Renovation With Resale in Mind: How It Started

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know how much I love this home.

After living here for nine years, we’ve taken on several renovation projects—including a complete kitchen and family room gut in 2019 and refinishing all of the hardwood floors a few years ago. I’m still recovering from that one.

This latest project started with renovating three bathrooms.

We’re updating the primary bathroom, Jack-and-Jill bathroom and main-floor powder room with new vanities, countertops, tile, lighting, mirrors and hardware.

Then the project grew.

We decided to turn the former main-floor laundry room into a mudroom and transform an upstairs linen closet into the new laundry room. That last change involved much more than choosing finishes—it required a new wall, electrical work and all of the behind-the-scenes planning that comes with changing how a home functions.

As a homeowner, I’m thinking about how these changes will improve the way we live here.

As a real estate advisor, I’m also considering every decision through another lens: Where is it worth investing? Which improvements could matter to a future buyer? And which updates are primarily about making the home work better for us right now?

Over the next several weeks, I’ll take you behind the scenes of the renovation—the decisions, the progress, where we chose to invest and what I would tell another homeowner before beginning a renovation of their own.

Because a good renovation plan should begin with more than finishes. It should begin with how you live, how long you plan to stay and what you ultimately want the investment to accomplish.