After spending your time enjoying fun in the sun, the fall is the perfect time to take on a few home improvement projects that can help keep your home’s value high. If you might be moving within the next five years, now is the time to make upgrades to keep your home competitive with nearby properties.
Even if you don’t intend on moving soon, doing a few projects every year can keep your home in great shape. When you pay attention to home maintenance, little issues don’t turn into big problems.
A fresh coat of paint is one of the lowest cost and highest investment projects in your home. Repaint interior rooms about every 7-10 years. Depending on your exterior materials, you may paint the outside of your house less often. But keep an eye on wood trim, which may need to be painted every few years.
Clean window treatments yearly. This can be done anytime, and not just during spring cleaning. If your blinds or curtains are showing wear, replace them. Shades and blinds may only last 10-15 years. Curtain trends and colors tend to change in about the same amount of time, so update your styles when you paint.
Improve your backyard. Maintaining the deck, pruning trees and shrubs, staining play structures and wooden furniture, and updating furniture, umbrellas and pillows can be done every year. Fall is a great time to do these things, to protect them from winter weather and to take advantage of sales.
Improve your kitchen or bath. Minor changes like upgrading counters (see my fab faux granite counters here), switching to newer faucets, adding decorative hardware, and upgrading light fixtures are all relatively low cost, high impact projects that can take a day to complete.
Replace or repair worn flooring. Flooring is a huge surface that gets noticed in every home. If you suffer from allergies or have pets, consider swapping out worn carpeting to hardwood floors, preferred by today’s home buyers. Luxury vinyl tile offers ease of use and instant upgraded styles. Trendy flooring options like polished cement and eco-friendly carpet tiles are great options not to be overlooked.
Upgrade your entrance. A new or improved front door has high return on investment (ROI), according to Remodeling Magazine’s annual Cost Vs. Value report. Simply painting your front door, adding a storm door, painting trim, and adding decorative elements even on a small front porch, all make your home more appealing to both you and guests.
The biggest return on investment continues to be decluttering and organizing. Simply removing excess stuff clears out your home, which, in turn, makes it easier to maintain. It also makes it easier to see the potential for different uses in your home.
Whether you are staging or staying, investing in your home this fall will leave you with a space to be proud of.
