" I honestly do n’t know how hoi polloi lived in our house for 50 year without this … "
Buying a home can be challenging, but closing on a place is only the beginning. Unless you’re extremely lucky, you’ll probably need or want to make some upgrades to make your new house really feel like a home. Recently,u/ibcuriousaskedpeople on Reddit to share their best home upgrades, and the responses ranged from super practical to purely delightful. Here’s what people had to say:
1.“Attic ventilation. I honestly don’t know how people lived in our house for 50 years without it being ventilated properly. The house temperature stays more comfortable in both summer and winter. Ice damming on the roof stopped. Energy bills dropped. Cost me $200 (if you don’t include the tools I also bought to do the job easier) and took me like 30 minutes to put in a whirly bird. And a couple of hours to clean up the soffit vents. Originally, the house just had these terrible static vents that weren’t placed properly and looked like they were installed in the late ’80s.”
2.“I’m adding a bathroom. I bought the house from the estate of the person who built it, and the basement is plumbed for a bathroom that was never installed. I am divorced, and my kids are all in their twenties, but one moved back in with me to save for their first home. Two years in, I’m done sharing a bathroom. I found a contractor that I like, and I’m going forward.”
3.“Replacing the original 50-year-old windows last year at this time. Has made a world of difference year-round in the comfort of the entire house.”
4.“Renovated our 800 square foot basement from an unused, outdated one bed one bath, one unfinished storage and workout space to a two bed rental suite. It’s generating money every day and paying for itself after five years. Plus, it increases the value of the house by a lot. Best decision ever to take the potential basement space into account when we purchased the home.”
5.“My house had an open floor plan when I bought it. I put in a full wall to separate the kitchen/dining room from the living room. Then I put in an island in the kitchen.”
6.“Honestly? When my wife and I bought the house, the previous owner had a shitty koi pond in the back that we inherited. Over the years, my wife and I have turned it into a sort of nice koi pond with a proper filter and aeration. We’ve had a new bathroom put into the house, a new roof, new appliances, new paint, and so on, but nothing really makes me happier about this house than going into my backyard and looking at those stupid fish.”
7.“New kitchen. Same footprint, but with 40% more usable storage. Better appliances, including an induction/convection stove, which makes cooking faster. And it just looks very nice!”
8.“Adding a whole house dehumidifier system that works independently from the AC unit.”
9.“Putting in a generator. No more freezing in the winter, baking in the summer, losing all the fridge/freezer contents, or basement flooding (from losing sump pump power) every time the electricity goes out. Which it does several times a year.”
10.“Added a screened-in porch. It’s like having a whole extra living area spring through fall because we have very comfortable outdoor seating and a TV out there.”
11.“We added a whole house fan, and it has been wonderful!!”
12.“Tankless hot water. Very efficient. Saves space. Unlimited hot water.”
13.“Solar panels. With power company price increases, they’ll be paid off soon.”
14.“House built in 2004. We bought in ‘21. The blacktop driveway was a DISASTER. Had never been re-sealed, and I’m sure they used a ton of salt (Minnesota). Practically a gravel driveway. Cracked wide open down to the crushed stone. Edges were deteriorating/falling. Couldn’t walk barefoot to get the mail. Pebbles in the house! I had a new concrete driveway poured but with a VERY handy upgrade: a 6’ wide by 3’ deep kick out/dogleg at the street for garbage/recycle/compost/yard waste pickup. It looks sharp as hell but is MOST useful in the winter when the snow is piling up DEEP from the driveway and the street. I can just shovel or quickly hit it with the snowblower, and now we don’t have to delicately thread the needle on Friday mornings!”
15.“We added a family room to our house 15+ years ago. Best thing we ever did. We had a 1,500 sq ft, three bed/two bath home before that, and two young kids. We were either going to move to a slightly larger house or add on. We loved our street and where we lived, so we opted for the family room, and it made all the difference. Haven’t regretted it for a minute since.”
16.“I had the ductwork and AC coil replaced this spring and a foot of insulation blown in. Wasn’t cheap, but I’m already appreciating it. The old ductwork was garbage, and the insulation was also old and poorly functioning.”
17.“My husband and I moved into my grandparents' home after I inherited it. There were many things that needed to be done, but my absolute favorite thing that we did was having the plumbing redone. We had the water tested, and the amount of chlorine and iron in the water was off-putting (they had copper pipes that were eroding from the inside out). We had a water softener and a charcoal water filtration system put in, and our skin has benefited so much! We also feel better physically.”
18.“It’s small, but I put a ceiling fan in my small laundry room with over-the-door hanging racks. I air-dry a lot of things and this helps get it done quickly. I also run it while the dryer is going, and I feel like it keeps the temperature a bit lower in there.”
19.“I refinished just under 1,000 square feet of red oak hardwood floors. Total DIY cost was likely around $2/per square foot using high-end water-based finishes from Loba, rented machines, and the cost of sandpaper. It totally changed the look, feel, (and smell) of this 75-year-old home.”
20.“A heated bathroom floor. We bought a flipped house in 2010, and the bathroom was falling apart from the start. It’s under a dormer protruding from our small cape cod, so it’s already colder than most of the house. When we got it renovated, we splurged on heating elements beneath the tile. Bare feet on an 80° floor in midwinter is sinfully decadent.”
21.“Oh, easy answer: We dropped $15k on an amazing outdoor kitchen in the backyard. It has a gas grill, Blackstone, and a pizza brick oven, all built in, along with a bar counter, a sink, and a mini fridge. We are out there almost every day, especially on weekends.”
22."’90s home with a formal living room that was never used. Renovated that into a guest room! Has gotten much more use than a formal living room!"
23.“Quality gutters w/leaf guards are amazing, especially if you have a lot of trees near your house. The amount of drama a single branch or bundle of leaves can do when it blocks a critical downspout is just nuts, and if you don’t like going up there every month to clean ‘em out, they are worth the investment.”
