Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community members to tell us a home improvement or purchase that they made for their house that they wish they hadn’t or would’ve done differently. Well, people shared with us those projects or things they bought for their homes that in retrospect they didn’t care for.
So, without further ado, here are 16 things that you might want to think twice about buying or redoing if you’re homeowner:
1.“We had to renovate our basement due to a leak, and we decided to rip out old carpet and put down luxury vinyl plank flooring. We picked out the trendy gray that everyone was using. I thought it was a good choice to help lighten up a dark basement. I hated it within the year. The LVP itself was fine and worked well for a busy family, but the gray was hard to decorate around and looked cheap and tacky.”
2.“My husband insisted in putting a bar in our basement when we remodeled it. I can probably count the amount of times we’ve used it on one hand.”
3.“When redecorating my bathroom, I chose penny tile for the floor of the shower because it always looked so good on the TV makeover shows. I’m really sorry I did because it’s impossible to keep it clean. All that circular grout is a nightmare. It’s either really harsh chemicals or on my knees scrubbing.”
4.“We had an 8′ sliding patio door in the family room. It was too big, and we decided to decrease it to 6′. We happened to see a set of 6′ French doors on sale and jumped at the opportunity. HUGE mistake! The doors open in and interfere with the furniture. Wish I would have just put in a 6′ slider. Would have been much more functional.”
5.“A large, single-basin, farmhouse-style kitchen sink. Never again.”
6.“I haven’t done one, but I am house hunting, and these are my absolute no’s: an island for just a stove and open shelves in the kitchen. I love to cook and cook a lot. Having oil and food splatter everywhere and grease lingering in the air, to latch onto anything on those open shelves. I don’t even bother to look at the rest of the house if this is the kitchen.”
7.“There was point about 10 years ago where chandeliers over the bed in bedrooms were all the rage. I had a ton of inspiration pictures for it on my Pinterest. I finally decided to add one to my room. I maybe liked it for a year and then just started to hate it. My bedroom ceiling is too low for it, and it just looked dated by that point. I ended up replacing it with a simple, but nice light. The chandelier is now somewhere in my garage.”
8.“We put in solid black Corian countertops, and it was a very expensive mistake. The sad part of that whole experience is the manufacturer contacted us to advise it would be a mistake as it was taking forever to polish them. Hence we found out the hard way never put black Corian counters in.”
9.“Put a vessel sink in our bathroom. Every time we use it, water gets everywhere.”
10.“Open floor plan. Now, our living room and kitchen are one giant room with an Oahu-sized island. Although, it does offer a realistic viewing experience when I watch The Bear and can hear every mutter, clang, and screamed curse that come from my son and his newfound culinary interest.”
11.“We spent a lot of money putting in a 5-speaker surround sound system and DVD home theater system in the mid-’00s in our den. Technology changes so quickly that all of that is now outdated. We just stream everything now, and the speaker system doesn’t even work with our new TV.”
12.“Growing up in an early 20th-century house, any remodel updating resulted in molding on top of molding on top of molding. Fast-forward to my first house, I decided molding looked cluttered and remodeled one bedroom with no molding. Molding-free windows — like a doctor’s office — do not look good in a home. Not to mention it was only one room. I learned my lesson.”
13.“We spent forever looking for a new couch. My must-have list was *no* detachable cushions. I had one in childhood, and all we did was constantly reconstruct the couch. Along comes a salesman who sold us on this over-budget, large sectional with detachable cushions. BUT these cushions had Velcro, and we were repeatedly assured they would stay out. Yeah, that lasted a few months. They are worse than non-Velcro detachable cushions. The Velcro ripped the bottom of the cushions and certainly don’t hold them in place. Because I spent so much money on it, I won’t get rid of it, but it is uncomfortable and horrible looking.”
14.“We have a 1920s house, and we paid to restore the beautiful old wood windows, complete with hanging weights. I wish we had just replaced them with new windows as they would be so much easier to keep clean. Now, we have storm windows that are at least 70 years old that are starting to break, so we are going to have to replace everything anyway.”
15.“I bought some really expensive and nice bed linens for me and my partner. We can’t tell the difference between the new sheets and the much cheaper sheets we had. But our dogs sleep with us, and they seem to enjoy them.”
16.And lastly: “This was my first house, and I didn’t know what to do to renovate an entire house, so I bought into the whole rustic farmhouse trend since it was all over Pinterest. No hate to the people who did farmhouse and love it, it just isn’t my vibe, and I didn’t realize that until the whole house was farmhouse. Every piece of furniture I own is farmhouse-themed.”
“Even the light fixtures I put in are farmhouse. My least favorite farmhouse feature is my kitchen island. I have quartz countertops, but opted for butcher block on the island. I also made the sides of the island look like barn doors with a big wooden X on each side, and the back is shiplap. The butcher block is so fragile, it gets scratched easily, and I’m supposed to oil it frequently in order to maintain it. The Xs and shiplap look outdated already even though it’s only been a few years. I’m slowly saving money to redo everything, but that will definitely take awhile.
If you buy a home and want to renovate it, I recommend not rushing into it and not following trends unless you know you will truly love them even when they are outdated. Wait until you know exactly what you want and decorate it for yourself and not based on what’s ‘cool’ at the time.”
—Anonymous
Pc Photography / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
