When it comes to home renovation, kitchen and bathroom remodeling get all the love. That’s mostly because bathroom and kitchen remodeling offer some of the highest return on investment out of all home improvement projects, which make them a top priority for people looking to boost their home’s value.
But what if you don’t want to sell your home? What if you love your home, and can’t ever imagine leaving? Then you should have a completely different set of interior renovation priorities. In fact, most home renovation ideas will be completely useless to you.
Instead, you should focus on unusual home renovation ideas that will actually improve your quality of life, rather than just increasing the hypothetical resale value of your home. So unlike 90% of home improvement advice, which focuses on kitchen and bathroom ideas, let’s instead consider the areas of your home you actually use the most.
Perhaps it’s your living room, your office, or your entertainment room. While we might spend 3,000 hours sleeping in our bedrooms each year, and many hours taking care of business in the bathroom, these are the rooms where we actually spend our time, the rooms we actually enjoy.
First, let’s talk TV. While most snooty home designers will do their best to work around your television, there’s no reason to pretend that we don’t spend countless hours watching TV. Don’t pretend your television or digital TV isn’t the focus of your living room, when you know it absolutely is. There are two ways people typically incorporate their TV into the design of the living room.
First, by mounting the television onto the wall itself. This can free up floor space for other furniture, while also giving the room a very modern look. The other option? Entertainment cabinetry. Back when TVs were big, bulky items, we required special entertainment stands for our TVs. Now, many homeowners are instead getting builders to install special entertainment cabinets. These come in a variety of configurations, both pre-fab and custom.
The best entertainment cabinets are built right into the walls of your room, taking up as little space as possible. This allows them to function as both storage and design elements. And when something looks good and serves a practical function, it naturally improves your quality of life, or rather, the quality of living rooms.
Second, more and more people are choosing to build inventive home libraries. Many children’s rooms now come with bright and colorful home library cabinets, where kids can store all their favorite books, toys, and games. But home library designs work for grown ups, too. They add a touch of elegance to any home office, but there are also unusual home library designs that will make your home truly unique.
For instance, home libraries with slanted, cross-hatched shelves are becoming popular in 2016. These diamond shaped home library cabinets are unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and are certain to become a conversation piece.
Even if ideas like super modern entertainment cabinets and libraries don’t seem right for your home, remember to invest in home renovation ideas that you actually enjoy, not just whatever your builder thinks will bring the best ROI. A home is more than numbers on a calculator.