At Belvoir, it’s part and parcel of our job to help you find the potential in your home, widen your audience and get you the best price.
We match people to property in special ways by taking an interest in how buyers live and not just focusing on how many bedrooms they want.
So what can you do to your home in order to make the most of its potential, or add value that’s going to make buyers tick? We explore some of the options below, including top tips from Belvoir experts.
Beautifying Lofts And Cellars
Lofts are versatile spaces that can add a fair amount of value to your home, even more so if there’s a full staircase installed to make the new top floor an accessible and integrated part of the house.
So what could you do with the loft area to ensure that it reaches its maximum potential?
- Creating a master suite at the top of the house with a private bathroom can be very attractive to prospective buyers
- Turning the loft into 2 children’s bedrooms could be a good idea, especially if there’s room for the installation of a shared shower room to ease the strain on the main family bathroom
- Create a home workspace hidden above the busier areas, or a studio for wellness or creativity. Since the pandemic ensued, having an area that is suitable for remote working has become more sought after than ever before
What about cellars? Cellars can often get overlooked and end up as junk rooms as it’s easy to neglect a space when you don’t know what to do with it! Why not try turning your cellar into an excellent music studio (with soundproofing!), a cinema room or a children’s play den to keep the living areas free from toys.
Opening Up Spaces
Rooms are used very differently now from the traditional separations of living, dining, cooking and even working.
Flexible, multi-purpose and flow are today’s buzzwords – and many homes can offer flexible, multipurpose spaces without the need to extend.
How? It’s all about finding ways to connect previously separate spaces that can be zoned with furniture rather than physically divided.
Successful and popular designs include:
- Removing the wall between a hallway and dining room to accept a bigger table and brighten up a corridor
- Merging two living rooms in a front-to-back space to suit larger modern sofas and TVs
- Combining the kitchen and dining room for a flexible and friendly eating, cooking, family and work zone.
Luxury Upgrades
Adding extra luxury is guaranteed to make your home stand out from the crowd, while the increased comfort of luxury furnishings can give a home a more relaxing and desirable quality.
So what kind of luxury additions could you add?
A central cooking island makes a statement and acts as a sociable centrepiece in a kitchen that is great for entertaining and also looks fantastic in photos.
Incorporating a utility room can keep the laundry and big appliances out of the main part of the house. Additionally, repurposing space under the stairs as a ground floor cloakroom adds value and function and is also a great way of keeping shoes, coats and umbrellas in near reach but out of the way.
Finally, enhancing a master bedroom by adding an en-suite can add a feel of indulgence and serve the practical function of the family not having to battle for the bathroom in the morning. Often, an en-suite bathroom can be accomplished by repurposing all or part of an adjoining bedroom.
Inviting Light Into the Home
As a big consideration for buyers, a feeling of light, airiness has a striking and positive impact on viewings.
To achieve this, you could consider creating or improving routes to the garden that can blur the lines between where the inside of the home ends and the outside of the home starts, inviting in the daylight along with a sense of space.
To dramatically increase light levels, you could turn windows that back onto a garden into french doors, or open up a dining kitchen with a wall of bi-folds onto the patio. Additionally, rear-facing bedrooms take on a whole new character when windows are dropped to the floor, with a Juliet balcony adding extra romance and an enhanced view over the garden.
Top tip: Installing sandblasted glass into solid interior doors can allow light through without losing privacy
Adding Rooms
One of the most obvious routes to increasing a home’s value is to, of course, make it bigger.
Even if you aren’t interested in extending the property, you could achieve a higher price when you come to sell if you’ve already obtained consent for an addition that requires planning permission!
Side Extension
A house with a garage attached can often take a floor on top for valuable extra bedroom numbers.
Going larger still, an empty space to the side can also provide an additional living room on the ground floor, perhaps for a home office or studio. It may even be possible to create a separate annexe, either for a family member or to rent as an income stream.
Rear Extension
The back of a home usually provides the most flexibility in terms of design, and here is where large dining kitchens have become a sought-after feature as a sociable, multi-purpose space opening out to the garden.
Selling? Contact us!
Hopefully this article has provided you with some insight and inspiration. If you’re looking to sell up and move – then we can help! Contact us via phone or email, or come into our office to speak to a member of our friendly team, we’ll help get your house sold for the best price.
