It seems like common sense.

"We will buy the house, and THEN we will upgrade it as we grow our family." That's what my wife and I thought a little over 15 years ago when we purchased our first home. We avoided the blinds or drapes, we got laminate flooring and counters, and did nothing with our backyard. And by "nothing" I mean it looked like one of those Super X Motocross tracks ... only without the jumps. In other words, we had a dirt yard.

This is very common, even today. Pretty much everyone thinks they are going to do this thing or that thing to the house, but how many actually follow through with it?

Fast forward to 8 years later and we still had the same laminate flooring, cheap counters, and same old dirt yard... only with new weeds. In fact (and this is very embarrassing) for the first 2 years we owned the home we actually pinned up bed sheets for window treatments. It wasn't just that we were modest and poor and I was lazy (emphasis on the WAS as it relates to housework).. but the fact is that anyone over 35 will tell you that life sneaks up on you.

Life moves forward and after purchasing your first home, you quickly find yourself dealing with more important issues like raising your children and making a living.

It suddenly became important to us when it became apparent that we NEEDED to upgrade the house in order to sell it. Our thinking at the time is also common practice today. We will do the upgrades and repairs because we have to do it! We justify it by the idea that we know we will get the money back when we sell... so it makes sense, right?

And so the thinking goes... In order to best prepare the house for sale we needed to make sure the house would greatly appeal to the next buyers. The question then becomes, how do you pick stuff that the next family might like? Our answer: Why not fix the stuff that has been annoying US for years?
That's logical, right? The buyers will find this house appealing because they won't be annoyed... and ultimately that will lead to a quicker contract. That's the sole reason why we upgraded. It's the same exact reason many people upgrade this way today, with their finances in mind. I'm not saying it isn't worth consideration but in reality, it should take a back seat to something more obvious. More on that later but for story continuity, here is what we did:

* We put in a beautiful mosaic brick patio made from recycled materials. This complimented our new (fully automated) lawn. Note: fully automated. Excellent feature!

*Next, we got some discounted stone tiles from Home Depot and used them for a backsplash in the kitchen. FYI: Tile backsplashes look excellent, and they are super easy to install. In addition, although not scientifically proven, I believe they increase homemade pie production.

*We painted using our "pop-outs" as accent walls. It was simple but effective. Thank you HGTV!

*Rather than just replace the carpet, we tiled the whole house and put rugs down in the common areas. Cha-ching? Not really, it was cheaper.

*For the finishing touch we put in Plantation Shutters with sun screens. Cha-ching? Yep. But I'll bet we saved some money due to increased energy efficiency.
Anyway... when it was done the whole place looked amazing. We were sure that all these changes would help sell the home, and that's really the only benefit we expected from this process. That is ... until we very unexpectedly started ENJOYING the home. Oops.

I found that we were taking Sunday lunches outside on the new patio while the kids played soccer on the grass. As they rolled around, laughing, the birds were chirping and the breeze was blowing.. I would sip ice cold lemonade and take in the perfect Arizona sun. I know this will sound weird, but even though my house was humble I had never felt more successful. FYI#2: I'm actually not making that up about the lemonade or birds or any of it .. all true.

Inside the home, the tile floors made the home easier to clean (so I'm told.. ha ha) and saved a ton of time that was spent (apparently) steam cleaning the carpets. Side note: I had actually thought that we had self cleaning carpets but it turns out it's a lot of hard work to keep an 8 year old carpet presentable. Who knew? The shutters kept the house cooler that summer while they allowed a tremendous amount of light in the home making everything seem brighter.

Our upgrades may have cost around 7k, but because everyone was so much happier the benefits were priceless. This brings me to my point, MANY TIMES people make decisions regarding their homes based on the "dollars and cents" of it. But the fact is that sometimes it makes sense to spend a few dollars more to realize the full enjoyment of your home.

Our house did ultimately sell, but was it because of all the upgrades? I don't know. What I do know is that the time we had with the home before the sale was way more valuable than anything we could have possible put into it.

So if you can... my advice: Go for it if you can afford it.

Thanks for reading.

There are lots of cool calculators on my website, if you want to check them out. ALSO, there is a funny video about communication if you click on the TV: www.biltmorebranch.com