When my wife and I first started renovating our fixer-upper, we thought we knew exactly what would make the biggest impact when it came time to put it back on the market. And while many of the big-ticket updates were important, they weren’t always what buyers commented on, remembered, or what increased our home’s value.
Looking back, a few changes made our home more complete and functional and ended up being the biggest selling points. Some were major renovations, others were surprisingly simple, but all of them made our lives better while living in the home and helped buyers picture themselves living there, too.
Improved Floor Plan
The biggest overhaul in our fixer-upper was removing the walls separating our kitchen, dining room, and living room. It completely changed the floor plan of our home, making it feel larger and function more naturally. As soon as you walked in through the front door, you could see straight through to the backyard and across the main living area of the home.
New bathrooms, kitchens, and other room modifications are easy to imagine, but it’s much more difficult to envision a home’s potential when it comes to removing or adding walls.
Not every home is designed in a way that’s conducive to an open floor plan, and that’s not everyone’s ideal home layout anyway. But if you’re planning a full gut job on your fixer-upper, the first thing you should keep in mind is the home’s layout and whether there’s a way to improve it.
Added Storage
Everyone needs more storage. Everyone.
Single households. Families of eight. Downsizers. First-time homeowners.
You get it. Prospective buyers will immediately walk in and start mentally unpacking, wondering where they’ll put the linens, Christmas decorations, camping gear, knick-knacks, and everything else they own.
A home with little to no storage can be an automatic dealbreaker for many buyers. And while there’s only so much you can do with the closet space you have, there are ways to get creative and add more storage.
In our dining area, we built a custom dining bench that added much-needed storage in a home that was seriously lacking it.
We also created DIY built-in shelves in our playroom to keep all of our kids’ toys and crafts organized.
Think about storage when updating your home, because the next homeowners will be thinking about it, too.
The Little Things
The old adage is that kitchens and bathrooms sell homes, but it doesn’t always take a major renovation to sell your house.
One of the most common things we heard from prospective buyers was praise for the little gadgets and upgrades we made that ended up being big selling points. For instance, we added a bottle rinser we got off Amazon to our kitchen, which was easy to install and made our sink feel fancy.
And in our living room, we built a DIY frame for our TV that was a beginner-friendly project but still felt like a high-end design feature.
Other cool additions include pop-up outlets in countertops, pull-out trash and recycling bins, smart light switches or dimmers, and a built-in charging drawer or hidden charging station. Those things might seem small, but they could be the “cool” addition a buyer loves and can’t stop thinking about.
What They Didn’t Care About (And What I’d Do Differently)
If I were starting the fixer-upper process over again, whether it was this home or another, there are a few things I’d spend less time and money on and stress less over.
Prospective buyers didn’t appreciate the expensive finishes that I agonized over. Those details helped create a cohesive look that fit our home’s vibe, but they certainly weren’t what sold our home or what brought anyone back for a second tour.
Also, not every project has the same return on investment for time and money. Even though we almost entirely DIYed our outdoor kitchen, it was still an expensive project that didn’t bring back the same value we put into it. And the time spent improving the curb appeal was extensive, but the return wasn’t on the same level as some of the other projects we completed inside the home.
However, that doesn’t mean I regret those projects. They made me happy while we lived there.
If your goal is maximizing resale value, research which projects will recoup the most in your area. But at the end of the day, buyers aren’t just shopping for a house. They’re imagining what life will be like living there.
The renovations that helped us sell weren’t necessarily the flashiest or most expensive, but the ones that made our home easier to live in. Projects that made our home brighter, improved its flow, added storage, felt unique, and made it move-in ready.
If a project makes your daily life better, odds are the next owner will appreciate it, too.
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