Making a house a home
December 10, 2008
I spent a few hours yesterday at the design centre, trying to select the interior of my new place. There are a number of decisions to make (cabinet/cupboard colours and material, countertops, kitchen backsplash, floors and carpeting, tiles for the wall of the bathrooms around the tubs) and I felt a bit detached yet also overwhelmed by the process. I told my designer that my main concern was keeping things neutral, in order to make it easier to resell the house, which is sad because I plan to live in the place for a few years so although it’s good to be practical and future-thinking, I should also make sure to get things that I like, even if that means deviating a bit from my plans to stay neutral.
I seem to have this problem when it comes to big purchases: I just don’t seem to care or have a strong enough opinion about any aspect of it to really get into it. I think it’s because I’ve never felt like someone who has a personal style, so I don’t really know what I want or what someone would see and say “Oh! That’s totally you!” when referring to me. I mean for a car, all I want is something that won’t rust and is good on gas. I just don’t get excited about any other aspect of a vehicle. With the house, I thought I’d be more decisive and sure of what was “me” and what wasn’t, but nope, that’s not happening.
All I know is I want clean and simple lines throughout, nothing ornate or overly done, something that sort of just blends in and doesn’t call attention to itself. I do want my kitchen to be beautiful and be a focal point of the house. I want it to be a place where I and others want to hang out in. I have some ideas but nothing concrete, so I moved on to bathrooms, which I thought would be a total breeze. Hah!
I have 2.5 bathrooms, and thankfully only two of them require me to make major decisions. Here are my tentative choices. Unfortunately I forgot to check the white balance so the colours are a bit off.
My bathroom:
The other ensuite bathroom:
And those were my tentative conclusions after two hours of time!
I have my final appointment in a couple of weeks, so the plan is to go in on my own (which really means with any family members or friends who’ll go) a few times and figure out what I want so that this last meeting will be a breeze, and I’ll feel satisfied with my selections.
To help me out, I did some browsing online and I came across this fabulous site, Kitchens.com, clearly designed for the kitchen doofus. They have a quiz you can take to help you determine what kind of kitchen suits you. My score, 31, put me in the Transitional Kitchen category:
Transitional: Lean back and relax in a space that welcomes the modern but trades stainless steel for the natural. (20-32)
Your tastes include the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired. Your sensitivity to materials and a natural setting meets with a contemporary bent in home styles like Mission, Prairie and Arts & Crafts. When making your cabinet selection, consider birch as a clean and modern wood species. Choose details like geometric forms, art glass, contrasting textures and lines, and forged and wrought iron pulls.
How perfect that I’m not firmly in one category because I do love elements of both the Traditional and the Contemporary styles. I won’t lie: I love the way stainless steel appliances would look with my tentative kitchen choices, but I don’t love the price tag attached to upgrading to stainless steel (rhymes with one cowsand). It might be a good investment though—what should I do??
And speaking of upgrades and the associated cost, my builder is very tricky: you can have the yellow dot items at no extra cost but if you want the blue dot choices or higher, more money is involved. So what they did was make the yellow dot choices a)limited b)boring c)often dated, so you rule them out from the beginning and immediately the dollars start adding up. And then since there are five or six levels of upgrades, you start to wonder if the yellow dot selections are inferior in quality to the point of being detrimental to the value of the house’s original price (when really they aren’t). And when it comes to upgrades, knowing which upgrades will make a difference and which ones won’t when the time comes to resell is important, and I can’t let myself get swayed by unimportant and unnecessary upgrades (and I also can’t afford them!).
So, I have some work in my future and if I visit anyone of you in the next little while I will be showing a keen interest in the design and decor of your homes!
Oh, what fun dilemmas to have! :)
Personally, I think it might be worth it to pay a bit more for the blue dot items. Better quality, and better value. You're going to live with it for a long time, so make it something you like. You'll feel better for it too. As for your future-planning, they'd be a better selling point. I guess it depends on HOW MUCH more they are though.
LOL, good luck with your decision-making :)
How fun!! I LOVE picking that stuff! Have fun!!
I'm with Denise. I'd go for the upgrades especially with flooring and kitchen cabinets. Not only for you but especially for re-sale value. Laminate/hardwood vs carpet and tile vs linoleum are big factors that people look at when wanting to buy a home. Especially when all the houses on the street/area are pretty much the same. That could be a deciding factor for someone. I've read before that certain upgrades will make you money in the end based on how much it increases the value of your home.
Sadly I cannot have ceramic tiles in the place where it would make the difference, or have the most impact for resale value (kitchen) due to a silly condo rule! Woe!
In a neighbourhood where all the houses are the same, upgrades will help sell your house faster, but they don't usually help you sell for much more than the standard price. There will always be a couple other identical houses for sale when you want to sell yours, so you will have to compete with their prices. Most buyers will choose the cheaper house over the more expensive house if the only difference is something like ceramic tile in the kitchen. Like Shannon said, upgrades might be a deciding factor for a buyer – but only if the prices are about the same between the houses they are looking at.
Neutrals are a good idea both for ease of resale later and if you can't figure out your personal style just yet; you can always have tons of fun later bringing in colour and personal style with furniture, accessories, artwork, etc.
One thing that helped me in the design centre was taking out kitchen and bathroom books and magazines from the library and looking at all the photos. When I found photos of rooms I loved, I took them to the design centre and approximated the looks in the photos with the choices available.
I agree with Lisa. Look through magazines and pick things you are drawn to and like and it will all work out in the end.
I know its a bit stressful my dear but think how satisfied you will be when its all done and you are sipping on some hot cocoa in the warmth of your new comfortable & "totally Jummy" home.
My sister is the maven at picking. She has just finished doing it for her new condo and I've been urging her to do a post on our blog. I popped over from our blogher sidebar, nice to meet you.
Kath