Why do "they" say it's the kitchen and the bathroom that sells a house?
Kitchen I can understand. Whether you cook a lot or not, it’s the heartbeat of the house. But the bathroom?? What’s the deal with that? Why not the kitchen and the living room, or the kitchen and the dining room?
Anyway, whoever remodeled my house had that adage in mind when he did it. HUGE bathroom, HUGE kitchen, small living room, tiny dining room….and HUGE master bed room! The bedroom is behind the living room wall, and I would have preferred a smaller bed room and a larger living room, but whatever.
I am SO exhausted from cleaning. Want to know what’s keeping me going? I keep saying, “Cry for help my butt!! I’ll show YOU Stinky Chaz Maz!!!”
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Anyone can clean and paint and put up new curtains and replace crappy carpet. That isn’t hard to do and they are cheap renovations.
Kitchens and bathrooms are hard and expensive. 90% of the people out there couldn’t replace a bathtub or a toilet. And those are time sensitive things too. You can’t really remodel your kitchen in your spare time unless you want to eat out for three months. You need to get it done fast so that usually involves hiring someone.
Because nobody wants to buy a house with a tiny decaying bathroom. You’re going to be using that thing at least twice a day from the minute you move in. Living rooms, kitchens – those places you can spend time renovating, but the john has to be completely ready for service from day 1.
When my parents were in the market for a house, they had two children and were expecting. If a house did not have at least two bathrooms and a space that could be fixed up as a laundry area, they weren’t going to even consider it. Nobody wants their kids fighting for shower use or be caught without a free W.C. when you really have to go. They didn’t need a lavish bathing area. It was purely a numbers issue.
The number one item on their list, however, was the bedroom situation. They wanted a decently-sized master bedroom, but they could not decide whether they preferred to have separate rooms for each kids, put two in one room and one in another, or shove them all together in one gigantic room.
We don’t have a dining room, but do have a designated “dining area” in our kitchen. It rarely gets use as we don’t eat together as a family.
Because when a living room or bedroom is a bit small, you can get storage (although not when it’s a lot small). But when a kitchen or a bathroom is a bit small, it changes fundemental things about how you live. If you can take a bath to relax, or do all of your cleaning/shaving in one shower, or cook – really cook, not just microwave a tv dinner or heat up some condensed soup – you’ll save a lot of money in the long run from not going out to a wine bar to relax, or having to do take-out every night to eat. When those 2 things are really small, your home is more likely to be a place where you sleep and have all your stuff and come home to at the end of the day, but not a place where you have people over. Once they get bigger, you’re more likely to make the transition.
Agree with @johnpowell – kitchens and bathrooms are the most expensive rooms in the house to have to re-do.
@Dutchess_III Are you cleaning @chazmaz’s house? :-)
Kitchens are usually the heart of a family’s existence. Bathrooms just need to be nice and fully functional. When I look at a house, the kitchen and bathroom have to be updated or I don’t even look at the rest of it, mainly because as @johnpowell said, they are the most expensive to remodel. Also, depending on the extent of your remodeling, you get the most back in resale from your bathroom and kitchen.
I’ve lived in a house for 16 years now with a tiny, tiny bathroom. I’ve seen closets that are bigger than our bathroom. I can live with one bathroom, done it for 16 years, but our new home must have a bathroom with a little elbow room.
Kitchens are a center for informal entertaining these days. People tend gravitate where the food is being prepared, and cooking has become a social activity for many lifestyles. The bathroom receives attention because people like to relax in a hot shower or bath. Spacious showers with a great shower head, a spa type bathtub is a great selling point. Master bedrooms are visualized as adult space. Lots of closets, a reading nook, room for a king-sized bed all speak to adult lifestyle and space not necessarily envisioned as shared with the whole family.
The kitchen is where supposedly at least three meals a day are prepared for the most important people in your life, the essence of any home is mealtime. As for bathrooms, they are the ultimate modern luxury, mini salons of pampering and solitude.
