When considering home improvements, many families leave all the decisions in the hands of the parents, or even worse, just one of the parents. But when it comes to a home improvement plan, all members of the family should be involved in the discussion. It is important that all the members of your family get to share their opinions. But then you need to figure out how to evaluate their answers.

A dream home only becomes a dream home when it is personalized by you and your family. Your improvement budget is limited, so you can’t please every member of the family with whatever renovation you choose to fund. Or can you?

Talking with family members about home improvements will lead to surprising answers. You and your spouse each have times you need to be alone (computer work, business planning etc.). There are times when just the two of you need times to have a great romantic evening without the kids. Then there are other times you want to be together as a complete family or entertain some friends. Children also have similar needs for being alone, having friends over without mom and dad in the room (depending on the age) and times with the family. There are times you and your spouse will decide the children need your supervision no matter what their preferences.

Typical Discoveries

Their tastes are not yours and what you think they like is not where they are at, at all. You thought their favorite color was blue and now it’s red. Well it changed last week didn’t you know?

Children obviously can have some outlandish ideas about what would look “cool” in a home. While you may balk at such suggestions, it is important to include your kids in the process. A happy medium can be allowing children a lot of latitude when it comes to their rooms. In reality, their rooms are their “home within the home” and they need to feel comfortable in them. Don’t worry; you can paint them after the kids leave home or before you sell it.

Decisions

After discussions and interviews with family members, you are ready to map out a plan for how the various areas of the house are to be used. Do the initial plans and then discuss it with your spouse. Don’t involve the kids again until the two of you are pretty much in agreement.

Obviously, tastes are specific to individual people. You and your spouse must come to an agreement based on the following considerations:

1. Theme – Are you going with a particular atmosphere or style?
2. Costs – What do you want to do versus what can you afford? This is most often the BIG one, money.
3. Value – How much will the improvements impact the value of your home? (thinking ahead)

Once you’ve hashed through these issues, you’ll be ready to move forward with your plans. Now it’s time again for the two of you to go over things with the children.

Planning home improvements can be a bit challenging. Making sure you include your family in the discussion will result in everyone feeling good about the finished project.

Posted by Dave McIntosh on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 9:58 pm.