12 ways to add value to your apartment: yippee!

28 days to possession

Lots of lists dot the internet on ‘ways to add value to your house’. I’ve found exactly zero on doing similar to an apartment – maybe the esteemed English broadsheets forget such things exist?

We’re sorry we’re poorer than you, we didn’t mean it.

Today, then, meant my first DIY project of all: combine 5 ‘add home value’ lists into one, then rearrange and abbreviate to suit my purposes: how to add value to an [ugly] apartment?

• Top 20 ways to add value to your home, The Telegraph
• 10 best ways to add value to your home, The Telegraph (“just add stables!”)
• 50 ways to improve your home’s first impression, The Telegraph
• Inexpensively increase the value of your home, WikiHow
• Ten Home Improvement Projects That Add Value, HGTV.ca

K, so 5 articles – all about houses, not apartments. Here are the far-more-applicable results:

1, 2, 3, 4, tell me that you love me more

How to add value to an apartment?

as paraphrased from the above sources

Stricken from the list, inapplicable to an apartment-sized ugly baby:

• Build a loft conversion
• Build a conservatory (solarium or sun room)
• Install a basement conversion
• Convert the garage to home or bedroom space
• Turn the front yard into parking (in busy urban areas)
• Install central heating
• Install a pool or tennis court (yea, I’ll get right on that)
• Add a home cinema or gym
• Add moorage or apply for fishing rights (oh, that’s how I save on my grocery bill)
• Adding outbuildings
• Add bathrooms
• Add bedrooms

Sort-of-applicable, in theory

• Change the windows (many stratas won’t allow this, but maybe it’s worth asking?)
• Knock down the walls (open up a cramped, enclosed kitchen?)
• External makeovers and spruce up the garden (Vancouver! Your sucky balconies!)

Listen up, apartment owners

1. Consider buyer tastes before your own. Yea, duh. Ok.
2. Paint and walls: add fresh interior paint, create a smooth wall finish, replace switch plates. I’ll add ceilings to this – removing our popcorn ceilings was first on our renovation list.
3. First impressions: new door hardware, an inviting foyer, uncluttered environment
4. Windows and doors: clean windows, install new curtains, add wood trim and cornicing

Most important of all for value-adding?

5. Concentrate on the kitchen
6. Then turn to the bathroom

Always good rules:

7. Add storage where possible
8. Do a professional job, or pay someone to do it
9. Finish an unfinished space, maybe turning it into an office area

Three interesting ideas to note:

10. Don’t spend money on the bedrooms
11. Use high-wattage light bulbs to increase brightness
12. Get your floor-plan professionally checked – you might have more square feet than you think!

And the most controversial issue?

• Energy efficient retrofits (which is a whole other topic for a whole other day).

Wahoo! This quietens my head nicely. The picture is forming, and I’ve now got just four initial projects to focus on and budget for:

1. Kitchen
2. Bathroom
3. New paint
4. New floors

The ugly baby will need all of these. I’m going to move forward, pretending that’s all we’ll do. I’ll begin budget work attempting to spend as little as possible on these 4 things – and jump for joy if there’s any left over at the end. That’s the play money.

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Full photo credit to dvs, emdot, basykes and Horia Varlan via Flickr Creative Commons