Updates to your home

We've lived in our house for nine years. We added a screened porch to the back of the house, along with a new deck. We've completely redone the landscaping. Inside, we've knocked out a wall in the back of an under-the-steps closet and doubled its size. We added wainscoting in the foyer and up the stairs. This summer, we're replacing carpets with hardwood, refinishing the existing hardwoods, and may change out the countertops. I also want to renovate the fireplace surround before we do the floors. My to-do list is a mile long. lol

We have only lived in our house for 3.5 years. We bought it from the original owners, it was built in 1999 or 2000. I'm pretty sure they bought the majority of their fixtures from the Habitat for Humanity re-home store. It is all much more dated than the construction year would leave you to believe. (Think hunter green tub and shower surrounds and faux pink marble tiles around the garden tub) We have gutted and rebuilt the kitchen, redone the powder room, built two new walls to make rooms work better and removed one gas fireplace, new flooring in half of the house, and painted nearly every room in the house. Just haven't gotten around to the few that aren't done yet. We plan to redo 3 bathrooms, build a deck, and resurface the exterior of the house to include removing and/or resizing a few windows. And we will pave our circle drive, which is just gravel now. Just have to win the lottery first.

My childhood home just sold, my dad built it in 1980 and my mom moved out last fall. In that time, they painted rooms a couple of times, finished half of the basement, put new flooring throughout most of the space and replaced the counter tops and appliances in the kitchen. At the time of my dad's death arrangements had been made to refinish the master shower. I would love to see what the new owners will end up doing. The house has so much potential. They are planning to finish the rest of the basement. They have 6 kids and will need more bedroom/bathroom space.

Ongoing in both the old and now the new place. Last year updated the pool and patio, painted the exterior and new flooring and interior paint.

This is the year of the bathrooms, all of them down to the wall studs. New tile, toilets, vanities and tops, fixtures, re-glazing tubs and new lighting. We bought the house a year and nine months ago and they have not been touched since 1997. New front doors this year too, need hurricane code doors.

Next year will be all new window treatments,landscaping and lighting and hopefully brick paving the driveway and walk.

We’ve done a lot to our home. It’s a standard colonial, we built it in 1997 with mostly builders grade options (carpet, vinyl flooring, etc.). Since then we have added/changed/updated:

Added a 3-season porch in place of the original (falling-down) deck

Added a family room off the side of the house, with a 2-car garage under (and a new driveway)

Finished the previous 2-car garage that was under the house, into a craft room/play room and a walk-through mud room from the garage (scraproom that the kitties can’t get into!)

Gutted all 3 bathrooms (1 full, 1 3/4 master bath, 1/2 bath and laundry). All now have heated tile floors (except the 1/2 bath), nicer vanities with marble tops, new lighting and paint, and tiled showers/tub. (We constantly have to step over kitties sprawled out on the heated bathroom floors).

Ripped out the vinyl and carpet on the 1st floor and replaced with hardwood, including the stair treads to the 2nd floor

Added extra kitchen cabinets, painted them, and added bead board detailing, granite countertops, marble backsplash, new appliances, and new light fixtures.

Added hardwood flooring in our upstairs hallway

New light fixtures in hallways

Tore out a few half-dead (ok, mostly dead) trees and added professional landscaping (terraced walkway, stone walls, garden areas)

Added a fence and a sprinkler system

So I guess we’ve updated our house a bit! 😂

Hopefully it will all pay off when we eventually sell. Either way, we’ve enjoyed the changes so it was worth it!

Lisa B.

The first house I bought had drapes on the windows in the living room. When I attempted to remove them they crumbled and fell from the rods.

Oh, besides what I wrote above, we've replaced the roof two times since 1972, and also put in a cement driveway from an asphalt one, and we added about 200 sq. feet to the footprint by enlarging the living room-dining area.

We've lived in our house for almost 20 years and other than a complete kitchen remodel 15 years ago we haven't done a lot to the house (just some painting in bedrooms as we had kids). I would love to remodel our bedroom to add a bathroom, but that won't ever happen because of the cost of moving water lines/pipes.

