The Crucial Primary Bedroom Mistake That Can Easily Devalue Your Home

If you're thinking about making physical improvements to your home before moving out, it's wise to consider how your changes may be received by the owners who succeed you. Whether these improvements are simply for aesthetic purposes or to improve functionality for the household, the upgrades you wind up selecting directly impact your home's resale value as well as your home's popularity among interested buyers. However, homeowners shouldn't solely place their focus on a house's common areas when making updates. Avoid leaving the primary bedroom untouched throughout the renovation process, if possible, as it's one of the rooms used most often across the entire house.

The primary bedroom is the largest bedroom inside a home. It's usually placed on the house's ground floor and offers easy access to communal areas and a corresponding bathroom. A primary bedroom can also be upgraded to "suite" status if its designated bathroom is designed to connect to the room rather than sit detached from it. As this is one of the rooms the homeowners will likely spend the most time in, it's important to dedicate enough time to making it feel welcoming and comfortable. Although, it's also critical to avoid going overboard when revamping your home, since less is often considered more when preparing to open your home to potential buyers.

Prioritizing the primary bedroom when modernizing is important because it plays such an instrumental role in your home's overall design. Today, bedrooms are used for way more activities than just sleeping. According to a 2015 study presented at the 49th International Conference of the Architectural Science Association, residents in New Zealand spend around a third of their day inside their bedroom, justifying the need for these spaces to be both cozy and stylish.

At the same time, it's better to leave the primary bedroom alone entirely than to make the wrong changes accidentally — changes that will lower or stagnate your home's value instead of lifting it. There are plenty of primary bedroom upgrades that have this effect on houses, with one of the most detrimental being poor styling choices. Following outdated trends too much when designing and personalizing the home's interior can turn away prospective buyers who likely won't be able to picture themselves living in the space nor wish to spend time and money making changes of their own after moving in. Also, an upgrade as seemingly harmless as increasing a primary bedroom's size can negatively impact your home's resale value if it involves taking away existing storage space or another bedroom to do so. Removing closets decreases resale value unless you replace them with better storage options for the primary bedroom. Removing existing bedrooms usually results in a lower appraisal value since reducing a home's total number of bedrooms places it in a category with smaller prices.

Luckily, you don't need to pour thousands of dollars into a specific room of your house in order to boost your overall resale value. Even the smallest upgrades can end up making a huge impact on your home's worth. For instance, painting your primary bedroom's walls a neutral color and replacing the room's floor with hardwood or a similar substitute are both viable methods to win over potential buyers and ultimately draw more attention to your home when it's on the market. Painting the walls of your primary bedroom may cost as little as a few hundred dollars if you go about the job alone. Hardwood floors, on the other hand, may cost thousands of dollars to install inside the average-sized primary bedroom, while cheaper substitutes like laminate may cost homeowners about half of that to install inside a room of a similar size.

However, if you'd like to put a little more money and effort into transforming one of your most important living spaces, some larger projects for primary bedrooms include installing a walk-in closet and an en-suite bathroom (unless doing so will require downsizing another bedroom). Costs to install a personalized closet may range from $1,000 to over $10,000, depending on the manufacturer as well as the size and complexity of the project. An en-suite bath is also an expensive investment, since contractors may need to knock down walls and redirect existing plumbing to bring the new design to life. Expect these additions to cost no less than $10,000.