Bathroom Updates That Buyers Want: Design to Sell

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Thanks to the current circumstances we all find ourselves in, many industries have slowed to a halt. However, this is not the case for real estate. In fact, due to low interest rates and a shortage of homes for sale, properties are being bought up at breakneck speeds. According to Lauren Austin, a 17-year real estate veteran, you can no longer “sit and wait for a week and look at 10 houses. If you see a house and it works, you buy it.” If you’re looking to sell your home, now is the time to do it. 

Many things go into selling a home. The most important is making sure the home itself is in the best condition it can be in. That means remodeling. It means modernizing and painting. According to Forbes, next to the kitchen, the bathroom is the most closely inspected and valued room in the house. For that reason, making bathroom updates for resale is among the first places your money should be going.

How Should You Plan the Bathroom Remodels for Resale?

To make the best bathroom remodels for resale, you will need to understand why bathrooms are an integral and valued area of your home. A bathroom is more than just a place to do your business. It is where we begin and end our day. It’s an intimate and sacred sanctuary where we bathe and spend time with ourselves. Remembering the emotional connection people can form with their bathroom will help create an inviting and warm space. If the bathroom is ragged, it can never fill that need people are looking for—plan on sinking some cash into making this room the highlight of your home.

Start With Fixing What is Broken

This should go without saying, but make sure everything in your bathroom works. That means replacing that cracked bathtub, fixing the leaky faucet, and filling the fist-sized hole in the wall. If the toilet runs intermittently, the buyers aren’t going to see a small, isolated issue. They will see straight past that and start questioning the home’s overall integrity. Ensuring everything works and is in good condition is a great first step to making sure the home gets sold for the price you want.

Incorporate Energy Efficient Solutions

Going green is not only a morally sound decision but a profitable one as well. A new study by American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that buyers would pay more for homes with higher home energy scores. In the bathroom, that means replacing the showerhead and faucet with a more water-efficient model is a must when doing a bathroom update for resale. The toilet is another one. Older toilets use so much water. The newer ones use significantly less, and they’re also relatively inexpensive. 

bathroom updates for resale

Paint, Paint, Paint

A new paint job does wonders to change the vibe of a room. A freshly painted room looks clean and can make a small bathroom space feel bigger than it is. This vital step in bathroom remodeling can be ruined with the wrong color. Neutral colors are by far the best to choose when remodeling for resale. This is due to a few different factors. For one, neutral colors are bright, light, and inviting. They also serve as a neutral backdrop, allowing buyers to easily picture their belongings in your home. A quick tip: warmer grays are a trendy color to choose from in 2021.

Maximize your bathroom space

To get the most out of your bathroom space, you’ll need to maximize your storage capacity. Clean out drawers, bathroom cabinets, and closets. In many cases, there still won’t be enough space. Consider upgrading to a larger vanity or adding shelves under the sink. Space is so important that if you are still lacking at this point or are limited by square feet, it may be worth investing in some out-of-the-box ideas such as shelving, wall racks, and hooks. Check out these ideas for decluttering your bathroom.

How to Properly Accessorize Your Bathroom?

You must accessorize if you want the best bathroom updates for resale. You have already done the hard work by decluttering your bathroom. Now you have an open template to work with. First up, towels. Attractive, plush towels are inviting and catch the eye. Consider keeping a uniform color for your towels. It looks neat and professional. 

Now for the accessories. Common practice is to “accessorize in threes.” For example, three glass jars filled with bathing essentials are placed next to each other. Glass jars, attractive trays, and ceramic cups used for holding bathroom items are great accessories that maximize space while adding aesthetic value to the room.

For the toilet area, there are countless ideas. Keep it clean and simple. An idea would be to place bath salts, soap, and a thin book in a wicker basket on the toilet’s tank. When accessorizing your bathroom, simple, attractive, and functional are the core principles you should keep in mind.

Ask Real Estate Agents for Advice

First, go through your checklist and make sure you’ve done everything laid out in this article. That will set you up with the best chance of success. However, it is not an easy process, and it can be easy to find yourself stuck and not sure what to do. If you find yourself in such a predicament, do not be afraid to ask for help. A great resource for you to use is your real estate agent. If your agent has been in the business for a while, they will know what sells and what does not. Asking their advice on what makes the best bathroom updates for resale will significantly increase the chance that you make solid remodeling decisions that ultimately lead to selling your home.

Conclusion

By now, you know the importance of the quality of your bathroom when selling your home. It is not something to be overlooked. Painting, accessorizing, and purchasing the right appliances are all important pieces of the puzzle. However, it is worth noting that it is a puzzle, and it will not be complete without all parts present. So do not neglect some pieces while going full boar on others. Balance is everything. With the right effort, proper guidance, and good taste, you can turn your bathroom into an enticing oasis that draws people in and leads to closing the deal on your home. 

How to Make a Small Bathroom Look Bigger

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Many of us have small bathrooms that we’d much rather make much bigger given a choice. When you are stuck with the constraints of the house you live in, you might want to make a small bathroom bigger so that guests can enjoy the perception of a larger room. It can also help you to sell a house.

Clever bathroom remodeling or even just some simple small bathroom hacks to give the illusion of space, and make the most of the limited room you have, can make all the difference. In this guide, we’ll tell you how to make a small bathroom look bigger.