Our home was built in the early eighties and we are the third owners. The previous owners did a lot of upgrading over the years and the last ones put in a new kitchen, new furnace, new hot water heater and a new roof the year before they sold the house to us seven years ago.

We upgraded the master bedroom and bath, reconfigured and updated the basement family room and added a bedroom before we moved in. This is our forever home so we wanted it to work for us right from the beginning.

We've been in our 1972 house for 31 years. We remodeled the kitchen in 2001, it needs some sprucing up now. We remodeled the bathrooms in 2006. We've replaced the roof, the windows, and the plumbing. We've replaced the cement in the front and back and redone the landscape. We're on our 3rd set of trees in the backyard.

It's the circle of home ownership.

We built this house in 1999; we moved in three days before Christmas.

I am in the final couple days of bathroom work: All three bathrooms painted (walls and ceilings), new exhaust fans in all three, new flooring in the two upstairs bathrooms, and tile above the shower stall, new countertop and sinks and faucets, new shower head and controls in the master bathroom. We had replaced the sliding shower doors several years ago with a swinging door that is much nicer.

The same flooring (luxury vinyl tile) will go downstairs after school is out and I am retired. That will be in entry, hallways, kitchen, dinette area, bath, and laundry. I could not face doing that and all the moving of things and clearing out of closets while school is in session.

Since my husband died last year I have been tackling the things that needed to be done, one at a time. The front door and sidelights were replaced, new shutters on the windows, garage organization, repair and rescreening of the screened porch, and now the bathrooms. Before Vince died we had all the toilets replaced with taller ones, and we had put in a stair lift for him right before he died. Now that the arthritis in my knees is much worse, that stair lift will be what allows me to remain in the house longer.

I’m sure there are going to be other things that need to be done. Still on the original furnace and air conditioner, water heater, washer and dryer, so any of those could need replacing at any time. Don’t see a major renovation though.

My husband got most of the work done on a new flower garden and I’ve planted some more things since then.

Every room at least twice, except the kitchen which has only gotten new counter tops and repainted. I’ve also put in all new windows, new exterior doors, a new roof (right down to the joists, and this year a new driveway and hopefully the kitchen.

 DH used to see/hear that all the time when he was doing electrical side jobs.

We did a fair bit of renovating before we moved in 11 years ago (all new flooring, moved a wall, updated fixtures, plugs, switches, door knobs, updated fireplace, paint, etc.) and redid the landscaping, including adding a pool within 2 years. The kitchen was remodeled 3 years ago and bathrooms are next on the list for us.

My parents lived in their house for 50 years and the only true updating was to change carpets twice, paint and upgrade windows. Their house was absolutely pristine, but a 60s time capsule. My dad shook his head in disbelief when DH changed our perfectly good plugs and switches for the Decora. 

We’ve only been in our new home for a month. It doesn’t need a thing right now.

We lived in the previous home for eight years. It was built in the late 80s. We put on a new roof, replaced all the windows and exterior doors, replaced the water heaters on both ends of the house, replaced the heat pump, had the main drain line from the house dug up and replaced, added window treatments, general painting and sprucing up, cut some trees, added steps to the backyard, and had new attic stairs installed. It will be going on the market soon.

Our house was built in 1955. We are the second owners and have owned it for 12 years. 

When we bought it the prior owners son had done a semi flip remodel. He put pergo floors in, updated the electrical, new appliances, all white paint, updated bathroom, new builder beige carpet in the family room, a new privacy fence and new landscaping.

We haven’t done any remodeling, but we did paint every room of course. The first improvement we did was put insulated siding on over the cinder block exterior. We also replaced the fireplace insert and the roof on the detached garage. We have replaced all of the appliances and put in a garden window in the kitchen. We have also laid a patio, done landscaping every year and built an outdoor firepit. We also cut down a large tree in the front yard. 

This year we are replacing the roof. We have been very lucky and have not had to put much money into our house at all. 

I really love our house even though it only has one bathroom and a galley kitchen. I told dd to remodel the kitchen when dh and I pass and she inherits the house. She said she is not spending money on that, so I guess we are just used to our tiny space