WE have lived in our 90-year old house for 15 years-over that time, we have remodeled the house (new kitchen, finished basement, downstairs laundry room/bath, and a new attic bedroom and bath). Now, the 1st floor bathroom is in good shape-except its right out of the 1960’s- 4"x4" time, with PINK trim-pink bathtub, pink, basin, pink toilet-God-how I hate Pink! I would like to:
-retile the walls and floor (for a more modern look)
-change the bathtub color (the tub has had almost zero use)
-change the basin and toilet.
These renovations would cost about $2000 (I do the work).
Now the kicker-we would like to move in 2-3 years. Wold such renovations pay off, or not?
If you do a very neutral color scheme, it would not hinder the selling process. If you leave it as it, unless a Pretty Pretty Princess is interested, a 1960s style pink bathroom will probably make the house harder to sell.
My guess is that they aren’t going to bring in an extra $2,000, but in three years, are you going to be concerned if you sold your house for (just to toss out a number) $150,000 or $152,000? If you were planning to sell your house next month, it might be different.
It’s also going to depend on the buyer. Someone that just wants to move into a house and ‘live’ might pay the extra $2K for a nice/neutral bathroom. (Keep in mind they won’t know what it looked like before).
OTOH, someone who wants to make a bunch of changes to the house and is planning to gut the bathroom no matter what it looks like isn’t going to pay more even if you have marble counter tops and a glass tile backsplash.
I guess (again, since no one will know what it looked like before), you just set the price to account for it and see if people will pay it. Keep in mind, two appraisers/realtors are going to set two prices. If one says it can sell for $148K and one says it can sell for $150K and then you add in your bathroom job…
Remodel it the way you want it, but I’ll bet you could sell the pink fixtures. A sizable number of people are into mid-century modern, and pink bathroom fixtures are kind of the epitome. Google “atomic ranch.” They used to have classifieds.
I am very much into mid-century modern and I would love to have the pink bathroom you’ve got. If I were looking at houses, it would be a plus, as long as it’s well done. On the other hand, the house is 90 years old, so it pre-dates mid-century modern, and I’m wondering if the bathroom style is completely out of whack with the rest of the house.
To answer your question-the house is a rather nondescript 1920’s workman’s cottage-no special architectural details. It does have 9’ ceilings, and the woodwork is painted pine-no detailed moldings. I just hate that bathroom with a passion..as I said, I hate PINK!:smack:
I am actually looking at buying an older home currently, and I (like many other buyers I’ve known) prefer a house which hasn’t been renovated to the point where it no longer has the charm and character of an older home. I’m not saying you have to keep it pink. Personally I like a pink bathroom (50’s style; I’d want to see pictures of yours before I could give my opinion), but if you decide to renovate, I would try very hard to keep the style as period correct as you can. I’ve walked out of several homes that had a great old exterior, but had been renovated inside to look no different than a McMansion. Yuck. There’s a reason people buy old homes.
Just my opinion.
I watch a lot of HGTV, and buyers generally hate those pink bathrooms!
I would maybe splurge a bit more and do a really nice claw foot bathtub and add a separate shower and two sinks.
In every show I have watched, home owners at least got their money back (or far more) when they renovated bathrooms. Nobody likes the idea of moving into a house and the first thing they have to do is rip out a bathroom or two or three.
But do spend a tad more and make the bathroom something nice!
(I do agree that ripping out moldings and destroying other age/era related style is a bad idea for nice older homes - but trust me, bathrooms are an exception - nobody wants some crappy 70’s pink or blue bathtub.)
In my opinion, there are two kinds of renovations - the first kind just makes your house more sellable, more attractive to buyers, and the second kind actually increases your resale value. For the first kind of renovation, you basically just have to bite the bullet and do the renovation so people will want to buy your house. I guess the question is, what kind of renovation is replacing a dated pink bathroom?
My totally uninformed opinion is that getting rid of the pink bathroom probably won’t make your house worth more, but may make it more sellable and and attractive to buyers.
And if you hate pink, it’s probably worth far more than $2000 to your mental health to not have to live with the pink for 2-3 years.
Yeah, this. And as was mentioned, the fixtures, tile, etc., might be worth something to someone on a piece by piece basis. The likelihood of potential BUYERS thinking ‘OMG I’VE ALWAYS WANTED A PINK BATHROOM!’" is much smaller. 
This.
We have redecorated every inch of our house. While I am sure we have increased the value of the home, the biggest thing we did was to make us more comfortable here.
It would be a good investment if it were my bathroom just to not have to look at the pink anymore!
Could be worse. Our 1950s bathroom sink and bathtub are not-matching shades of sherbet *orange *set into a teal “marble” formica countertop with multiple shades of teal floor and wall tile. It’s like a movie poster threw up in there. And we rent, so we can’t rip it out.
Oddly, the fix was to add even more orange - painted the walls orange sherbet and it brought it all together nicely in a way the old “neutral” Apartment White just didn’t. It’s still not everyone’s cuppa, but it’s better than it was.
I say make it how you like it. $2000 isn’t nothing, but it’s not a crippling amount of money to have a home you like, even if it’s just for a short time. And judging from peoples’ reactions to my “vintage” bathroom, it won’t hurt the sale one bit to update things.
Yeah it’s up to you, but my thought is that while someone might love the pink, most people wouldn’t, but on the other hand probably not a dealmaker/breaker either way. So my guess is on average the renovation would probably be worth less than $2K, but would be worth something. And if it makes your mental state better, the two factors might be enough to make it worthwhile. Frankly, I think your time is the biggest investment, so it comes down to whether you’re thinking “Oh God, I’m going to have to do all the work myself” or “Cool! I get to work on the bathroom!”.
If it’s a matter of the pink being overpowering, hire a tub refinisher to repaint it white for a few hundred bucks. You could probably live with the trim color, if the tub wasn’t sitting there like a giant pink turd. Just don’t put anything with suction cups on the refinished job.
I agree. We’re in the final stages of remodelling our small bathroom that was previously done out with grey furniture and a grotty, leaky, broken shower cubicle.
We shopped around for new (white) furniture, got a plumber in for the difficult bits (plumbing in the toilet and bath), and made some clever choices with the decor (cheap plain tiles look really good if you add a small number of (OK, more expensive) bits such as glass mosaic pieces or gilded detail tiles. I actually enjoy spending time in the bathroom now - before, it was just a necessity.
Ralph, having been mid-renovation for a few months now, I’ll tell you I think you can do this for $1000. Unless you need to modify the electrical or plumbing, you should be able to knock this out w/ parts from HomeDepot or Lowes. And even if you go over that a bit it will be money well-spent as you enjoy it until you sell it.
Alternately, think about changing the trim to modernize the room and be more harmonious with the tub. Kinda like what WhyNot did with the orange bathroom.
I’m decorating-impaired so don’t have a great idea of what that might be - but updating the tile / paint / wallpaper has got to be a lot less costly than replacing the tub.
If you do go full-out and switch out the tub: You may not recoup the 2 grand, as someone else pointed out, but if it is ugly enough to drive people away as is, you may sell it faster.
If I remember rightly, you live in Newton, and from the description of your house, there’s a better-than-fair chance the next buyer will simply raze it. So make the decision based on your tastes, rather than anything you might impute to a potential buyer.