Bathroom vs kitchen: which is worth more to renovate?

by Andrea Sophocleous, ninemsn Money

Apart from the bedroom, the average person spends most of their time at home in the kitchen or the bathroom. And, unlike the bedroom, they are conscious while doing so.

It's no wonder, then, that a well-designed and maintained kitchen and bathroom add value to your home — if you enjoy using those rooms, so will prospective buyers. And that boosts the price your home can fetch in a potential sale.

But what do you do if your kitchen and bathroom are not up to scratch yet your budget doesn't stretch to cover a renovation of both rooms? Which of these two crucial rooms in the home should you renovate to add value to your property?

The answer to that question depends on the state of your kitchen and bathroom — the one in the worst condition should be the first to go under the renovation hammer. If your kitchen is less than 10 years old, in good nick and perfectly functional, renovating just because you don't like the colour of the cabinets is probably a waste of money.

Choosing which room to renovate first is also "highly dependent on the property", says architect Justin Quinlan, managing director of Archengine. "If the kitchen is highly integral to the home, for example in an open plan space, then a renovation would add a lot of value to the property. If the kitchen is hidden away, it may not be as important."

The value any renovation adds to your home from a resale perspective comes down to potential buyers' needs, adds Quinlan. "If the person looking to buy loves cooking, a nice kitchen will be very important to them. You don't often find people looking for a big bathroom. But it's lifestyle-related."

Interior designer Celia Cavanagh-Downs, of FutureSpace, says you can easily spruce up a kitchen without resorting to a full renovation. "You can do a lot of superficial enhancements to a kitchen — leaving the carcass for the cupboards and replacing the cupboard doors, or door knobs, adding a new splashback or benchtop," she says. "With a bathroom on the other hand, whatever you do means you need to rip everything out, waterproof the whole space, and start again — and labour is expensive."

If you do opt for a full renovation, however, the bathroom will be friendlier on the budget. "Bathrooms are smaller and therefore cheaper to renovate," says Quinlan. "One of the biggest ticket items in renovations is joinery, and a kitchen is full of joinery."

The average bathroom renovation, according to Quinlan, will set you back between $5000 and $15,000. "Waterproofing and tiling is where you'll spend your money," he adds.

There is no limit on how much you can spend renovating a kitchen if your taste gravitates towards top of the line appliances, expensive materials and sculptural forms. For a more modest refurbishment, Quinlan suggests a budget between $10,000 and $30,000 should do the trick.

Either way, potential renovators should be careful not to over-capitalise. "Don't put in a $50,000 kitchen in a $250,000 apartment," says Quinlan. "You're not going to see the return."