We bought our house five years ago. At the time we knew it was too small but we thought we could add on and make it our forever home. After recently talking to several contractors and going over the numbers we came to the conclusion that it just wasn't feasible to do a major renovation and we would need to move. If at all possible we really want to try and stick it out here for another five years. Daycare is easier in our current place and both of us have changes happening at our jobs that we would like to give time to play out. LO will be starting kindergarten in five years and that makes it the perfect deadline to move to a new city.
The one thing in out current place that really irks us is the kitchen. The cabinets and counters are original to our 1950's house and are really showing their age. The cabinets are too small and the drawers and doors no longer work that well. We did paint the kitchen to freshen it up and the previous owner installed baseline stainless appliances and a new tile floor. In other words the kitchen is bad but it's not horrible.
We would love to do the reno but are scared to spend the money. We would need to do a budget renovation which would mean new cabinets and counters but that we would be unable to upgrade the appliances or fix the less than ideal layout.
In addition to this there are a few repairs that should be made to the house before trying to sell it. In total if we did the kitchen reno we could end up spending 20,000-25,000 on a house we would be selling in a few years. I realize the kitchen reno will raise the value of our house but we are worried it won't raise it as much as we would like....what do you think? Go for it and hope it pays off or live with the old kitchen and save our money for the new place?
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Our kitchen needs a facelift at some point and new appliances so blah, I feel your pain there! Since you're not planning to stay forever and want it to appeal to buyers/not drive you crazy, maybe you can fix selective things? Like...new doors for cabinets but not totally redo them? Or just sand and paint, depending on the condition. If the appliances look reasonably nice and are functional, I'd leave them even if they're not awesome. But 5 years is a long time to live with something you absolutely hate, so peace of mind is worth some money IMO! We wanted a house that was move-in ready and even though there is a HUGE list of things we want to change, none of them mattered when we decided on our house b/c it's completely liveable; I imagine a lot of young buyers are that way, hopefully including whoever buys your house next!
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Are you looking at 20-25k for *just* the cabinets and counter tops?? Are you handy? Would you be doing the work yourselves? Would facing be an option? (i'm guessing no if they are from the 50's.
There may be cheaper ways to do this that would certainly make it worth it for resale if you have the time to put into it. I've heard there are places that sell unfinished cabinets for much less that you have to stain and finish yourself. Another thing we considered was to build out the cabinets ourselves to standard sizes as much as possible and then just order the doors, then do custom doors as needed.
It really depends on the comps and your area to know if you'd get a good ROI for this. -
If you're going to stay there for five years then I think it's worth doing for both your ease of living and resale value. Can you get a few quotes / estimates to give you an idea of what you could have done within your budget?
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Can you do it yourself? Because otherwise, you really won't get your money back. Not within 5 years. So are you OK spending some money for comfort over the next 5 years? Whoever comes in sounds like they will have some work to do. Homes take 7-10 years for a profit to turn (if they do)...A kitchen reno can cost a huge amount of money (average cost for one is 50-80K. Cabinets alone, baseline are 15K....this is why we painted our cabinets ourselves and we are going to DIY our own backsplash. I'll deal with the counters because quartz will cost us a good 5K or so. We already sunk 8K into appliances). When I think "reno", i think tearing everything out and starting over. Otherwise, I think "facelift"
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I would do something, even if it isn't a full renovation. It will probably still add value for when you sell, and personally, I would go crazy with a kitchen I didn't like for the next 5 years.
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@purplepumps the cost of the reno would be 10,000-12,000 for EVERYTHING. We would be doing all of the work ourselves to save money. The rest of the money is to fix a grading problem in the back and possibly replace the furnace which is WAY past it's prime and will likely go before we move.
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@tillma: in that case, go for it! that will probably net you a profit
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We are in the process of doing ours. DH has lived here for 11 years and dealt with the really old stuff...I have been here 4, and we decided if we were going to stay here 10 more years we wanted to be a lite more comfortable. The new cabinets look better, but they also have a lot more storage capability. And the appliances really needed replacing. It was worth it for us. We are probably spending more than we will get back in equity, but we are spending far less than the cost moving would be so we factored that in to our decision. We plan to stay here 10 more years, but we may have considered it for 5 too.
