Increasing the market value of your home can add to your equity, give you a better selling price, and help make second mortgages or refinances easier to obtain. However, many home renovation projects are time consuming and expensive, which keeps homeowners from tackling value-adding activities.
Fortunately, adding new woodwork to your house skips the associated renovation blues – wood projects can be simple, inexpensive, and range from master plans to small, one weekend efforts. Woodwork, with its solid presence, warm color, and association with quality, is one of the most effective ways to increase the value (and appearance) of your home. Here are several wood-oriented projects for you to consider.
1. Replace Vinyl or Carpet Floors: Vinyl and carpet are two of the least valuable floor coverings around. Even worse, on busy intersections like kitchens and stairs they can often grow stained or worn through. To improve the value of your home, consider switching these cheap materials out with hardwood or bamboo flooring. These floorboards will not only add instant value to your house without the need for expensive new rooms, but they will also accent the colors of surrounding walls and furnishings. Wood planks are available in a vast variety of colors, shades, and patterns depending on your plans.
2. Upgrade Moldings: Moldings are the part-protective part-decorate pieces running along yours walls against the floor and sometimes on the top by the ceiling. In some houses halfhearted veneers or faux moldings are used, but these running strips of materials tend to look cheap and out of place, especially if you already have wood framing or flooring elsewhere. Do yourself a favor and increase the value of your home even more by replacing your moldings with professional oak or pine alternatives. Other wood choices are also available if you want to experiment with different colors.
3. Restore Painted-Over Portions: In many cases, wood paneling and flooring is often painted over by past homeowners seeking to match colors. This is almost always a mistake. An easy and incredibly effective renovation project is carefully stripping away these layers of paint and exposing the wood beneath. Once smoothed, polished, and stained, this wood can offer far more beauty than a paintjob and will certainly increase the potential value of your house. Of course, it can be difficult to know what kind of wood is waiting beneath the thicker paints, so be prepared do to a little bit of new installation as well if worse comes to worse.
4. Give Rid of Older, Damaged Wood: Accidents happen. So do drying out, too much moisture, and generally unwise wood installation choices. Some of the older wood in your home may have fallen victim to these problems. Planks in wet areas may have started to rot and warp. Dried-out planks may have started to shrink and expose awkward gaps. In these cases, start thinking about how you can replace this damaged wood with better, more home-friendly options. Professionals can offer advice on how to prepare your wood for dryness or moist air ahead of time.
5. Add Wood Balusters, Rails, and Doorways: Walk around your home and try to spot places where you could use the warmth and quality of woodwork. You may be surprised at the ideas that surface: Many balusters and railways in second-story houses can be improved by switching them to woodwork. The same is true of door frames and even doors themselves. You may also want to walk around outside and see if an existing deck or porch needs an upgrade.
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