Your philosophy for home reno

[RearAdmiral]

The best? Reno strictly for value/next owner? Cheap?

While this has come up quite a bit in chatting w/ my wife as we have done reno on our foreclosed home over the past 8 years, it is starting to become more of an issue as we "run out" of projects to do. We recently transitioned our efforts to fixing up the front of the house and increasing curb appeal. We spent almost 5k on some pretty nice concrete steps to replace the horrible existing steps. We are going to get some railings as well, possibly custom welded. We have been shopping to replace our 2 front doors as well for a couple of years. We actually hired a contractor to replace 2 doors to the tune of 6k(Thermatru Classic Craft). He basically disappeared so that never happened.

Now that I am re-engaging on the doors my wife and I had another conversation on the merits of spending a lot of money on our house(LCOL area and we would like to move in the next few years). We generally always bought what we wanted/liked, as opposed to generally following certain styles or creating our home for the "next" people, to make them happy. So basically I treat each reno / upgrade as a binary choice. We either do it right/nice or we don't do it. I don't want to spend money and just make a sideways move imo.

So I'd like to replace our 2 front doors with very nice replacements, potentially Provia or HMI which are big bucks and also way outclass the area. But I live here and I want to enjoy my home and I enjoy making things as nice as I can. Or I could potentially purchase a 1k door that might even be worse than what I have now. It doesn't bother me a ton that I might lose some money, since I'll gain utility and enjoyment while I am here. Perhaps it should bother me more though and I should optimize to my area / future buyer.

How do you guys feel about this with your homes?

 

[herm0016]

depends on the house.
The last few we did stuff on a budget, but did it correctly, all 3 of those projects netted us a good profit when we sold, while also giving us a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction that they were well done remodels that would serve their new owners well, not a run of the mill flip. I would avoid outclassing the hood too much. we always bought the low end of the neighborhood on our step ups and created a home that sold for a record number for the market conditions of the hood at sell time. Worked our way up from a 350k home bought on a FHA loan, to one worth around 2.5x after upgrades, bought with 20% down and significant capital to reinvest and increase value with some cash out of the total for us. its all about timing markets and knowing exactly what kind of property and neighborhood will appreciate in value quickly.

We were careful to outclass the neighborhood just a little, this helps sell fast, but i'm not sure it gets you extra capital at the end. If anything is true, its that buyers are idiots and have no idea if a door is actually better vs just pretty. they appreciate high end appliances and cleanly done finishes, but it does not matter if those things are from habitat for humanity store or a high end studio costing 10x as much.

our new place is what we worked towards on our trade ups and no expense will be spared when it comes to efficiency or reliability upgrades up to our budget limits as we plan to be here for a good long time.

 

[RearAdmiral]

depends on the house.
The last few we did stuff on a budget, but did it correctly, all 3 of those projects netted us a good profit when we sold, while also giving us a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction that they were well done remodels that would serve their new owners well, not a run of the mill flip. I would avoid outclassing the hood too much. we always bought the low end of the neighborhood on our step ups and created a home that sold for a record number for the market conditions of the hood at sell time. Worked our way up from a 350k home bought on a FHA loan, to one worth around 2.5x after upgrades, bought with 20% down and significant capital to reinvest and increase value with some cash out of the total for us. its all about timing markets and knowing exactly what kind of property and neighborhood will appreciate in value quickly.

We were careful to outclass the neighborhood just a little, this helps sell fast, but i'm not sure it gets you extra capital at the end. If anything is true, its that buyers are idiots and have no idea if a door is actually better vs just pretty. they appreciate high end appliances and cleanly done finishes, but it does not matter if those things are from habitat for humanity store or a high end studio costing 10x as much.

our new place is what we worked towards on our trade ups and no expense will be spared when it comes to efficiency or reliability upgrades up to our budget limits as we plan to be here for a good long time.

Definitely can see the issue with most folks being dumb and not knowing a 4k door vs a 300 dollar HD one. We have steel doors right now so I could even paint them or have them painted to simply upgrade the look(although my wife wants more light so we want 1/4 glass in them). In regards to timing we got this place in 2013 in a depressed area so it was a steal @ 125k. I figure it is worth at least double now, but with a ton of upgrades/my own work/$. Our next place will be much more $ as we are either looking at 10+ acres and building or doing a major reno on a busted farmhouse w/ land. So we having been saving for that and I've been hesitant to drop a lot more money on this place as it is already quite nice by neighborhood standards.

I want to get to that permanent place as you mention so I can unload and get all the stuff I really want and have been holding back on. We could use a mini-split to supplement our HVAC, doors, reno-ing 1/2 bath, smaller stuff that is more annoying for me.