Add Some Colors

The psychology of color when decorating any room is surprisingly influential. If you’ve never actually delved into this world before, you might be shocked at what a difference it can make. Just a change of color scheme can revolutionize the look of a room.

You’ll also be pleased that a bathroom can be one of the more straightforward rooms to paint. If you’ve ever looked up how to prepare a room for painting, you’ll know that you need to remove loads of furniture and tape over certain things. This isn’t always the case in a bathroom; you may not be able to remove your bath, for instance.

Are you choosing colors to make a small bathroom look bigger? There are a couple of approaches you can take. A lot of people go for a light color scheme. This is in fashion now, and it is versatile, so when you sell, you won’t isolate buyers. It gives the feeling of openness having lighter colors.

Some people also go for the feeling of space that can come from a darker room, and some dark statement bathrooms can look fantastic. Some clever small half-bathroom ideas involve dark color schemes.

Update The Tiles

There are so many reasons why people go for tiles as part of their bathroom remodeling. Tired and old tires make a bathroom look…well, tired and old. They can also make it feel smaller and draw people’s attention to the constraints of the bathroom.

Smaller bathroom walls can be made to look like a larger space by including one solid tile pattern. We don’t recommend using loads of colors or anything too complex.

What size tiles are best for a small bathroom? We recommend either 1×4 or 2×6 floor tiles, they’re cheap, and the ceramic design is usually best for durability and longevity. Some tiles can even be easily painted to give you more control. If you ever decide on a new color scheme, that’s possible.

Tiles can be used on the walls and the floor, and small bathroom flooring ideas can be challenging, but if you have a tile design to cover the whole of your bathroom, it can make it much easier and take away some difficult decisions.

Prioritize Bathroom Organization

In some scenarios, you may look at your bathroom and not even notice the fact that it is getting very cluttered. It’s easy to have cleaning products and makeup out on the side, and though they may not bother you, they may be making your small bathroom look even smaller.

Even if you have a small bathroom cabinet, that doesn’t mean that you can’t keep a lot inside. It might not be the most exciting of all the tasks when it comes to decorating, but you must get organized.

Here’s the deal. Over the years, your bathroom gets packed with things you don’t want or don’t use. You may have half-used bottles of product sitting around that you could just dispose of. Alternatively, cluttered cupboards mean that you aren’t making the most of your space. You don’t have to be anal about things, just ruthless in getting rid of what you don’t need and making sure pointless items don’t take up your bathroom space. Perhaps you have somewhere else in your home where you can store other things such as towels, too?

Incorporate Multiple Mirrors

Mirrors may be one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to making your bathroom look bigger. Using mirrors in any room can help to give the illusion of more space. We’re not talking about tricking people into thinking it’s twice as big! Even on a subconscious level, having mirrors can open up space. If you have ever been inside a restaurant or coffee shop and noticed lots of mirrors, the chances are they are trying to pull this same trick.

As well as mirrors making a space look bigger, they can also make the room brighter, making the most of any source of natural light. Ask any interior designer, and they will tell you that mirrors are one of the best choices for a small space.

Of course, in your bathroom, you will probably already have a mirror. Consider making this more significant, or adding other mirrors throughout the space.

Decide On Shower Structure

Your shower is likely to take up a lot of your bathroom’s space. If you’ve got a small bathroom with a shower, then it is worth spending some time working out a plan. For example, one trendy way to try and make a small bathroom appear bigger is to use a clever design such as turning it into a wetroom. If the room just has a shower and no bath, this is easier to do and means you can maximize the floor space. Of course, it requires some bathroom remodeling, and it can be a little bit of a job to get the bathroom looking how you want, but it may be worth it for smaller rooms.

There are other decisions to make. Many more minor showers can sit in the corner of the room, and you might even be able to get a specifically smaller size. Often, a curved door can give the illusion of more space, too. Square doors may jut out into the room and give the feeling of more valuable space being taken up, so a sliding door can be another option. The shower is one of the most crucial decisions when you are designing your bathroom.

Decor With Unique Pieces

Unique pieces can serve to do a couple of different things within your bathroom. For a start, individual pieces can give your room a real focal point. When people enter the room, rather than scan around and even take in size, they might just be able to check out all of the exciting features instead. You can have one specific part that the eye is drawn to. With darker bathroom designs, a lot of people opt for some darker metals to complement it. This can mean brass taps or other exciting and different configurations.

Unique pieces can also fit the bill for a smaller bathroom because you may get some unique small pieces of furniture. There are small bathroom sinks that can allow you to incorporate more storage space. There are also several old-fashioned antique items that you can include, which may be smaller anyway, as things used to be smaller hundreds of years ago! Well, homes did, and all of the items within. It’s a great option to make your bathroom more fashionable by decorating it with unique accessories.

Unique pieces are not something to be afraid of. Many people have the outlook that “less is more,” and while this is true with most decorating, there is nothing wrong with having something in your bathroom to draw the eye.

Contact Your Local Bathroom Experts

If you’re ready to move forward, then it is time to contact your local bathroom experts to get a quote for the ideas you may have. Even if you are planning to sell your home soon, looking into the options you have for redecorating is worth looking into. A bigger-looking bathroom can improve the perception of your home and even boost its value.

Contact us today to see what ideas we may have for your bathroom and how it can revolutionize the look and feel of your home. Even a tiny space can be functional and appealing. It’s time to get creative with your bathroom remodeling and your bathroom decor.