Return on Investment: What are you getting out of this?
Why spend money to change your home? Well, there are really a LOT of reasons to do this. Most fall into 3 categories:
CATEGORY 1: FUNCTIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
What does it mean to improve the function of a space? Simply, that we are taking a space that doesn’t function well, and making it better fit what you need from it.
An example of this is your closet. Most closets are not designed well. Most closets, especially in track homes, are the minimum builder setup: a rod with a shelf over it, spanning the entire wall space in a closet. Why? Because it’s cheap and passable, and that’s all the builder needed. It’s not ideal, but the thing is: it works well enough for people to move into their new house, unpack their things, and then spend the next 10 years living with a really inefficient closet that frustrates them, but seems too daunting to deal with. If your closet is meeting your (long gone) builder’s needs better than your own, you may want to change that.
An investment into your home, when it doesn’t feel “necessary” can pay off in major ways that will make you ask “Why did I wait so long?!”
I moved into my house 7 years ago. When I moved in, the sliding doors to the patio were a bear to open. You had to really put your back into it. My dad came to visit and tried cleaning out the track, which helped a little, but basically, for the next 5 years, every time I had to go outside, or if I had company who tried to go out to the patio (and inevitably stopped and looked over to me for help), I had to use both hands and aggressively yank the door open.
At the start of the pandemic, I took 3 months off of work. We had beautiful weather and I decided to get deep into a project converting dead grass in my yard into a new space for a fire pit. FINALLY, after hundreds of trips in and out of the house through these horrific sliding doors, I called a company to help. About a week later, and in under an hour of the tech’s time, I had stunningly smooth sliding doors. It cost me $590.
I spent 5 years dealing with these stuck doors. For less than $600, it was fixed.
I was so mad at myself. Because, believe it or not, those doors didn’t just cause frustration when I wanted to go outside– they actually altered how I used my outside space. I didn’t want to deal with them and subconsciously, I just didn’t use my patio much. Now that they’re fixed, I go outside to have coffee on a nice morning and stroll around my yard before I start work. I host guests and we eat on the patio, or build fires in the fire pit. My son has friends over and they run around, in and out, and play with sticks and rocks and experiment burning various things (maybe this isn’t THE BEST thing, but I do appreciate the way they’re able to feed their curiosity).
What I gained from a simple functional improvement was worth so much more than the cost of getting it fixed, and I can’t believe I waited so long to make it happen.
CATEGORY 2: MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL PEACE
I started my interior design business during covid, when the world was trapped inside, staring at their homes, wishing they liked what they saw. After a few months of quarantine solitude, I began dating a man who, at the time, lived in a high rise condo near the Las Vegas Strip.
The first time I visited his place, I was impressed by how modern and nice it was. He had a beautiful leather sofa, a nice coffee table, and nice dishes in the kitchen. Not much was personalized, but he had a few tomato plants on the balcony to prove this wasn’t just a nice Airbnb standing in for his actual residence.
The first time he visited my place, I was maybe just a touch worried that my abundance of personal items would overwhelm him. My house is loaded with artwork and souvenirs from my travels, there are photos of my family in every room, framed drawings made by my son and his cousins, and my refrigerator is a chaotic Where’s Waldo of magnets with funny sayings, tiny pictures of my friends and family, postcards, invitations, and the ever-necessary Teledoc phone number.
Before his first visit, I cleaned (of course- as one does before having company), but I was careful not to pare down anything I usually had out for decoration- even if that meant risking scaring him away. As an adult who dates, I learned early on that we are too old to be hiding our truths. It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend they’re someone they aren’t. For me, part of what makes me love my home and love decorating is the significance of the items I’m surrounded by. If I tried to pretend I’m more streamlined and clutter-free to impress this guy whose condo looked more like a hotel room than a home, I would’ve been doing us both a disservice.
So, with my breath held back, I welcomed him into my home and hoped for the best.
As it turned out, not only did he not mind the “clutter” of my walls covered with art and the little clusters of photo frames and figurines on various surfaces– he actually loved it so much that he wanted to come to my place 80% of the time we hung out at one of our homes. He would always comment about how warm it felt here. That my house is a home– the most inviting place he’d been in so long.
After a few months, we realized we weren’t a great fit as a couple, but he continued to ask to come hang out at my house because he loved the environment. In the last couple of years, he has become a good friend, and he eagerly asks to cat sit for me when I’m out of town, and sometimes offers to bring over dinner so he can be in this happy, peaceful place I’ve created.
The point of all of this? Your environment has a major impact on how you feel. For the sake of your emotional and mental health, you need your home to be a place that is personal to you, where you feel comfortable and happy to be.
If your home doesn’t reflect who you are, or makes you cringe when you’re trying to relax, it is wearing down your energy and happiness.
If you wake up in the morning and already feel annoyed about having to take a shower in that gross, moldy, stained shower in your bathroom, you aren’t giving yourself the best start you could.
