It Is Time To Fall In Love Again…. With Your House!
Last week my wife and I were having discussion about should we sell our house or not. We loved the house when we originally had the house built. However, after 15 plus years, we have lost our affection to our house. With the New Year coming, we have decided that 2018 is the time for us to “Fall in Love with our House Again”! I did some research on things others have done to improve their house and I think I have a good list of items that will make our house better again. These are my New Year’s Resolutions for my House. This list includes:
Remodel the Kitchen and Bathrooms.
After 15 plus years, the Kitchen is showing the wear and tear resulting from the usage of raising our three children. The appliances are outdated, out of style and in one case not working properly. The Kitchen cabinets are still good and the layout works great but the color is not in style. The bathrooms need to be modernized by mainly changing the color, cabinets, mirrors etc. The layout is good. The flooring will need to be changed. We are developing a budget for this and plan to move forward with remodeling the Kitchen and Bathrooms late in 2018.
From articles I have read, the return on investment for a Kitchen remodel is roughly 75% and that of a bathroom is roughly 65%. Most Realtors will recommend that you start with these rooms when getting your house ready to sell.
Get rid of Stuff
One of the least expensive ways to feel better about your house is to get rid of stuff…. Declutter. Each year my wife and I buy new items and we try to get rid of the older items. After a little research on decluttering techniques, here is an easily actionable item list to help you declutter.
- Go room by room and periodically clearing them of items you don’t use, wear, or love and donate them to charity. Pick the most lived in area of your home to tackle first. Once you decide which is first, get to work gathering every item in that space and ask yourself two questions. They are “Do I Love this Item” and “Do I Use it Regularly”? If the answer is no, then set it aside to either donate the item or put it into the trash.
- Clear the surfaces. Start with the flat surfaces, clear everything off it. Then before you start adding items back on, look at each one and ask the two questions above and determine if you are going to keep it or not.
- Put your clothes away every night. Don’t toss them on the nearest chair expecting to deal with them in the morning. It doesn’t happen! Take the extra 20 seconds and put them away. The more frequently you do this the sooner it becomes second nature.
- Give every item a home, including the new ones if you buy any! It is easy to let items (especially new items) languish in the entryway, bathroom counter, etc. This just creates unneeded clutter. If you can’t find a home for it, you may want to think of taking it back or getting rid of something else to make room for it.
Make Sure your House is Safe
There are a few things that every home owner should do to make sure that they are not living with a potential Health Hazard or Fire risk. They are:
- Check your house for Radon. One in 15 homes nationwide have an issue with Radon. This colorless and odorless gas causes approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year. Most home buyers insist on radon inspections as a contingency in the purchase contract so you will end up having an inspection sometime. Why not do it before it is a risk to your own family? You can purchase a kit for as little as $20 dollars at a local hardware store.
- Clean your clothes dryer lint vent. Make sure you clean the vents and ducts behind the dryer as well as the vent trap in the dryer itself. According to the US Fire administration, more than 15,000 building fires a year are caused by lint.
- Make sure Carbon Monoxide detectors are installed on every bedroom floor. If a chimney flue or furnace vent gets blocked or leaks, carbon monoxide levels can rise and kill you. The investment is about $40 dollars to install a carbon monoxide detector
Work out a weekly system for keeping your house clean
If your house always seems messy and dirty, you just aren’t going to like it. Work out a system for you to easily keep it clean. Here are a few ideas.
- Daily – Dishes go into the dishwasher or get cleaned by hand. Dirty close gets picked up and put into the hamper (better yet, put them straight into the hamper). Clean clothes get hung up in the closet., shoes get put away. Make you bed in the morning, this give you that sense of accomplishment right away every day.
- Weekly – clean the entire house. There are plenty of on-line articles that provide tips on how to most efficiently do this.
When you get your house to where it is in style with updated colors etc, safe, clean, and decluttered you will be able to focus on what caused you to fall in love with it in the first place. Maybe you will still want a new house or just maybe you may decide you like the one you have