I can tell you this, when looking at dozens of rental houses then the one with the most outstanding kitchen and bathrooms is the one we went with. As soon as I saw the kitchen then I just hoped the rest of the house had the same feeling. We forgave smallish extra bedrooms and lackluster carpet because of the “rightness” of the kitchen layout, it’s appliances, cabinets and surface treatments.
I always heard that wives have the deciding vote when buying a house and that the kitchen and bathrooms are generally more important to them than their husbands. Is this a myth or do any of you women agree or disagree?
@Austinlad: I’m female and the kitchen and bathrooms are more important to me since I have always taken the position of the partner to run the house as far as shopping, cooking, homemaking and decorating go. I want a kitchen that makes sense to me how I like to cook and store things. I want bathrooms make me feel like I’m a few steps up from public building washroom, yeah. My guy loves the look of a place more than he considers it’s functionality, he trusts me to make the best decision about that.
@Austinlad I don’t know. It’s 50/50 with my husband and I. It’s a decision for both of us. Luckily we both want the same things in a house, which does include a large enough kitchen and bathroom.
@Austinlad My mother couldn’t care less about the kitchen because, aside from the occasional grilled cheese sandwich, she rarely cooks. Even though my father is a foodie and was a chef back in the day, he was far more concerned with investing in potential increase of land value (which occurred some five or six years ago), but he’s in real estate now, so… yeah ;) He did have the final say in the purchase of the house, but my mum was 100% in love with the one he chose, so it didn’t matter.
I believe my mum’s main selling points were the safety of the community, location to schools, and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.
This makes me feel really bad. The old house that my friends and I are fixing up has awesome bedrooms that are in great condition. The kitchen and the bathroom, however, are horrible. :(
I don’t know what we’re gonna do about that…
Wow! Great answers you guys! I guess I’ve never had to deal with a “decaying bathroom,” when looking at a house, but now I really understand. Thank you!
@chyna The revenge thing was from Chaz’s response to this Q of mine after he looked at the pics I posted http://www.fluther.com/93229/what-do-you-do-when-you-come-home-from-work-after/#quip1534767
It took me so long to understand that he was joking that I really, truly was almost in tears! I’ve been so tired for the last 3 weeks that I can’t think straight…. :)
@Dutchess_III Ha! We all have different ideas of pig sty’s. I feel like my house is a pig sty right now because there are 4 dog toys and a pair of flip flops in the living room. My friends think I’m weird. But that is only for my house. I could care less how other people’s houses look and don’t even notice. Yes, I’m sure ChazMaz was totally kidding. You are too sensitive at this time.
That’s where the women spend most of their time…. Kirchen and bathroom.
it’s where all the fixtures are in a home, all the tools all the things that make living there convenient and practical. All the other places are just rooms.
LOL, @Frenchfry! I think I can guess what you do in the bathroom, but what’s a kirchen for? ;-)
@Frenchfry a kirchen is kitchen I have a typo. Silly. Thanks Point it out to the whole world. :) hee hee
@chyna Yes I’m too sensitive at this time! In fact, I got my back up at your post, even! I had to read it a few times till I saw “You’re too sensitive at this time…” I missed the ”...at this time” the first times around. Geez. I’m thinking, “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME!” Then I had to re read it. I’m clocking EVERYONE. It’s worse than the worst PMS I ever remember. My husband had a sudden business trip out of town tonight for some reason! :) Kidding….he already had it planned but he seemed like a deer caught in the headlights when he ran out of the house today!
On top of all of that, we aren’t quite down…the upstairst needs a full weekend dedicated to it, and the short hallway between the beautiful kitchen and the beautiful dining room is piled with scrap carpet, etc., but last night our realtor told us he was going to show the freakin’ house today, which ratcheted up the stress level to new highs last night, just when we thought we could catch a breath. However, he’s telling them that the house isn’t even on the market yet, which it wasn’t. No sign in the yard or anything, at least not till tomorrow. Anyway, I think NOVA is on now, and there is nothing more important than that right now so I shall accomplish that one thing today. :) TTU guys when it’s over!
You want more pics of my dogs? Hows about my owls? I have cat pictures too! (( ))) back!
All pics are welcome. I love animal pics.
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