Turn off HGTV - your house is probably fine

[jimbee]

I love honey oak, always have.

Don't like "stainless steel" appliances. Too assertively "cold gray" in hue. Yet every real estate agent has advised us to swap out any other appliance finish for the SS look, as it is what "buyers expect."

Thank you. I don't like stainless steel appliances either, though most people expect them. I think they look institutional, belonging in a hospital or school kitchen.

 

[GrayHare]

During the 2020s the rage will be white or even color appliances because they don't show fingerprints and water spots like stainless does.

 

[ABQ2015]

The minimum seems to be moving up, according to my friend who is selling. A whole list of improvements to be made by their realtor. Be careful.

Remember, they work on commission, so your investment means more $$ for them, and potentially a shorter wait time and larger buyer pool (more volume). Maybe that's good if you don't have the time, but it is going to cost ya.

I have cash set aside to update appliances, etc. and a long time realtor who has helped me with 2 home purchases in the past and was reasonable. But I hear what you are saying and it is a concern. Buyers now expect perfection.

When I bought my dream home, I got a lower price because the seller had not renovated. She planned to have that done while the house was on the market, but I bought it the first day.

I am so glad I got an unrenovated home. It was built in 1965, and still has the original bathrooms. They look as good as they did in the 1960's and it's like stepping back in time. I love them just as they are, and do not plan to update. Sure, they are old, but then so am I. I think the kitchen was updated at some point, because it has stainless steel double sinks which were not yet "a thing" in 1965 IIRC. It has some kind of formica countertop but it looks fine to me. The whole house has beautiful hardwood floors which I think are probably fairly new.

Your home sounds lovely although I'm not a fan of formica. It breaks my heart when they demolish those original bathrooms with vintage tile and fixtures which is why I kept my kitchen and bath the same. But my kitchen cabinets are not good quality and that room needs a remodel. An older home in good condition is a great find.

 

[GravitySucks]

I love honey oak, always have.

Don't like "stainless steel" appliances. Too assertively "cold gray" in hue. Yet every real estate agent has advised us to swap out any other appliance finish for the SS look, as it is what "buyers expect."

I didn't know honey oak was out Of style.

I don't like stainless steel either, bring back that avocado green!

 

[JoeWras]

Your home sounds lovely although I'm not a fan of formica. It breaks my heart when they demolish those original bathrooms with vintage tile and fixtures which is why I kept my kitchen and bath the same. But my kitchen cabinets are not good quality and that room needs a remodel. An older home in good condition is a great find.

I'll say this about the 50s-60s bathrooms. The tile was THICK. It stood up! It was set in a sort of cement. There is nothing like it.

My bathroom had 1980 vintage cheap, think, yellow hexagons that were popping off. Not so nice.

 

[2lhasas]

I'll say this about the 50s-60s bathrooms. The tile was THICK. It stood up! It was set in a sort of cement. There is nothing like it.

Oh my gosh yes! We had to replace a tub in our 1960's ranch with something that was handicap accessible and the tub surround filled almost our entire dumpster. We had to put back several sheets of dry rock to bring it back level with the surrounding walls. That would have been a great room in a tornado.

 

[Clone]

Typical new houses in subdivisions here: Open plan, minimal square footage. Tiny bedrooms, tiny bathrooms. Cheap cabinets- they look nice, but they are particle board. Cheap doors and windows. Garages just barely big enough for a mid-sized car. No room for a mower or snowblower, because 'everybody just hires a lawn service now'!

We decided to build a house that was what we wanted. We used quality cabinets, high end windows and doors, and good flooring. We intend to live here many years.

I imagine that much of the quality that was put into this house will not be valued when resold, because it appears buyers are looking for superficial trendy stuff, and not looking at the fundamentals. I also suspect that a number of the 'must haves' or the 'latest and greatest' add-ons will be the immediate 'tear out and toss' dated items.

I have seen comments that granite is so dated, and needs to be upgraded to quartz. Open spaces need to be made into separate functional areas, separate areas need to be opened up. Grays need to be colored up, and colored walls need to be made mono-chromatic so they will sell.

When we were looking for a house, we had a few simple criteria. We wanted a decent sized master bedroom with a master bath. By the time we found that, they were 4-5 bedroom houses, usually two stories, with a fully finished basement. We wanted all living on one floor. Those houses were typically houses with tiny rooms.

The 'home theater' from 10 years ago is a tear-out. What the market wants now is the 'home sports bar'.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Speaking of large clocks, notice the time displayed when they are new.... they will almost always display the time 10:10. Now, you will notice when a set designer on a movie or TV show has either forgotten to put in a battery or change up the time....you will see that it's very often 10:10 in make believe land.

