Designing for Resale

I think this is a good opportunity to address the name of the blog. Staying put has been our unofficial motto for the last couple of years, or rather it's been my husband's motto. You see, we (I) like to move. I grew up as a navy brat, and we moved around a lot and I think I lived in 10 places before I was 10 (nice symmetry there). When my dad got out of the navy and we settled into my "childhood home" we still traveled all over the place -- probably because my parents picked the place furthest away from our extended family to live. When I got to move out on my own, I went away to college in Massachusetts, and since 2006, I've lived 8 places. Steven's been with me since the second move and for someone who stayed in the same area for most of his life, I imagine it's been hard, even if it's been exciting.

Personally, I just thinks he hates moving our 1000 million books.

So, when we moved to Baltimore, Steven kept saying "This seems like a place we can settle down in for a couple years. Maybe stay put in one place". So, yay logical blog name! I'll admit, I wasn't sold on Baltimore for probably the first 6 months, but Baltimore has a way of growing on you. It's very fungus like.

Now that we're buying a house, and a house that needs some pretty significant updates/renovations, I keep thinking about how we have to design it for ultimate resale value. Because it will be our first house, we're unlikely to stay here for more than 5 years. I give us 3 tops, but that number upsets Steven, so I'll go along with the 5.

I have all of these grand, awesome ideas for the house that will (hopefully) make it very -- everything, but most importantly, very us. But I'm well aware that a lot of the big things I want to do such as open shelves with awesome sliding doors, like the kitchen below, will be "too" contemporary for most buyers.

Picture from Dwell

So how to design with resale in mind? I'm going to start with paint -- I love bright, bold colors but I'm not painting the house that way (with the exception of the peacock blue dining room with glossy white wainscoting. I have to have it. It's not a desire. It's a need.) It'll be all soothing grays, cremes, and blues. I have some plans for some other colors, but I'm going to keep the palate light. However, I'm going to accessorize with color, Jonathan Adler style. I've already started. Check out this sweet ass lamp I got from Home Goods.



I think the house is going to be a compromise in what we want and what will make it easier to resale whenever we decide to move on. I hope that obsessing over this before we even move in will save us money in the long run. I also think that Jonathan Adler's "Happy Chic Colors" is going to be my bible for the next couple of months.