Am I mad to remodel the house at age 51?
The house is in many ways fine as it is, was a head rather than heart purchase (location is great, size fits our needs) but the layout is just not great. I’d love to make a more open plan kitchen dining sitting area with direct access to the garden, whilst keeping a separate living room (and we’d also manage a separate ‘tv room’.)
But the kids are teens and won’t all be at home forever, though very likely to stay for tertiary education.
We will downsize at some point, but I envisage living here for at least another 15 years. I’m very sociable , love to entertain but the house as it is doesn’t work so well for that.
We wouldn’t recoup the costs in full as such (who does with home improvements these days!) - but spread over 15 years is it unreasonable to spend money on improving our lifestyle?
Our pensions are ok, we’re are not in to flash cars or holidays, like an active & outdoor lifestyle. Mortgage is nearly done. But we’d need to borrow for these improvements. We have critical illness cover & work benefits that would be there in event of ill health etc.
PIL have said they will help support uni costs, which is amazing, but we also have some set aside.
What we don’t have is house deposit funds for the kids, which we could potentially have instead of house improvements.
Has anyone had a similar dilemma? It’s now or never really to make a decision!
AIBU to borrow money for home improvements that are lifestyle rather than need? And we plan to downsize anyway so it’s not getting the house ready for old age as such (though we could also factor that in?)