Home Improvement Ideas for New Home Owners

Opening the door to a new home for the first time is one of the best feelings a person can experience. It signals the end of months of house hunting with real estate agents, tiresome virtual tours and haggling with banks for the best mortgages. It also signals that it’s time to move in and enjoy your new home!

These days, it’s not uncommon for homebuyers to purchase foreclosures that need a little work. And, some homebuyers just like their home to be completely customized to their own tastes. Therefore, opening that door also means it’s time to start making home improvements. Oddly enough, some of the best places to start on these changes are far from your home — in the aisles of a Home Depot or Lowe’s Hardware Store. In these settings, you may be inspired to do home improvements that you might never have thought of just by staring at the empty walls of your new dining room.

After you’ve been inspired by what a little paint and window trim can do to an otherwise bland setting, you’re ready to take your new home on, one room after the other. But, in order to do this, you also need a realistic plan. First, to avoid turning your new home into a “money pit,” lay out a budget. Then make a list of the jobs you’d like to take on and give each one a priority ranking. The jobs at the top of the list should cover the home improvements that must be done with urgency. For instance, if you moved in August and you’re facing a bitter Northeast winter in another three months, replacing those old wooden window frames with new and inexpensive vinyl frames might be a good “must have” job.

In this same vein, survey your home for things that might not make it through another year. If your boiler, hot water heater, air conditioning system, plumbing and electrical is adequate, you’re in good shape. That means you’ll have more money in your budget for the custom cabinets you envision for the kitchen. However, if one of them looks like it’s on its last leg, you may want to replace this before jumping into unnecessary home improvements.

After making a list, stand back and realistically figure out what each will cost. If you don’t feel comfortable speculating costs, call in a contractor to give you a free estimate. It may surprise you that some of the improvements that can have the most immediate effect in your new home are ones that you can handle yourself.

Here is a list of commonly included home improvement items that many people can do themselves, and some tips to help you do so:

1. New paint— This is probably the single most impacting home improvement you can make in a new home. Whether you choose to do it yourself or hire a professional, you’ll probably see the most immediate returns on this small investment.

2. New windows — This is another profound improvement. Whether you replace your windows immediately or opt to do it later, you won’t go wrong with new windows. This home improvement investment will not only be returned when you sell your home, but it will also pay you dividends every year by lowering heating and air conditioning costs.

3. New bathrooms — If you’ve moved into the typical 40 to 50-year-old three-bedroom house, chances are your bathrooms go back to the days of the Eisenhower Administration. For some, this may be all right. But, for others who want more storage space, a renovation may be in order. If you can pull this home improvement off yourself, you can keep another $10,000 in your pocket. And, in terms of risk, new bathrooms are an improvement, you’ll recoup when you sell your home.

4. New kitchen — The kitchen in your new home can be dated, but still functional and adequate. Like the bathrooms, whether you re-do it right away is your call. However, keep in mind that kitchen improvements won’t be like the bathroom job where you merely select colors for a pedestal sink and laundry hamper. The shopping list for a new kitchen can include new cabinets, countertops, appliances and floor tiles. Unless you can spare the minimum $30,000 or so for a basic contractor’s kitchen renovation, you can put this one off. But you can take comfort in the fact that this is also a home improvement you’ll get back when you sell your home.

5. Finishing an attic or basement — Today’s homebuyer may need additional room for children on the way, or perhaps a home office. Although some buyers have taken advantage of low mortgage rates to buy any house, even if it’s the smallest one they can afford, attics and basements offer room for expansion. If you’re good with sheetrock, this may be another home improvement that you can pull off yourself. However, like the bathroom and kitchen jobs, consider how the finished product will look. Putting up sheet rock is not like applying self-stick Disney decorations to a baby room. It will require precise the measuring and lifting of unwieldy, heavy 4-by-8 panels of sheetrock. If you do it yourself and it comes out looking like it WAS a do-it-yourself job, you can reduce the resale value of your home with these improvements.

However you decide to go about your home improvements, follow these tips. Stay within your budget and do the jobs that need to be done before the jobs that you are emotionally drawn to doing. That means don’t install a stained glass transom above your living room entrance if the cost of it means sacrificing new Venetian blinds for five entire rooms. In other words, prioritize. And, make sure to keep in mind that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. You don’t have to do every home improvement job in the first 12 months of moving in. You’ll have plenty of time to improve your new home if you’re patient. Additionally, by visiting Home Inspectors at HomeInspector.com, you can request a free, no obligation quote before even beginning your search for the inspector who could save you money or even save your life with a professional home inspection.