Make great use of every square inch in your home!

Renovations are never easy. They seem almost impossible BUT something I’ve learned in the last 12 years of my life: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.

While we’ve sold and moved out of our urban 1800’s home, I started looking at many of our “before” photos and realized that we did A LOT to the house over the last 12 years. It was simply terrible before. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t loved. It was a sad foreclosure in desperate need of some love. And we gave it just that.

There wasn’t a room we didn’t completely rip out and start over on. My husband loves This Old House (the magazine and show), so he studied everything carefully before making decisions on what to rip out and what to keep. Anything that was salvageable was either reused somewhere in the home or donated to local charity organizations. Very little was deemed “junk” as we try to live by the phrase “reduce, reuse and recycle”.

How We Created the Light Filled Attic Space

We were lucky enough that someone had already converted the attic into two bedrooms (plus 3 closets) at some point in the years prior to us purchasing the house. However, it was in need of some new life (and light)! The paint and carpet were old and dingy, the room doors had zero design, the closet doors were beaten up and dark, the entire space was loud due to only having window/room air conditioning units….it all needed a design makeover.

I love to create and making this space into a studio for me was a great option. I wanted to keep it simple though (knowing we were going to sell the house) so I designed it so it could also be used as a kid’s playroom, bedrooms, office space and more for the new home owners.

Here’s how we did it:

Removed all carpet (and tack strips) and doors
Refinished the original wood floors in the stairwell and area between the bedrooms (we couldn’t refinish the floors in the rooms as previous owners had removed and discarded a HUGE AMOUNT of the original flooring to spray insulation into the floor space)
Added Pergo brand flooring in each room (we used the color “Coastal Pine”)
Added new baseboard trim to each room
Painted all ceilings and walls in shades of white
Added new blinds
Added crown moulding to each bedroom ceiling
Added new room doors as well as bi-fold closet doors (and painted them all and added new matching hardware)
Added ceiling fans with decorative globes and crystal chain pulls (from Amazon)
Added modern gold and white ceiling lights in the stairwell (from Amazon)
Added pipe hand railing in the stair well (my husband made them out of pipes and spray paint from Home Depot)
Removed the metal railing by the stairs and my husband built a new one with an old hand rail piece we purchased form Architectural Salvage in Louisville, KY and new balusters from Home Depot.
Added a newel post at the top of the stairs
Had a local HVAC company add mini split units to each room (mini splits are an amazing option for zone heating and cooling…especially in attic space!)

I also added some organizational storage shelves and storage drawers for my art and photography supplies as well as:

a modern white desk from Amazon
square gold framed dry erase board from Amazon
fur rugs (Amazon)
jute area rugs (Amazon and Target)
gold unicorn lamp (Target)
white sliding curtain panels (IKEA)
gold office wire baskets and pen/pencil holders (Amazon)
photography paper (Amazon)
photo lights (Amazon)
backdrop kit (Amazon)
velvet jewelry holders for my handmade jewelry and fascinators (Amazon)
white IKEA garbage cans (one to store my yoga mats and one to use as an actual garbage can)
massage table for my Reiki work (Amazon)

I truly love how this space turned out. While it took us about 2 months to complete in our spare time (weekends and evenings), it was worth it. It’s now highly functional and makes use of all the square footage in the home. I’m sure the new family that purchased this home will love this space as much as I do!

I will be taking the concept of a gold and white light filled space concept with me to our new house!

REALTOR ADVICE

For anyone wanting to make updates to their home, my husband and I always recommend looking at trends in the housing market so you can make sure you are adding value instead of subtracting it. If you are unsure about a project adding value (and you know you will be selling your house in the near future), contact a Realtor in your area and have them come look at your property. A knowledgeable Realtor can definitely help you figure out what to do renovation wise (whether an update is financially worth it or not). I’m not a Realtor BUT I grew up in a family where realty was the game (I also assisted many Realtors myself) so I figured out really quickly how houses really get sold.

If you don’t know a knowledgeable Realtor, ask friends and family for recommendations (or find some online) THEN INTERVIEW THEM. Yes, interview your realtors! It’s a very common practice and I highly recommend it. I also recommend following their social media platforms as well as their property sales.

Find their listings (on their website) and then track them to see how long it takes them to get a sale (not just a “pending” or “contingent” offer, as those sometimes quickly fall through), look at their marketing, talk to people that have used their services, etc. See if you mesh with the realtor. If you don’t feel like it’s a good fit, they aren’t responsive to your questions or concerns, their fee seems outrageous, they have no marketing plan, or they don’t seem to be much of a “go-getter” (are obviously not motivated to sell your house), maybe don’t select them to sell your house. It’s also helpful to get a Realtor that specializes in your neighborhood (especially if you live in a specialty type of a neighborhood).

All of this can truly help you get your house SOLD, and not just listed.

After speaking with our Realtor and home appraiser, we know between the mini-splits and the overall design of the attic space, these updates (as well as everything else we did to the house) helped get our house sold fast (it got a contract in one day!) and for the asking price. It was also easily appraised for the asking price, which is another thing to think about when selling your house.