This post covers everything you need to know when personalizing your home.
You’re wonderfully unique and eccentric and your personal space should reflect this. However, if you plan to sell your home down the road, painting the walls shocking shades of weird may not be the smartest thing to do and could even compromise the resale value. But at the end of the day it’s your house and you should always be able to express yourself, so here are a few tempting renovations carefully explained so that they don’t end up doing more harm than good:
Things to keep in mind When Personalizing Your Home
Converting Bedrooms into closets
Many of us have dreamed about rolling out of bed and gliding into a glamorous walk-in closet decked out with ceiling high shoe storage, floor length mirrors lined with soft lighting. And endless shelves, drawers and hangers display your shopping addictions. Opening up the wall to an adjacent bedroom will make this dream a reality and depending on where you live, this just might be the ticket! But before grabbing the wrecking bar, carefully investigate the homes in your area because this may be an expensive mistake if you eventually want to sell. In some family friendly neighborhoods, homes with more bedrooms have a definite advantage over and will appeal more to buyers, than a house equipped with proper storage for a growing purse collection. If you eliminate a room, you eliminate a portion of potential buyers, so you might just have to purge your shoe collection instead.
Garage Conversions
As you’ve probably heard by now that when it comes to real estate sales, the more rooms the better. So converting a detached garage into a living space might seems like a sensible, logical idea right? If you are in need of an extra party place or man-cave then the answer is yes, but there are some downsides to this major renovation. Taking away indoor vehicle storage means taking away the ability to protect cars from weather-related wear and tear and also theft. Storage for lawnmowers, power tools, and collections of garden gnomes is also minimized. Garage conversions are complex and it’s very expensive to bring the new space up to local standards and codes, so it’s not an easy project. It comes down to what’s more important for people, waking up earlier every morning to scrape the snow off their car, or having a place for Uncle Hank to smoke his cigar while playing billiards or darts, when he comes for Christmas.
Over-personalization
Expressing your own style is a beautiful thing but there is no “this appeals to everyone” in individuality. Your current obsession of the color Tiffany Blue may not be shared by all parties, so adorning your home in 50 different varieties of it may not be the smartest idea. When it’s time to sell, a potential buyer usually prefers to choose a home with tasteful, neutral finishes. This is to avoid investing in a home that will result in spending many, many hours ($$) painting over wall murals or ripping out trendy carpet. Keeping colors neutral and then personalizing with splashes of color in movable, temporary decor is a much better way to go.
