Hi guys, I wanted to get some professional opinions. My current home has (lovely) plantation shutters throughout the downstairs, and 1" mini-blinds, circa 1990, throughout the upstairs. The house is in the 77070 (Houston) area code, Lakewood Forest, and is in good shape and updated although 30 years old. We are planning to put it on the market next year and are hoping to get about $175 for it.

My question is - at that age, price, and area, is there any resale upside to replacing the mini-blinds with more contemporary 2" blinds? Using a cheap online vendor, I've estimated it will cost about $500 to upgrade all of the mini-blinds, plus the time and labor to install them all ourselves, which will be considerable for 11 windows. But if it will improve our curb appeal and hopefully sell the house faster, I would consider it a good investment. (As opposed to replacing them all with shutters, which would be a huge amount of money).

Inside, all of the windows do have curtains over the blinds so the windows look nice - no bare windows with mini-blinds or anything.

So, real estate-knowledgeable folks - is it worth the money to make the upgrade? Or would a minor change like that not really matter to buyers? I appreciate any replies - we are working over the next 6 months to fix, paint, and otherwise beautify our house (and get to enjoy it in the meantime) but anything we don't need to do, we won't.

In short, no.

spend the money on a storage room and get all the clutter out of your house

$500 seems pretty steep for basic 2" blinds. Plenty of good looking 2" blinds at Lowes for half as much that will hold up just fine. Two people should be able to replace all of them in one afternoon. Once you do a couple, things will speed way up. Borrow a good cordless drill if you dont have one.

With that said just replacing blinds isnt going to do much for you if you have gold door knobs, fans, lights, etc.



[This message has been edited by CS78 (edited 8/8/2012 7:07p).]

No, we don't have gold fans or lights. The house is pretty well updated and contemporary except for the blinds. Obviously, they're not that bad or we would have replaced them when we moved in, but I didn't know if cheap metal mini-blinds blinds were one of those triggers for buyers that make them say ugh.

The $500 was actually the best price I could find - we can't use the ones from Lowes, etc because our windows frames and all interior trim are a cream color - Dover White - and the basic white blinds look really bad next to them. We would need to find a soft cream color - not custom matched, but close enough to not look stupid. And we have 11 windows, two of them very large.

But, it sounds like it won't be worth the time or money. We'll spend it on something that will. Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it!!

Personally I like 2", I think mini blinds look to 80's.

people usually don't care... and if they do care, they think: "I can update these myself"

relatively to other things, blinds are cheap and easy to install, so I personally don't believe, somoene would NOT buy a house they love and they think is in the right price range b/c of blinds.

quote:

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people usually don't care... and if they do care, they think: "I can update these myself"

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LOL, word for word what my husband and I said when we bought the house. And what do you know, once we got the curtains hung and rooms decorated, they never bothered us enough to change. To be honest, thy look worse from the outside. But it doesn't sound like it will improve the curb appeal enough to justify the cost; we can spend the money on painting or something.

Jenn,

Different market, but in D/FW I would tell you to spend a few hundred and get the 2" blinds. Since you have plantation shutters downstairs, I would want window coverings to be a "positive" for you. Right now I think the mini blinds cancel the shutters out to give you a net zero.

Like I said, not the Houston market so I guess it could be different down there, but buyers here would react better with the 2".

Good luck!!

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