Yahoo Lifestyle 2 Unexpected Elements That Will Increase Your Home's Value, According to HGTV Stars
The housing market is pretty bananas right now, whether you're buying, selling or just trying to upgrade where you live currently—and making those upgrades is expensive. Costs of materials and labor have skyrocketed since 2020, and you're going to want a good return on your investment when you're putting that much money into your property. But exactly where should you splurge versus save?
Divided by Design stars Ray and Eilyn Jimenez recommend shelling out for two specific features of your home that you might not expect.
First up, Eilyn is passionate about plumbing fixtures: faucets, showers, showerheads, bathtubs, sinks, toilets and bidets.
"I always say plumbing fixtures are the jewelry of the home. They are what make a space elevated," she tells Parade. "No matter what space, splurge on your plumbing fixtures."
Related: A Chef-Turned-Home-Designer Shares the Biggest Mistake People Make When Renovating Their Kitchen
HGTV
But that's not all. Ray and Eilyn both say that splurging on lighting also adds a tremendous amount of value to a home and elevates the entire look of a space.
"When you walk into a hotel or a restaurant or a lounge and the lighting is perfectly set, that's what makes the room," Eilyn tells us. "The same thing applies to to your home."
"Lighting is key—if you have natural daylight, that's your best friend," Ray adds. "If you don't, or when it's nighttime, you have to have the right amount of lighting and the right lighting design."
Lighting design is more than just tossing a lamp onto an end table or hitting a switch for recessed lighting. You need to consider the layout for recessed lights (because not all layouts work for every room), as well as the color temperature of your lights, which can range from cooler, bluer-based whites to yellow- and orange-based warmer tones (you can check out a handy chart here) and how they'll impact the room and its features overall.
"Then, you have the pretty decorative stuff—your sconces, your pendants, your chandeliers, up-lighting, down-lighting, LEDs. I can go for days on this," Ray continues. "But that's the one thing I would try to really just try to pay attention to when you when you're designing your own home."
In terms of which rooms to splurge in the most, that's where you probably expected: "From a global kind of perspective, we know that the money of any property is in your kitchen, your floors and your bathrooms," Ray advises. "So don't worry about going crazy in your bedrooms, because where you're going to get the most return out of your property is in your kitchen, floors and bathrooms."
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