What bothers you the most? What projects can you combine to get the most bang for your buck? What would wind up costing more if you waited till later to address it?

We moved into our house about a year and a half ago. We still have popcorn ceilings, as they were one of our lower priority considerations (hubby is not bothered by them at all, and I am not bothered enough to make a big deal of it) but have had our handyman fix many issues. These issues included ensuring that doors don't have a gap at the bottom, replacing front porch steps, replacing a potentially treacherous front walkway, and replacing the ugly kitchen flooring, to name a few.

We also had him replace the lone bit of wall-to-wall carpet -- which was in the master bedroom closet -- with wood laminate and finish an unfinished threshold to our attic. Both of those things have made our home look and feel much classier.

We literally bought a house and are doing all the things you listed above. We did the popcorn first before we moved in so we could make a mess and not worry about furniture/electronics getting dusty. We then painted the entire house and ceiling. After that, we had the carpet replaced in bedrooms and installed vinyl plank ourselves in the living areas first so we could move in and did the dining room and kitchen later after we had those renovated/painted. We undercut our door trim for now and pulled all our baseboards so we could lay our flooring (I refused to have shoe mould and wanted bigger baseboards). Now we are slowly replacing window trim and door trim with new doors as we finish up each room. We paid about $10k for decent carpet with install and pretty high end vinyl plank for almost the entire house. We probably spent $1k in paint plus materials. We hired out our ceiling painting for $2500. Doors and trim will vary based on quality. We live in the Midwest, if that helps you get an idea of cost. Good luck!

I have to agree, popcorn first, because, it will be messy. Get it over and done with and the ceilngs painted. Wall paint can come later. Baseboards and wall paint can be done room by room, as you get extra funds. and neither are all that messy jobs. If you have money left after you do the popcorn ceilings, then, I might try to get the laminate flooring down since those are probably bedrooms, and its a big job to have to move bedroom furniture, but, I would not do them, before ceilings are done.

Impossible to say until you send a small sample of the popcorn ceiling to an accredited lab for testing to determine if it contains asbestos. If it does have asbestos, you can either leave it in place and move on to other projects, or use a good portion of your budget to have it removed by professionals in a way that won't threaten the health of your family. If it doesn't contain asbestos, feel free to make a mess.

5K would cover none of those projects here, in low labor cost area of the country. I would save that for the unexpected "joys" of home ownership.

Thank you all for the suggestions. Yes it is all cosmetic but I have to do something. I think the popcorn bother me the most.