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@tillma: I feel your pain... We are replacing our boiler/hot water heater/chimney liner in the next couple week. Sooooo much money, so not fun. I'm not sure where you live, but big rebates are available to get back for upgrading and making things more energy efficient. We had the people out last week and are getting $2000 back in rebates. Also some loans are available for 7 years interest free to upgrade if you qualify... To the kitchen. I would give it as much of a facelift as possible, it should really increase the value of your home (and you can advertise all of this in your listing, people would rather not to the work if they are buying a new house generally).... Have you looked into Ikea? They have a lot of options to customize and DIY and their cabinets are nice!!
We got some quotes about doing a kitchen expand and addition and we realized we can't do it for like, 10-15 years, so we are taking a wall down between the kitchen & dining room and adding an island that we are building ourself (with my dad) using ikea cabinets and our own woodwork and we have been hunting for a precut granite or marble or whatever island too we can find discounted and build our island around that. We also have old crappy cabinets - but they were painted white which looks nice, and are going to save some more to re-do those.
Yikes! Sorry for the novel. I say go for it, it will def add value and you'll enjoy living there even more
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We just went through our kitchen renovation (right after we bought and moved in) and it was horrific. We did it in 2.5 weeks though. Total gut down to the studs because the walls came down with the cabinets. We're not handy but we skipped the general contractor and hired subcontractors (plumber, electrician, cabinet guy, granite guy, flooring/paint/demo guy). Obviously I'm happy with the results and it had to be done (we knew when we bought it) but it was tough!! We used a local prefab cabinet company that we were super happy with. The cabinets are made in China but the quality is just amazing. Since we're local we were able to visit the showroom.
We got our appliances from a local scratch and dent place and they are awesome!
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@hellobeeboston: echoing on the rebates! We got a bunch. We've also had insulation blown in and converted from oil to gas.
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My house was built in 1963, so it's a debate around "what lies beneath" any time we do anything to the house.
We have a few things to update, we're slowly replacing appliances as they die (we have not touched the stove, I will be sad when that beast dies, lol). As far as cosmetic updates, our cabs are 15 years old and will not get replaced, maybe new hardware, but I will replace the backsplash and counters and that's about it.
I desperately want a gourmet chefs kitchen, but my house/neighborhood don't warrant it. It's money that's lost, I'll never get that back in a sale.
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@mrs. wagon: hey! Can you PM me the name of the cabinet place?! Thx!!
Wish we could've converted to gas, no lines anywhere close to us though!
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@hellobeeboston: PMed you!!
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@looch: we had to be really careful not to go overboard. We went with stuff that is just nice enough to be what we want, but no more. We will never get it all back in our neighborhood either...
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I'd do the kitchen reno. Kitchens sell houses. Don't worry about the appliances as long as they color/ finish match and work.
If you can, tour some of the homes on the market in your neighborhood to see how much of a reno you really need to do.
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I would definitely do a renovation if you're going to be there for another 5 years, plus it will up your re-sale value. You can absolutely do it for less than that! Try to DIY if you can, look into Ikea kitchens, etc. Could you even paint or restain the current cabinets and replace the hardware to make them look brand new?
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@tillma: Can the grading issue be ignored until later and do the cosmetics first? Was the grading problem something you knew bout when buying the house? How big of a problem is it? If it can wait and not a huge issue, I'd probably do the cosmetic stuff, and the furnace and delay the grading problem if possible. Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, but honestly, most people probably don't really understand the severity of a "grading issue" and if you're in a area with a lot of older homes, it may just be something people accept and are used to just living with.
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@ purplepumps the grading issue is causing water to get into the basement so it really does need to be fixed. The previous owners had the grading issue as well according to the neighbor but chose to lie about it. We are not that dishonest so we feel it needs to be fixed. Thankfully all water has come into the unfinished portion and run right down the floor drain so there has been no damage. That is actually going to be the cheapest fix so I am not overly worried about it.
To everyone else that mentioned Ikea cabinets that is what we are planning on using! This is budget all the way but unfortunately some things will need to be brought up to code (electrical) there is no fan above the stove which is crazy expensive to install and we need the wiring for a light fixture fixed. A lot of these issues would be red flags on an inspection so I feel like we would be getting some milage out of these upgrades in that respect too. I was surprised when I started putting the actual numbers together though how much all if these dumb little things add up to!
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