We've had multiple comments like wow your house is really nice....on the inside lol, hence these outdoor upgrades finally. I'm glad you brought up habitat, I want to check those places out and see if I can find some decent doors.

Thanks for the input.

 

[herm0016]

Definitely can see the issue with most folks being dumb and not knowing a 4k door vs a 300 dollar HD one.

We've had multiple comments like wow your house is really nice....on the inside lol, hence these outdoor upgrades finally. I'm glad you brought up habitat, I want to check those places out and see if I can find some decent doors.

Thanks for the input.

I would stick with regular doors then. you can always just put a window in it, very easy. yes, our new place is 5 acres behind the first foothill of the Rockies between Denver and Fort Collins, about 5 min from a good size lake. started out a nice house in a horse pasture. waiting on a permit for a 36x40 barn with attached 8x36 greenhouse on south side, poured new concrete, new patio, house will get painted this year, upgraded all the fencing, have a very nice tractor/loader. we have sheep and rabbits for meat, chickens for eggs, and a llama just because. planning on ground mount solar. it's a fantastic way to live, and we have only been here 8 months!

 

[skyking]

Since you are not hiring everything out, you can add value with things like paint and finishes without big hardware expenditures. I would continue in that direction.
The way housing vs raw land and building pencils out, I think a couple who are willing to act as at least the general contractor will make out hugely. The $$ from your sale will go farther IMO.

 

[z1ggy]

I do things that will add enjoyment and value to my life. I guess... luckily? I don't like weird things... but I don't really care about trends, since you can't predict anything.

Right now, my kitchen has gray floors (stained oak we just did) a yellowy/white looking stone backsplash, and then "walnut" stained cabinets. The floors used to be that standard honey oak color, but I had them redone into gray because that's what my wife and I like, and I redid the upstairs floor in LVP to match. Next, I'm going to whitewash all the cabinets (just made a thread today asking for advice on if I should go lacquer or some kind of urethane) and then paint that stone tile white, too. After that... Countertops. Except I'm going to epoxy them, either black/dark grey or go with a white with lots of grey veining. I know for a fact in 20 years, a white kitchen with gray floors probably won't be "in", just like how in 1995, a beige/brown kitchen was "in".

I think as long as what you change is just cosmetic, go nuts. Other more structural changes, you may want to consider the "next person" if you don't think where you live is going to be your final destination.

 

[herm0016]

painting stone tile is not a great thing to do. you can redo it for some labor and use larger tiles pretty cheap. we used 12x24 tiles in a 1/3 offset and it came out great and only cost a few hundred bucks. it was pretty easy to do and went quite fast with the larger tiles.

 

[Micrornd]

In the kitchen, I only do things the wife approves of

 

[z1ggy]

painting stone tile is not a great thing to do. you can redo it for some labor and use larger tiles pretty cheap. we used 12x24 tiles in a 1/3 offset and it came out great and only cost a few hundred bucks. it was pretty easy to do and went quite fast with the larger tiles.

Why isn't it great? Rust-Oleum makes tile specific paints. It's just a temporary thing to make it look more updated while I save up the time/money to rip it out and put up ceramic.

 

[herm0016]

stone or porcelain or ceramic? it could work, I just have not witnessed a job where it came out any better than "acceptable". you can do the tile job yourself for less than 5 per sq foot, so I would figure out what its going to cost for the "kits" and see if it compares.


we did this for backsplash on a full gut reno 2 houses ago... have flipped several homes to get to our little farm now, plus side handyman work. this backsplash cost around 250 bucks to complete. I think it was around 60 sq feet but don't remember exactly.
tile: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Traffic...all-Tile-16-sq-ft-case-NHDVIGRI1224/300126888


job:

results:

 

[z1ggy]

stone or porcelain or ceramic? it could work, I just have not witnessed a job where it came out any better than "acceptable". you can do the tile job yourself for less than 5 per sq foot, so I would figure out what its going to cost for the "kits" and see if it compares.


we did this for backsplash on a full gut reno 2 houses ago... have flipped several homes to get to our little farm now, plus side handyman work. this backsplash cost around 250 bucks to complete. I think it was around 60 sq feet but don't remember exactly.
tile: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Traffic...all-Tile-16-sq-ft-case-NHDVIGRI1224/300126888


job:
View attachment 61342
results:
View attachment 61343

Looks cool but not my cup of tea. Big ceramic/porcelain belongs on the floor unless it's the bathroom. For backsplash, my wife and I are more into mosaic or subway. For now, reno's that I'm planning are things that won't cause major disruption to the daily routine or cause a mess. Once my kids are older, I will 100% replace backsplash...the entire bathrooms and so on. For now, paint can get me 50% of what we what.