What should I do to my house?

[chasingsushi]

We live in the first home we've been able to buy. It's a 2 up 2 down terrace with large kitchen extension. It needed a lot of work doing when we moved in.

We've had it rewired, replaced double glazed units, exposed old floorboards, sanded and varnished all through downstairs. Pulled down unsafe walls in the back yard and rebuilt making outside safe. Repainted and decorated throughout, replaced boiler. Repaired damaged joists and floorboards, boxed in meters. Repainted house exterior amongst other smaller jobs so quite a lot of stuff.

While we love our home, it's not our forever home. We need more space and a garden rather than just a yard.

We don't want to pour endless money into a house we're looking to sell, so really want to focus our efforts in the next 6 months. Things on our list we've not done yet are:

Fireplace: currently boarded up and painted over so lounge has no central feature

Outside front: Looks much better since being house exterior being painted and lots of plants, but would ideally replace chipped paint splattered door step and put down tiles on path instead of crazy paving

Outside back: more crazy paving to be replaced with something more in keeping. Plant up some pots that like the shade.

Replace hall/stairs/landing carpet: it's old and a bit tatty. Poorly fitted around stair banister

Bathroom: plain white, but badly fitted old suite. Weird crazy tile/architrave. Have replaced bath panel, painted cupboard and replaced flooring, but ideally would rip everything out and start again or at least paint crazy tiles white.

Attic: increase size of tiny hatch and board a section out for storage.

Which of these do you think would add the most value?

I would remove stair, hall, landing carpet and sand to match the rest.

I think it may depend upon what you have already spent and how long you are expecting to stay there and what the ceiling price is on the street. You sound like you have done a lot already, do you really need to do anymore.
If you feel that you do and are thinking about increasing value/ ability to sell I would do the big time consuming jobs so that a potential buyer doesn't have to - so the bathroom and tidying up the outside.

Thanks for your thoughts. Judging by increase in house prices on our and surrounding streets we'd prob get £25k more than we paid for it if we sold now. Ceiling is probably another £10k above that for a perfectly renovated house. I don't know how much we've spent already because it's been a slow process £12k ish maybe?

Also, sorry, I meant stairs/landing carpet. Hall is already sanded. And can't sand landing to match as boards are not as good there.

1. Chip the paint off your front door step and tidy the path. If the front door step looks dreadful then tile just the step. Make sure the front door looks as good as it can. If this means painting it, do it, it will make a real difference to first impressions.

1. Sort out the fireplace into a nice feature. Even if it isn't (yet) a working fire just opening it up and adding a mantel / surround will make a big difference to the overall look and feel of the room. Put candles / stacked logs / flowers in the recess depending on the season.

1. New stairs / landing carpet and sand / varnish the hall to tie in with rest of downstairs. A practical carpet, short pile in a neutral colour.

1. Attend to the crazy paving front and back. Don't replace it (save your time and money for the next house) but scrape off all moss / weeds / debris and hose it down or pressure wash if you have one. Add pots of seasonal colour, placed strategically to cover any obvious eyesores like pipes or drain covers.

1. Do what you can to improve the horrible tiles in the bathroom but don't replace the suite, it's not worth it. Lots of buyers would want to install a new bathroom anyway, and as long as yours is white and clean, that's the main thing.

Leave the attic unless you are doing if for yourselves.

Wash all windows and doors and thoroughly clean all the paintwork outside and in. Declutter madly and clean then clean again.

Don't spend a lot of your money on this house. Repair or replace anything broken or tatty because those kinds of things make potential buyers think there may be other things wrong. So yes, replace the landing carpet. If redoing the bathroom can be done well but fairly cheaply it will probably make the house more saleable. You're not necessarily going to add value with any of the things you've listed so save your money for your next place.

IMO bathrooms don't make or break a sale. As long as the main front view, kitchen, living room and master bedroom all look clean and appealing (maybe with some styling tricks). Those are the main rooms you live in. The rest just have it spotlessly clean and tidy. I've seen terrible carpets come up well with a professional clean.

From your original list, doing the lounge fireplace might be worth it, but not everyone wants the faff, buyers might just board it over and put a wide-screen tv there.

You don't want bare boards on a landing, anyhow. Too bloody loud and echoey.

Start with the cheapest or easiest jobs with the biggest impact. A fireplace as a focal point in a well heated small home is a bit if a red herring, really. Just arrange the furniture well and put up an interesting mirror or some nice artwork.

Tile paint never looks great. Either look into some cladding to put over the tiles or at least make sure the grout and sealant are spick and span.

Thank you so much for all the suggestions. I really appreciate it. I think stair/landing carpet should be next on the list by the looks of it.

+1 for stair and landing carpet - pretty cheap and makes the entire house seem fresh.

Depending on how much stuff you have out it may be worth boarding the loft. We had our loft done before we'd decided to sell and it meant we could chuck so much crap up there so the house had less clutter and felt bigger!

So boarding it didn't add value but removing the clutter certainly made it more saleable! I know you could chuck stuff away for the same effect but I'm a bit of a hoarder

Carpet then fireplace then outside stuff then bathroom although I would probably only do the first two personally. Only do the loft if it's useful to you, it won't really add value.