30 Homeowners Share The Upgrades That “Just Aren’t Worth It”

I sound crotchety and old but NONE of my appliances need to connect to the internet of things. The hell does a fridge need wifi for?

The worst thing you can splurge on is Marble countertops. They are an absolute nightmare to maintain and even WATER will stain them.

Calling a handyman or pro for every little thing. YouTube and a couple (okay, nineteen) trips to the hardware store and you’ll save a ridiculous amount of money AND learn some new skills.

If you have pets, forget about splurging on high-end furniture.

I think anything that you feel you have to be super careful about keeping nice. Like if you get a butcher block counter and worry about it getting marked up from normal kitchen activities then maybe it wasn’t a good choice

Worst “splurge” IMO is remodelling things that are in perfectly good shape just to chase the latest trend.

Remodeling a bathroom from the 70’s? Good plan.

Remodeling a bathroom that was just redone in 2014? Huge waste of money with basically zero ROI.

I will get flamed, but definitely high end tools. 99% of homeowners will do fine with some harbor freight/garage sale/estate sale tools.

If I’m building my once in a lifetime project, saving 90 seconds by using a shiny new $400 saw doesn’t matter to me. The $50 flea market saw will be more than enough.

I bought a brand new fridge at the Dent and Scratch store – had some minor to moderate cosmetic damages but otherwise was perfectly fine, stainless steel, fancy fridge for $1,100 off the retail price because of the cosmetic damages. Highly recommend the dent and scratch store

To answer the OP’s question: Saunas and Hot Tubs. It’s one of those things that’s really cool, definitely brag-worthy, and exciting for the first couple of months… maybe a year. After that: Nothing. You ask them if they still use it and they say “Too much trouble” or “It costs too much to heat.”

Replacing a lawn with pavers, especially a south-facing yard (northern hemi). The reflected heat and radiated heat makes everything twice as hot for twice as long.

Not super specific, but anything major you do in the first couple years that isn’t necessary to the house being livable. Fridge dies? Of course get a new one. You need one of those, fancy upgrade or not. Want to gut your entire kitchen that’s functional but maybe just not pretty? Maybe wait a year or two, or even just a few seasons. See what it’s like to live and move in the space and determine what is most important to spend money on.

Beautiful patterned cement tiles for our bathroom floors. They look gorgeous but they are a huge pain in the a*s. They crack, chip, scratch, and stain easily, and you have to use a special cleaner on them. Wish I’d done a bit more research before buying them. They do look great though. We’re trying to just accept that they’ll get a bit beat up with time.

Edit: I gotta say, though, still [might be worth it](https://imgur.com/a/U2Wr6Bd)

I think the worst splurge is anything you do for resale value. Splurge on what you care about, the stuff that you will enjoy while you live there, and just maintain the rest.

Those gross “3 season rooms” that always smell like mildew and no one ever uses. Do a screened porch instead.

Read the reviews. Samsung appliances are not the best. As someone else on here said recently. Samsung is know for TV not their refrigerators.

I might get some flack for this, but lawn work. My mower, weed-eater, and other attachments will pay for themselves in about two months because I’m not paying someone else to do the lawn work for me.

Pools

Everyone always wants a pool, they are crazy expensive to put in (especially where I live) they don’t add half the value they cost to the value of the property and depending on where you live can be up to several hundred dollars a month in electricity for the pump, chlorine, other chemicals and general maintenance. That doesn’t even include the fact that the pump and filter need to be replaced about every 6 years so that’s another 2 – 5k.

Anything you “splurge” on with the intent to “add value” to your home. There are some projects that will truly add value to your home, but it is pretty rare to get back what you spent. That $10K on a bathroom with the upgraded faucets update probably added a few thousand back onto the value of your house. Spending $20K on a backyard makeover might have helped a little. But you’re not going to be able to tack $30K onto your selling price and get bidding wars over it. At best you’re going to get your house back up to be in line with the comp prices.

Make changes to your home that give YOU benefits. Do you hate walking into that 60s bathroom with the pink porcelain tub and toilet? By all means replace it with something that makes you happy and brings you joy when you use it. If $10K makes you happy, then it is money well spent. Just don’t be surprised if it doesn’t help when you go to sell your home.

Pool Table…

Unless you are a big player you are going to be using it to store junk. lol

Electric radiant floors.

In my bathroom it’s nice in the winter. But in my office, 3 out of 5 sections died in a year and now I can’t keep that room warm enough without a space heater. Very expensive and not serviceable without a ripping up the floors renovation.

A bunch of tools with the idea that you’ll eventually use them, you won’t. You’ll just have a $650 double bevel sliding miter saw sitting in your garage.

Somewhat sarcastic but also for real. Do not get a koi pond to improve your landscaping. Those fish will suck you dry with maintenance, special food, and filtration systems. The first pond you put in will be too small and you’ll want to redo it much larger and more elaborately every few years. You’ll join the local club and want to import fancy fish from Japan. You’ll visit your club member’s homes and get jealous of their pond and want to dump more money improving yours.

We bought a home that had high end but older appliances. We couldn’t get parts for them. It was such a PITA. So dumb.

I think the worst thing you could splurge on is painting your cabinets. The way trends change, you’ll be regretting it in a few years. Luckily I never got past the “thinking about it” phase in my house with real wood cabinetry. Sure they needed refreshing but thank goodness I didn’t paint those beauties…wood cabinetry is back in “style.”

Fancy rugs. Nobody cares. Get them on clearance and call it a day!

Painting, landscaping, power washing.

I painted my whole house, did all my landscaping, and will be borrowing a power washer to power wash my house once it gets a little cooler out. All of these things cost me a couple hundred bucks to do myself vs thousands to hire others to do it. Vastly improved the appearance both inside and out too.

Update: For clarification I painted the interior of the house. The exterior is red brick and it didn’t need painting.

Hard wood flooring when you have kids/pets/people with mobility aides

Paid a s**t ton for it in our main living room and now a three years later it looks like s**t.
Would have to spend money again to refinish.

Yet our lifetime laminate that was a fraction of the cost has held up and looks like new.

Gutter guards. You still have to clean them. Now you get to disassemble first.

Bathroom remodeling, you just go a few times a day to s**t and shower, why did we as society decide that it should look like the most luxurious room in the house?

Kitchen appliances are built to have an expected life span of 5-8 years- no matter whether you purchase an average priced appliance or a “high end appliance. signed: a designer of residential kitchens

So… On the original actual topic… I wish I’d waited a little longer to purchase and have my HVAC installed in my 1940 house because I know a bunch of new things about my house now that I’ve lived in it for four years which would have affected exactly how insistent I would be with my hvac folks about wanting multi-stage air, built in dehumidification, high flow air purification, backup air replacement (with filtration), etc.

On the plus side they sized the system they built for me correctly at a reasonable level of cost vs luxury and it currently has normal control wires so I can use a wide variety of thermostats. Also, it’s great to have it since I then moved forward with solar as well.

If I eventually do have them upgrade the system I’ll probably end up losing standard control wiring and scrapping most of the actual units.