If you put off doing laundry because your laundry room is a pain in the ass to use, or because you have no space for the clean clothes, then your home is stealing some of your peace.
If your kitchen table only comfortably fits 4, but your family has grown to 5, you might not be enjoying the inclusive family dinners you hoped for.
If you’re too embarrassed by your home to invite your kids’ friends over (what will they tell their parents about our house?!), then your shame is impacting the social development of your children.
If you’re sleeping in the bed you bought after your wedding, but your ex is now sleeping in another house, you’re probably not sleeping as well as you could be.
If you work from home, from your sofa, because you don’t have a good space to setup shop, you’re probably not as productive or focused as you could be when you work.
If your kids never play with the Legos or the science kits you bought for them, because they’re a pain to get out and put away, they’re missing out on an avenue for creative growth.
If you cook in a kitchen with bright green walls that your tiger-mother-in-law chose for you, you might feel low-grade anxious when cooking.
Our surroundings have a profound effect on our mental health: the stress we feel, the peace we could be feeling. What is peace worth to you?
Would you invest a few hundred dollars and a weekend into painting the walls in your kitchen, if it meant reclaiming the hub of your home as YOUR space? Would you invest a few thousand dollars into creating a better space for your kids to create and play, if it meant developing their imaginations and fostering curiosity better than the endless TikTok videos they’re watching?
In a thousand ways, your home design, both the function and the aesthetic, can improve or diminish your mood and ability to relax. It’s important to invest in your home so that you can live your best life.
CATEGORY 3: FINANCIAL REWARDS
Finally, let’s address the traditional measure of return on investment: finances. We all know that “fixer uppers” can be great opportunities to make money when flipped. But if you’re the owner of a fixer upper (whether it’s one you just bought, or one you’ve lived in for 20 years), and you aren’t going to make those upgrades before selling it, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
There is significant potential for financial gain when updating your home, as long as you are intentional with your updates. If you sink $50,000 into covering your guest bedroom with 14K gold flaked wallpaper and removing the only 1st floor bathroom to make space for your grand piano, you probably won’t see an equal or greater increase in home value. So, hopefully you really love that gold guest room and piano space, because those were investments in your own enjoyment of your home, not in the value others would place on your home.
So, to be clear: a renovation or redecorating does not automatically mean you’ve improved the value of your home. In some cases, if you do these updates poorly, you can actually diminish the value of your home because potential buyers now feel that they have to spend money to fix the horrible paint job or unsafe DIY deck you and your friends built.
If you are considering an update to your home for the financial gain, you need to be intentional with where you spend your money. Professionals in real estate, construction, and design can give you advice on the most efficient ways to improve your home’s value, and you’ll want to research the topic, specific to your local area, before opening your pocketbook.
Furthermore, if you’re able to make your home meet your needs better, you can continue to live there longer, which improves the ROI on your home purchase. It also means you aren’t paying moving expenses and dealing with the annoyance of updating your address in a million places.
Aside from impacting home value, updating your home can potentially save you money with your maintenance and utilities bills, and protect your home and family with security and safety upgrades.
Here are some ways to save on utilities:
Upgrade windows and add solar film to west-facing windows to restrict the heat that comes into your home in the hottest part of summer
Replace incandescent lighting with LEDs to reduce your electric bill and save you from having to replace bulbs so often (FYI- a lot of LED fixtures are rated for 10+ years of life before they’ll burn out!)
Replace old toilets with low-flow options (and pat yourself on the back for helping Lake Mead retain some of its juice.)
Change faucets and shower heads to new tech that uses less water and improves water pressure
Check your HVAC system for efficiency improvements that could give you better air quality and a more comfortable temp for less cost than you have now
Along those lines, install a smart thermostat to improve energy efficiency in your home and make it easy to adjust the temperature when you’re out of the house, so you aren’t spending extra money to heat or cool an empty building. You can also lock the controls from your app so your annoying house guest doesn’t make the house an icebox in the middle of the night! (I’m looking at you, Grandpa!)
You can also update tons of things around the house to smart tech options to improve your safety:
Replace cheap entry door handles and locks with smart locks to keep an eye on when your doors are unlocked and who accessed your home (if you choose to give unique codes to different people)
When it’s time for a new garage door motor, installing a smart one can make it easy to open and close the garage remotely for deliveries or for that neighbor who texts when you’re at work and asks to borrow your leaf blower
Change out traditional appliances to smart versions that can auto shutoff, detect leaks and overheating, and let you get the oven pre-heated while you’re driving home from work
Change your light switches to smart switches, which can be programed to follow schedules and can keep your home well-lit when you’re away without having to leave the lights on 24/7
Whether your plan will result in saving or earning you money, you should start by asking yourself why you want to make a change to your home. Keep asking yourself “why” to each answer until you’ve found the root reason. That will help guide the decisions you make from that point forward and control the project from straying too far from your true goals.
