4 Smart Ways to Increase Your Home’s Value When You Renovate
During your next home renovation, choose changes that aren’t just about picking the hottest paint color; instead, add true value to your home. These four smart, strategic home upgrades will last well beyond the latest trend.
1. Be Bold With the Bathroom
When it comes to improving your lifestyle and your home’s value the bathroom edges out the kitchen as today’s best choice for a remodel. It can be more cost-effective (according to this cost versus value report), plus is an opportunity to add long-term value by installing an elegant, walk-in shower. Super on-trend now, highly useful in your (or a future homeowner’s) golden years.
During a remodel, look to add stylish, low-flow fixtures to save money today and help you sell to the eco-conscious homeowner tomorrow. Change outdated countertops and cabinets for space-saving, floating vanities. Remove unflattering lighting fixtures in favor of diffuse LED lighting. Add some smarts and have those lights adapt instantly to your mood—bright and cheerful for the morning, calm and relaxing during your Sunday evening soak. You can’t put a price on wellbeing.
This Los Altos Hills, California bathroom remodel added diffuse LED backlighting, a floating vanity and an accessible, walk-in shower, stylish yet practical additions that improve the value to both homeowner and potential buyer.
Photo: Agnieszka Jakubowicz
2. Switch to Smart Lighting
Take control of your lighting by installing smart switches. While smart bulbs can change color, smart switches can change the way you live in your home. Perfect for rooms with multiple fixtures, lights, and switches, a smart lighting system like NOON Home replaces your current light switches and gives you instant control over every light in the room with one touch, or remotely through a smartphone or voice assistant.
Switch from ‘Cooking’ (above) to ‘Dining’ (below) with one touch using NOON’s innovative Room Director—an OLED screen embedded into a switch that lets you select scenes.
Photo by Noon Home
“Noon eliminates the need to turn on and adjust all these switches by coordinating them wirelessly to create scenes that align with activities you do in the room,” says Aurora Chun of NOON. “For example, selecting a ‘Cooking’ scene on the Room Director would move all the light into the kitchen while dimming the dining and living space. While a ‘Dining’ scene would turn off all the lights in the kitchen and have a moodier dimmed light in the dining room.”
This ‘Dining’ scene can be turned on using a smart switch, or with a voice assistant, like Google or Alexa.
Photo by Noon
To get the most out of smart lighting, carefully consider the fixtures you install during a remodel. Many homeowners choose fixtures just on style but, according to Lightology – a contemporary lighting showroom and e-retailer based in Chicago, lighting is 30% style and 70% function.
“You need a fixture that provides ample lighting – direct or indirect – based on where it’s installed and how it will be used. For example, a hyper-focused task lamp makes sense in an office, but might not make sense in a living room where you want soft, ambient lighting,” says Ashley Rutter, an ALA Lighting Specialist at Lightology.
Think about how the fixture will be used before looking at style, color and finish, and always incorporate multiple lights in each room.
“There’s a common misconception that one light is enough for a space,” says Rutter. “Every room in your home should be layered in lighting: recessed downlights, chandeliers and pendants, floor and table lamps – all work together to make your space truly shine.”
“Put recessed downlights where you need to zone off large open spaces, monorail and recessed lighting to highlight artwork and architectural features, use chandeliers and pendants to add style and personality, and bring in wall sconces, floor and table lamps where you need to fill gaps or facilitate specific tasks, like reading or homework,” says Rutter.
Then connect them all with a smart lighting controls like NOON Home, and create personalized scenes that can be controlled with one touch, or remotely. “Tap the ‘Morning’ setting on NOON to turn on your LED lit bathroom mirror, tell your Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant ‘Movie Night’ and watch the overhead lights dim while the toe kick in the kitchen dials up,” says Rutter.
You’ll be thrilled with how easy it is to instantly change the mood in your home, and potential buyers will be impressed by the combination of high tech, style and simplicity.
3. Embrace Radiant Heating
Anytime you replace flooring during a remodel, installing radiant heating before putting that tile or wood down should be a top priority. A cost-effective heating system that adds significant value while improving comfort, radiant heating is an excellent upgrade, especially in a bathroom.
This home in Missouri features radiant heating throughout: a must in a state where temperatures dip into the low 20s, but a great addition to almost any home.
Photo: Mike Sinclair
More energy-efficient than most other heating forms, it can save around 15 percent on heating bills. Plus, it increases the design aesthetic of your home by doing away with radiators or floor vents; instead you just have clean lines and minimal maintenance.
4. Install Smart Door Fixtures
A landscaping facelift used to be the go-to option for increasing curb appeal, but how useful is that really? On the other hand, re-designing your home’s entrance not only ups that curb appeal, but it increases the security of your family and the convenience of everyday life.
Smart door locks, bells, and lights provide security and convenience, and give your home’s entrance a high-tech facelift that’s sure to impress.
Installing high-end lighting fixtures cast an elegant glow and illuminate your porch for and safety. The Kuna smart security light hides a cameras, to discreetly monitor your home’s main egress and exit.
A smart door lock such as the Nest X Yale lock boasts an elegant, high-tech look that’s sure to impress, while adding the convenience of being able to ditch your keys, of knowing who has entered your home, and giving out (and taking away) electronic keys from your smartphone. Pair it with a smart doorbell like Nest’s Hello and be able to see, talk to, and even let visitors in when you’re not home.
