soap, baking soda, and a scrub brush, paint scraper, or similar tool. Some other unconventional materials you might have lying around, like a potato, onion, or lemon can help clean your barbecue grill and leave it smelling lemony fresh. Doing the same maintenance in small batches throughout the summer could also make the job easier next summer.

Screen doors inhabit a liminal space, a middle ground between inside and outside. They allow you to let sunshine and fresh air in while keeping bugs and other critters (mostly) outside.

If your screen door is damaged (tears in the screen or not sitting flush), creepy crawlies can get inside. Other problems, like a failing locking mechanism, can just be frustrating. The screen door is also often the first thing visitors see while they’re waiting for you to let them in.

Regardless of your reasoning, replacing your screen door can be a simple way of updating that important barrier between inside and outside. The job itself is relatively simple. Most of the time, all you’ll need to do is remove a few screws, swap out the doors, and refasten the screws. Make sure to choose the right replacement that fits your doorway’s dimensions and keep a level handy so things join up correctly when the door is closed.

The seals around your doors, windows, and other openings in your home serve several purposes. They help to keep bugs and moisture out while helping you maintain the temperature and environmental conditions inside. Poor or aging seals and other leaks create undesirable openings in your home’s proverbial force field, sealing them up can cut heating and cooling costs while making your home more durable.

Inspect your seals and replace or repair them as necessary. This can involve buying and installing weather stripping or running some silicone or caulking along corners and edges.Use caulking for stationary parts of your home like the connections between door frames and walls or around window frames Use weather stripping around moving parts like doors and windows.

Make sure to check the basement and attic, if you have them, where significant leaks often lie hidden. And if you’re getting into tight spaces, especially where leaks might have encouraged the growth of mold, it’s important to wear goggles, a respirator, and all appropriate safety gear.

If you’ve spent any amount of time driving you’ve probably experienced knowing you’re on the right street and nonetheless being unable to find the house you’re looking for, because it doesn’t have easily visible address numbers from the road.

Even with GPS, it can be difficult to discern between adjacent houses unless they’re labeled clearly. It can result in new friends and acquaintances wandering around your neighborhood and lost packages if delivery drivers get confused. Don’t do that to yourself.

Spring is a great time to make sure your home’s name tag is easily visible. Maybe that means it’s time for trimming plants or pressure washing walls to make existing numbers more visible. You might even consider getting new numbers at the hardware store and installing them somewhere more prominent with a few simple screws. A few stencils and some spray paint will also let you put the numbers on the curb, which is a classic move.

Cabinets are among the unsung heroes of a home. They quietly contain dishes, food and spices, kitchen appliances, and more until we need them. Elevated above the kitchen counter, you can almost forget about them except when you’re cooking, unless you think they’re ugly.

Style trends change over time and what looked cute a few decades ago might look dated today. If you’ve got a wooden eyesore hanging over your kitchen it could take some of the joy out of daily dining. Fortunately, you can basically give yourself new cabinets without actually tearing out and replacing anything.

As long as your existing cabinets are structurally sound, a coat of paint or stain and new hardware (handles and hinges) can give your kitchen an entirely new look. Those are all materials you can find at the hardware store without breaking the bank. And if you want to step things up, you can always replace the doors entirely with something more modern.

Plants love warm temperatures and plenty of sunshine, but only to a point. Plants need access to water to stay alive and healthy and, just like people, warm weather dehydrates them. If you have a garden or a yard and you want it to survive the summer, you’re probably going to have to provide some artificial watering pretty regularly.

With a small upfront investment, an automated sprinkler system can take a lot of the effort out of keeping your plants hydrated, and it could save you some money in the process. You could set up your sprinklers to water every day at a certain time or every few days, as needed. Check with your local authority to find out the watering guidelines for your area.

You can find solar-powered sprinkler systems that turn on when the sun comes up in the morning and turn off after a prescribed time. Or you can choose a smart system which links up with your home Wi-Fi and can be controlled with a smartphone. There are sprinkler systems for every yard and budget. With a little bit of maintenance every now and again (declogging lines, replacing seals, and such), you’ll be able to keep your yard watered all spring and summer with nary a thought.