Most homeowners think about how much a remodeling project will improve their home and how they experience life in it. Secondarily, they may think about the return they’ll recoup when they decide it’s time to sell. Consider these seven home remodel projects that will both make your home more pleasant to live in while boosting your home’s value.

1. Finish Your Basement

Basements commonly start as a place that’s good for storage and keeping some of your home’s major appliances, like your furnace and water heater. However, that leaves the space woefully underutilized. According to the National Association of Realtors, or NAR for short, finishing your basement will net a return of around 86%.

There are so many ways you can renovate your basement. Consider one of these options:

• Small apartment to rent
• Home theater
• Family room
• Extra workspace
• Hobby room
• Rec room or home gym
• Basement bar
• Guest bedroom
• Children’s playroom

When planning for a basement remodel, there are some key things to keep in mind. First, resolve any moisture problems to avoid post-project damage. Think about safety and install proper egress windows. Insulate exposed pipe running through the basement before completing the project to improve your plumbing’s hot water efficiency and reduce condensation. Consider sound when choosing insulation and flooring. Finally, be sure to leave space for storage that’s not part of the primary living area.

2. Renovate Your Closet

You may not think that there’s much you can do with your closet to make it more functional, but there are plenty of options. The idea behind a custom closet is to get away from moderately functional storage options most people use in a standard closet. You replace these with a strong, built-in structure to include space for what you need to store in that closet. This may include a hanging bar, drawers, and various custom shelves.

Think beyond your bedroom closets and consider your linen closet, pantry, coat closet, school or work supply closet, and more. According to the NAR, a closet remodel will offer a return of about 83% when you decide to sell. What’s more, these remodels will help you organize your space more effectively, reducing the time to find what you need or put things away.

3. Convert Your Attic

The attic is possibly one of the most underutilized spaces in homes where it’s accessible. You can convert this area into an additional bedroom, in-home office, game room, and so much more.

Converting your attic into a livable space will include not only laying flooring and installing walls but will need infrastructure work as well. You’ll need to consider heating and cooling the space and how you’ll handle insulation, being a common form of insulation is batting laid in what will be the floor of your attic room. You’ll also need to work with an electrician to run electrical for outlets and lighting in the new space. Renovating your may not seem like a big project conceptually, but one that needs professional attention if you want it to return the 75% average the NAR finds.

4. Kitchen Remodel

The kitchen serves most homes for far more than the place where you store and prepare food. Rather, it’s an area where you make memories, learn life lessons, and spend time connecting with family and friends. This is why kitchen remodels are a popular option as homes age.

The remodel will commonly look at how the kitchen is set up, and imagine appliances in different places or with different configurations. For instance, you may want a larger refrigerator, or to replace the combination range with the cooktop range and wall oven. You may even decide that you need more space for your kitchen and push the exterior wall out while remodeling it. The NAR finds that kitchen upgrades have a return of about 67%, whereas the return on a complete kitchen remodel is around 75%.

5. Bathroom Remodel

While you won’t likely spend a lot of time connecting with others in your bathroom, it’s important that it’s comfortable for your self-care, pampering, and for preparing for the success of each day. Bathroom remodels can range in scope. However, they often include updating your toilet, bathtub or shower, sink, cabinets, vanities, flooring, and general wall updates with repairs and fresh finishes.

Bathroom remodels are a great time to update to a high-efficiency toilet and shower, reducing your water consumption. It’s also the perfect time to bring older bathrooms up to modern building code with GFCI outlets if they aren’t already installed. The NAR estimates a bathroom renovation returns about 71% when you sell your home.

6. Bathroom Addition

If your family has grown or you’re planning to offer a room for rent, you may want to consider adding a bathroom to your current floor plan. This may include physically extending your home’s current footprint, or it may simply mean converting a different area of your home into a bathroom. One of the most common areas to add a bathroom is in the basement.

When adding a bathroom, you’ll need to run water, waste, and electrical, so it’s important to work with a designer that can map out how you’ll tie into your current systems. The NAR estimates you can expect about 63% return on a new bathroom addition.

7. Traditional or Pop-Top Addition

If you simply need more room, a general renovation and addition may be the right move. This may include adding a new living room, an office, extending a wall to add or improve a laundry room, move bedrooms, or so many other options. The scale of these additions can range from adding a single room to completely gutting your home and redesigning the interior while extending your home’s footprint.

Many homeowners around Denver shy away from additions if they feel like they don’t have room to increase the exterior footprint of their homes. In these cases, you may want to explore what’s known as a pop-top addition. This raises the roof and adds a floor over a part or all of your home. Depending on the scale of your project, the Denver area has seen greater returns on vertical additions than the total invested in the project.

Take advantage of improving your home and increasing your property value. Call to schedule your home remodel consultation with the expert team at Denver Urban Builders.