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It's like a love affair gone sour. The oak paneling used to make
your heart skip a beat, but now the house feels dark and
gloomy. The turrets, alcoves and odd-shaped rooms had
seemed so inviting, but now you can't figure out where to put the
furniture. After a few years of living in a home, you find yourself
yearning for bigger bathrooms, an open floor plan and -- most of
all -- more closets.

Older homes may be beautiful, but they are not designed for
modern living. Modern houses have home offices, recreation
areas, attached garages and other conveniences. Living, dining
and kitchen areas are frequently combined into a single "great
room." Also, newer houses tend to have larger bedrooms,
bathrooms and storage areas.

Should you remodel your home? It's impossible to calculate
how much return you'll get from home improvement projects by
simply plugging numbers into a mathematical formula. While
U.S. averages tell us that you might recover about 80% of the
cost of a kitchen remodel and 90% of what you spend for a
bathroom renovation, every home is unique. Your home
remodeling cost recovery could be higher... or it could be lower.

Being happy in the house improves your quality of life, so if you
plan to be there for a bit, a portion of the home improvement
projects you tackle should be remodeling jobs that make sense
for your personal needs, not improvements that are chosen
solely for their resale value.

Don't confuse repairs with home remodeling. Home buyers
expect your plumbing and furnace to work and they don't want a
house with a leaking roof. If major systems aren't working, your
home could be considered a fixer-upper, an that nearly always
means you'll receive lower offers.

So don't expect to recover the costs of repairs you make to get
the house in saleable condition, but do realize that those
repairs are necessary to attract the majority of buyers—the ones
who want a home that's ready to live in.