Today was the closing on my house: SOLD! I am happy to complete that chapter and move on to the next (with a little profit to boot). To celebrate all that I learned by being a homeowner over the past two years and nine months, and as promised in my previous real estate article, here are some of the specifics that might be of interest to the budding real estate mogul, like what I spent money to fix up and what made the biggest difference in presentation to give buyers that feeling of, “this is the right house for me.” It is worth mentioning that my house sold promptly after I made some relatively inexpensive but significant upgrades to the kitchen and master bathroom (see numbers 1 and 2 below). At the bottom of this post, you will find before and after photos of the master bathroom to give you a sense of the difference that simple changes can make.

Here are my top five recommended upgrades, in order of “wow-factor bang for your buck”:

1) Faucets & Knobs
2) Light Fixtures
3) Interior Paint
4) Exterior Paint
5) Carpets

Note: counter tops and kitchen flooring would be on the list where necessary, perhaps in place of carpets or exterior paint, but I did not do those upgrades on this house.

Here are the details:

1) Faucets & Knobs – One of the cheapest and easiest ways to significantly improve the look of a house, and especially the prime “selling point areas”: the kitchen and master bathroom.

Faucets: I went to CostCo paid approximately $90 for a wonderful brushed nickel, pull-out faucet fixture for the kitchen; and then $48 for each of two sink faucets for the master bathroom. It took me about two hours to install the kitchen faucet, but only because creatures from outer space designed the existing sad excuse for a faucet, on which I had to use the equivalent of nuclear physics and laser beams to remove. After that, however, putting the new one in was a snap. The bathroom fixtures were much easier, and only took about 20 minutes each.

Knobs: I replaced all the cabinet knobs with some simple, yet fashionable ones that matched the new faucet fixtures. The matching color / material was brushed nickel, which looks simple and elegant. They were about $2 apiece, for a total of $60 for the kitchen and master bathroom.

Total Cost: $246
Total Labor: 3-4 hours

2) Light Fixtures – This is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to significantly improve the look of a house, especially if the fixtures in the kitchen are outdated or what I call “contractor crap”, which is the barely excusable poor quality crapola that contractors put in most new houses.

Kitchen: The two-bulb fluorescent light in my kitchen was dismal to say the least. A trip to Ikea solved that problem with a $40, 5-spot halogen faux track light setup (as well as a $90 dining room fixture). Talk about dismal to elegant in 30 minutes! That made an enormous difference in the ambiance as well as the utility of the room, since a Martha Stewart wannabe could finally use the counters without casting a shadow onto whatever he or she is cooking. Installation was a snap. I also replaced the breakfast table light fixture with a fruitful trip to Home Depot and $130. Again, the difference in elegance was remarkable.

Bathroom: I replaced the three-bulb junker in the master bathroom with a $50, 8-bulb vanity row that would give you a nice tan if you stood in front of it for too long. The difference all that light made in the room was awesome! It took me about 30 minutes to install the new fixture. I do suggest having someone help you because even a lightweight fixture gets heavy fast when you have to hold it up with one hand while trying to do all the wiring with the other.

Total Cost: $310
Total Labor: 4-5 hours

3) Interior Paint – If a potential buyer walks in to your house and cannot help but stare at the cracking, sun-faded, scuffed interior paint, then they may never notice your beautiful new knobs. Interior paint can be expensive to have professionally done. I chose key “impression” rooms to have the paint freshened by the pros and then just touched up other rooms myself. The areas painted were the foyer (two stories tall + stairwell), the dining room (It was eggplant purple. seriously. The previous owner had, erm, different taste), the great room (also two stories tall), two of the bedrooms, the laundry room (This one was brown and gold. See previous remarks), and various other areas throughout the house.

Total Cost: $2239

4) Exterior Paint – The exterior of the house is the first impression that a potential buyer will have of it. If the paint looks shoddy, then even the most beautiful landscaping can’t help. I used The Painting Pros for the job and was satisfied with the work, even though they ran into several scheduling problems.

Total Cost: $3756

Note: They threw in the window trim for “free” because of all the scheduling problems, which would have cost me an additional $700 or so. It is amazing what you can get sometimes with a reasonable request.

5) Carpets – I had no idea what a huge difference new carpets would make. Wow! The old carpets were pretty worn out. The house is 2550 square feet, approximately 2000 of which is carpeted. The best quality to price ratio for carpet I could find was a 32oz face weight with an 8lb pad (a thick, quality pad is important because it makes the carpet feel extra plush).

Total Cost: $4217

Before and After photos for bathroom fixtures and knobs:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 3:14 am and is filed under Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.