Our 10 Year Home Improvement Plan

This post contains affiliate links.  When we bought our house in Arizona, we chose one that needed some cosmetic updates and some mechanical updates because it was 14 years old when we purchased it.  When we sold it, we made a nice profit, in part because of the improvements and also because of the market.  When we moved to New York, we found the same type of house.  Our current house is 20 years old and has good bones and is in a good neighborhood.  However, we created a 10-year home improvement plan because, like our old house, we’d like to make some improvements both for livability and when we eventually want to sell so we can maximize our profits.

Our 10 Year Home Improvement Plan

I don’t know that we can financially afford to make all of these home improvements, but this is our dream list.

The Kitchen

• Replace the kitchen sink
• Add backsplash in the kitchen (Right now the kitchen just has wallpaper where backsplash should be.)
  
• Paint the kitchen
• Replace the kitchen window
• Add a ceiling fan in the kitchen

The Kids’ Bedrooms

• Add a ceiling fan in PB & J Girl’s room
• Replace Cuddle Bug’s dark green carpet
  
• Replace Cuddle Bug’s light/ceiling fan
• Replace Bookworm’s light fixture
• Replace Bookworm’s navy blue carpet

The Master Bedroom

• Replace the master bedroom windows (Our bedroom receives all the wind in the winter.  It’s the coldest room in the house, so we’d like to replace the current windows with triple pane windows.)
• Replace the master bedroom carpet (The carpet is white, but there are dark marks around the border by the wall, which I’ve read is filtration soiling.  I’d like to have a different color carpet, so that’s on the agenda sometime.)

The Bathrooms

• Paint the master bathroom
• Paint the kids’ bathroom.  (The entire bathroom is blue–even the ceiling.  It makes me feel like I’m under the sea. I know in this picture the ceiling looks white, but trust me, it’s the same blue as the walls.)

Throughout the House

• Remove popcorn ceilings  (I dislike popcorn ceilings, but they’re in the majority of rooms in this house.)
• Replace the basement steps (During the fall we noticed the steps pulling away from the nails holding them in place.  My husband thinks this is from the expansion and contraction of the wood.  It likely was a problem for the previous owners because we can see hammer marks where they tried to hammer the boards back in.)
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• Repair the basement cracks (ongoing)
• Replace the tile in the entryway, hallway, and downstairs bathroom
• Replace the back livingroom windows
• Replace the heating vent covers (For some reason, most of them are rusty.)
• Paint the stairwell going upstairs

The Yard/Exterior of House

• Cut down the dead pine trees in the back yard
• Develop a garden plot
• Replace the backyard shed
• Replace the roof

Other Possible Improvements

There are other fixes we’re thinking of but haven’t committed to because we don’t know if they’re worth the time and/or money.

• Whole house generator (Thankfully our power never went out during the recent blizzard, but many people lost power and some lost their lives, so this is an item we’re considering.)
• Painting all the trim white

Improvements We Made in 2022

When we moved here in August, we used some of the proceeds from selling our Arizona home to make initial fixes to this home.  In 2022 we made the following improvements:

• Painted the front livingroom
• Painted the hallway
• Painted both Cuddle Bug’s & PB & J Girl’s room
• Fixed two leaking cracks in the basement
• Switched to GFCI electrical outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms
• Added two electrical outlets in the basement
• Replaced the weather stripping on the garage door
• Replaced Cuddle Bug’s double-pane window with a triple pain window. (Her window had a chip in it, so it needed to be replaced. In addition, her room is on the same side our room is, so it gets cold in the winter.

This is our 10 year home improvement plan for our home.  I’m excited to see how this house will evolve into our home with our style and replacements.

Have you bought a house like this?  If so, how long did you need to make the changes you wanted?  Do you think 10 years is reasonable?