 

[Cobra9777]

Our house was built in 1968, so it's 50 years old this year. It's 4500 sqft on 2.2 acres with a pool, a pond, and two detached buildings. It's constant work. But it's also a labor of love. The prior owners purchased it in 1992 and did some extensive updating and remodeling at the time (HVAC, windows, flooring, kitchen, baths, paint, roof, added a bedroom, built one of the detached buildings, etc). We bought it in 2004 and did some updating as well, mostly flooring, paint, the kitchen, landscaping, drainage, and the biggie: wrecking out the old leaking pool (original to 1968) and building a new one.

It's now 14 years later and we're retired, so DW and I are sort-of "reinventing" everything one space at a time. We're devout DIYers. So I'm happy as a pig in slop. This is *why* I retired... well, one of the reasons. The kid's bedrooms upstairs have been transformed into a home theater room, music room/recording studio, and guest suite. We are currently remodeling the downstairs master bath, which just got a few cosmetic changes in the 1992 remodel. Next year we will do the kitchen (again) and living room.

In the kitchen, we'll leave the granite we bought in 2004, but update the backsplash, replace a few appliances that haven't aged well, new lighting fixtures, paint, and change out the cabinet fronts and hardware that are from the 1992 remodel.

The outdoors and detached buildings are a whole 'nother chapter in this long story. Fences, retaining walls, sidewalks, decks, trees, drainage, planting beds.

I read the article linked in the OP. Very little resonated with me. We're certainly not doing this to impress others. We do it because it's fun, educational, and makes us feel good about our home and have a sense of accomplishment. We like to periodically reinvent spaces and our large old house is needy and provides ample opportunities.

OTOH, we do plan to downsize at some point... maybe. So I sometimes wonder about the financial aspect. We're doing stuff that we like, not really concerned about resale. But our retirement plan has plenty of wiggle room. This home improvement activity is one of our goals for retirement, just like traveling more. So as long as it brings us happiness and a sense of accomplishment, we're highly unlikely to change our ways.

Sorry, I get wordy talking about my house.

 

[mpeirce]

Speaking of large clocks, notice the time displayed when they are new.... they will almost always display the time 10:10. Now, you will notice when a set designer on a movie or TV show has either forgotten to put in a battery or change up the time....you will see that it's very often 10:10 in make believe land.

I was going to relate how all Apple products display 10:41 AM in promotional material.

So, before posting, I double checked that this was still true. And while it's still true for almost all Apple products, I noticed that Apple Watches display 10:09 AM.

 

[mpeirce]

Instant followup (yes, DuckDuckGo is your friend).

Watchmakers traditional show their watches at 10:10. It's nicely symmetrical, looks good, and doesn't obscure logos or dates.

Apparently 10:09 is actually more perfectly symmetrical when showing a analog style watch display. The Apple Watch folks did this on purpose.

 

[GravitySucks]

Instant followup (yes, DuckDuckGo is your friend).

Watchmakers traditional show their watches at 10:10. It's nicely symmetrical, looks good, and doesn't obscure logos or dates.

Apparently 10:09 is actually more perfectly symmetrical when showing a analog style watch display. The Apple Watch folks did this on purpose.

And on an analog watch 10:09 makes a smiley face.

 

[Scuba]

This is a good story because it was all your own choice - not influenced by "oh you have to think of the future buyers" or HGTV, or anything but your own tastes. That's the spirit of FIRE, I think.

Thanks. The one thing we did do thinking of future buyers (although we don’t intend to sell, but who knows?) was to leave a tub in the master bath. We took the guest bath tub out and converted that to a larger shower, and left to our own devices, we would have preferred to create a huge shower in the master bath with multiple massage heads, benches, etc. But we’ve seen so many House Hunters shows with people moaning about no tub in a home that we were hesitant to have zero tubs. Instead, we sprung for a really nice custom massage spa tub with inline heat so the water stays hot. We’ve only used it a few times because I feel guilty about using 110 gallons of water in drought-ridden California.

 

[Gumby]

We have paid more to repair, renovate and add on to our 160 year old house than we did to buy it in the first place. Yes, we do have the fancy Subzero and Wolf appliances in the kitchen, but that's what the young wife wanted, and she uses the heck out of them. (I have been in other houses where people have them, but its clear only the caterers use them.) We have granite counters too, but she didn't like that they were shiny, so we had the granite honed to remove the shine.

Everything we do is because that's the way we want it. We lived in this house for 26 years and I hope we get another 26 out of it. I couldn't care less about the guy who buys it after that.

