We all live in a pampered, spoiled rotten society of people who want it just the way the like it . . . and are willing to pay more money to have it that way. Everyone in the selling business knows this and takes advantage of our various tastes in things, all the way from our favorite drink to expensive houses. This blog is mostly about houses and where individual taste in homes costs fussy people lots of money, and for no good reason. How demanding you are about this determines the cost of your house and may not gain you much when you sell the home. If you do careful research about home sales, you'll find out what people have been conditioned to expect in a home . . . and by conditioned, I mean propagandized. Folks watch a lot of home network television, or other shows about house hunting or remodeling, and they often get sold a bill of goods on what a house should have.
If you have the money, and if nothing else makes you happy, then you're a bird's nest on the ground for builders and remodelers. Want those granite counter tops in kitchens and baths? Get ready to shuck out the big bucks 'cause they don't give it away. Just got to have the finest when it comes to fancy wood floors? More big bucks. Want that swanky tile on the floors? More big bucks. And just some seemingly moderate cost things in a house can be foolish investments . . . unless you just can't live without it.
My home has ten ceiling fans, an extravagance, and they're not cheap fans. We love ceiling fans, want them going most of the time . . . and so we have them. Dumb? Yeah, probably, but we save money other places. You won't find marble or granite in my house, and you won't find bamboo floors or anything like that. Nice fixtures for sinks, bathtubs, etc? Yup, got them. Really nice window treatments? Yep, got that too. Extra expenditures on the yard? Yep. So, we've got lots of things we don't need, and that's a matter of taste. Not an enormous house, about 3,000 sq. ft. We talking small town here, and that means a house this nice would sit for a long time before it sold. Hardly anybody here can afford over two hundred grand for a house.
My neighbor up the street has done a wonderful job of remodeling their home, about the same size of mine. Their yard alone offers a wow factor, and inside there's lots of upgrades. Yeah, all that granite and nice fixtures . . . yeah, all that stuff you see on television that everyone wants in a house. And now they need to move and can't sell the house. They offered it for close to a quarter million bucks, got no takers. The price is down to $215,000 now, and still no offers. Not even many lookers. That same house just down the road in Austin would cost half million, but not here. What I'm saying is that you can over build or over remodel . . . which is what I've done and what my neighbor has done.
I don't really care because I'm not inclined to move anywhere. I'm also not inclined to put any more big money into this house. My daughter has just bought an old house in this town with the intention of remodeling it. She's got big plans for turning it into the kind of home they can enjoy. They bought the house cheap because it needs lots of work, but it could be a showplace. They want to do most of the work themselves, and they're willing to lean how. I'm the teacher. So far, she's using her head when talking about remodeling, and I've been trying to teach her some things I've never been able to get my wife to accept. Like all women, my daughter wants to completely change the kitchen, but she's reasonable about how to do that, and she willing to make concessions. All the bedrooms need new floor coverings, and there's lots of woodwork to be done, lots of painting, things like that. Bathrooms need work too, as does the living room and den area.
I bought an old house ten years ago and put in a floor over there, and I did it with wood bought from a local lumberyard. I bought pine 1 by 12 lumber, and then screwed it down. I didn't do anything to it, no stain or varnish . . . nothing. And after ten years, it looks good . . . has that weathered, rustic look, and it's still solid. She saw that, asked about it, and I said, "It can be done for much less than hardwood floors, and it can be made to look gorgeous." She's now wanting that done in her house, just smaller boards. She's given up wanting tile, and she doesn't want granite. I showed her what kitchen countertops could look like made of wood. I made them from 2 by 6 lumber, glued them together to where you can hardly see the separation between them, and they look great. Do they scuff up? Sure, but since they're 2 inches thick, you just re-sand and reseal them. No big deal, and doing that is dirt cheap. And it looks damn good.
So, we're off to a start with remodeling, turning an old house (it's a Spanish Bungalow) into a really nice place . . . and with one big thing in mind. Made it look good, do structural repairs to make it last, and don't get stupid and spend too much money. Yeah, stupid because it's easy to run the costs on a home past what you can sell it for. Be cognizant of the community, the neighborhood, the town. Make it nice and comfortable, and make it into something you don't get stuck with.
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