 

[Badger]

I bought our 1955 home 35 years ago. Just a modest painted concrete block house nobody would even look at because it was so run down. I did most of the fixing over the years then a remodeled kitchen about 10 years ago and one of the bathrooms about 7 years ago. I also added about 500 ft more living space, and tiled the floors in all the rooms where there was no wood.

I only did those things that would make it comfortable for us in our retirement. Just about all the houses in our neighborhood have been replaced with McMansions and when the day comes when we can no longer take care of ourselves the house will be knocked down and replaced by the new owners McMansion.

No reason to waste money with any more remodeling when we are comfortable and everything works. Any remodeling would be wasted money. Now it's just the normal maintenance of home ownership. The only thing left to do is replace all the door knobs with levers to fight against arthritis in my wrists and thumbs.

Still love watching programs like those on HGTV.

Cheers!

 

[Brett_Cameron]

Nothing wrong at all with a little remodeling. We've done it every 25 or 30 years even when the house really didn't need it.

Exactly!

 

[W2R]

IYour home sounds lovely although I'm not a fan of formica.

Me either. Despite calling it formica, I don't know if it is actually formica, or what. It is some kind of synthetic material and not granite or stone or anything like that. It seems almost brand new and it is a lot more durable than I had expected. I don't really know what these newer synthetic countertops are called. It is black and white in a pattern that was probably intended to look like granite. Originally I had planned to replace it with granite immediately, and then I thought hey, it looks great right now, so why not just wait until I have an issue with it. So, that is what I am doing and I am treating it pretty roughly. So far, no stains or cuts and I am not motivated to change it out yet.

And yes, to me my home does seem really lovely and it is just right for me. You can see why I call it my "dream home".

 

[W2R]

I bought our 1955 home 35 years ago. Just a modest painted concrete block house nobody would even look at because it was so run down. I did most of the fixing over the years then a remodeled kitchen about 10 years ago and one of the bathrooms about 7 years ago. I also added about 500 ft more living space, and tiled the floors in all the rooms where there was no wood.

I only did those things that would make it comfortable for us in our retirement. Just about all the houses in our neighborhood have been replaced with McMansions and when the day comes when we can no longer take care of ourselves the house will be knocked down and replaced by the new owners McMansion.

No reason to waste money with any more remodeling when we are comfortable and everything works. Any remodeling would be wasted money. Now it's just the normal maintenance of home ownership. The only thing left to do is replace all the door knobs with levers to fight against arthritis in my wrists and thumbs.

Still love watching programs like those on HGTV.

Cheers!

Your house sounds terrific, and I like your philosophy regarding renovations and only doing what will make your life more comfortable while you live there.

The prior owner of my house already put in levers instead of door knobs, but (much to my astonishment!) at 69 I have zero arthritis in my hands or wrists. Still, if/when that becomes problem, I am set. I would imagine that putting in levers is probably fairly easy and not too expensive.

 

[mpeirce]

Could be "Corian"

We had this in our house when we moved in. It's a terrific practical surface, but DW wanted granite when we did a "half kitchen remodel" (we kept the cabinets).

Ironically, DW complains occasionally about the granite because it's hard to see "stuff" on it sometimes so it'd harder to keep clean. Granite is prettier though.

 

[W2R]

Could be "Corian"

We had this in our house when we moved in. It's a terrific practical surface, but DW wanted granite when we did a "half kitchen remodel" (we keep the cabinets).

Ironically, DW complains occasionally about the granite because it's hard to see "stuff" on it sometimes so it'd harder to keep clean. Granite is prettier though.

It might be that! I have no idea. But it sure is a lot more durable than countertops were fifty years ago.

 

[JoeWras]

One of the most satisfying DYI jobs I've ever done was to fabricate my own countertops and apply the laminate. Maybe out of style, but a fun job with a huge impact for very little cost.

I used Formica brand with the "Radiance" finish, which has a kind of fake facet to it. Many guests can't believe it isn't granite when they first see it. I applied fabricated edging that helps with the look.

Formica® Laminate - Brazilian Brown Granite

But I guess I won't be able to sell the house. OH NO!

 

[W2R]

One of the most satisfying DYI jobs I've ever done was to fabricate my own countertops and apply the laminate. Maybe out of style, but a fun job with a huge impact for very little cost.

I used Formica brand with the "Radiance" finish, which has a kind of fake facet to it. Many guests can't believe it isn't granite when they first see it. I applied fabricated edging that helps with the look.

Formica® Laminate - Brazilian Brown Granite

But I guess I won't be able to sell the house. OH NO!

Pretty!! I had no idea that Formica could look like that.