Hire a Kitchen designer and do it right. Remember -- the money invested is going to bring a better sale price for this house.

You shouldn't.

If you're going to sell the home -- and as long as everything works (plumbing, wiring, heat/ac) -- you should probably limit your remodel investment to changing wall color to a neutral color, especially in a smaller home, because any new owner will have their own ideas for any remodel that could include moving walls.

When my sister and her husband started remodeling his mother's home for sale, they found unseen problems that significantly increased the remodel cost but, having begun the remodel, they must now finish it before selling it. Bummer.

You might consider checking out the web site of Clark Howard on remodel issues.

http://clark.com/homes-real-estate/home-remodel-upgrades-with-best-return/

Repainting walls and/or trim that have a used look is well worthwhile. Painting to make a smaller dark space lighter -- such as the kitchen walls -- should be done. If that black backsplash is painted on, repaint it; if its tile, remove all but one row of black next to the countertop and repair and paint the wall above that. Light gray walls would work well with that black countertop and stainless steel appliances.

Unless you can match any existing cabinets exactly to add more, you probably shouldn't try. Instead, repaint them inside and out -- a true designer's white or the same light gray as the walls.

Changing out that pots and pan hanger for cabinets would be a problem because of the window. You might consider a shallow modern shelf for that wall -- just don't try to make it wall to wall; center it instead.

http://www.ontherivergr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Kitchen-Shelves-Decorating-Ideas.jpg

You could still add hooks to the bottom of any shelving you add.

I wouldn't mess with it. For every potential buyer you gain with the functional improvements, you'll lose another who would have loved the vintage cabinets, etc. For sure, don't touch that great nook, but I'm not sure I'd do anything at all.

In very very min we will paint the kitchen grey and put navy blue cushions on benches

But 2/3 interior decorators were strongly encouraging us to do facelift w new cabinets and countertops

But IMHO the kitchen should be opened to dining room but terribly afraid of scope creep

This home has lots of charm. Clean throughly and price correctly. Not everyone wants gray (going out of popularity in many areas) and not everyone wants open plan - especially when it remuddles a vintage home.

Despite what you see on HGTV you will rarely get your money back on a significant remodel done to sell the home.

This is dining room

This is living room which we will rearrange furniture, paint brick white and walls BM owl grey.

Theresa -- before you call a contractor, talk to your realtor. Decorators tell you to decorate, contractors tell you to build. Your realtor will tell you what it takes to sell your house.

Kitchen remodels are very expensive and old house kitchens are even more expensive. Knocking out walls in old houses can backfire on you. You can run into code issues, lead paint, asbestos, unexpected structural problems, etc. etc. etc. Make sure you want to take on the huge expense and headache of a major remodel that you will never enjoy, and are willing to delay the sale of your home for many months. Personally, I wouldn't do it. Good luck with your sale.

Ugh, corner sinks are horrible! Don't, just don't! As a buyer I could overlook the hardware (simple change) but not a layout with a corner sink.

You bought this house at one point and you liked it. Someone is going to like it like you liked it way back when. What you are forgetting is your own mindset when you bought it. The buyer who's going to buy it isn't you today -- it's you back when. Very different!!!

That is the lesson we learned when we sold our house. Realtor did help us with staging / arranging of furniture. Hubby re-touched paint. We had a cleaning service come in and do a deep clean to make it all sparkle.

We had paint in a riot of deep dark colors everywhere.... common sense we thought we should neutralize it all, like it was when we bought it. Realtor said not to bother and let's just see. We were selling at same time as duplex neighbor who neutralized with builder's white paint everywhere. We sold faster and for more $ than they did. Despite having a riot of colors everywhere. (As in every room a different deep rich color, some rooms with accent walls, etc...this at a time when grey was at the height of popularity....)

We never did anything about our bathrooms that had home depot special PINK marble on walls and floors ....

Staging is everything. Pricing too, but staging more than pricing, in our experience.

You need a realtor who's going to look at the place through the eyes of first time buyers / buyers who want a 1920s home. With the dark trim.

Leave the fireplace alone! I think you need to turn off HGTV. Remuddling old vintage homes does not pay off. People buy them for their original details - not 2017 gray paint - dated in 5 years.

Leave it alone, it's a charming home. And as the previous poster stated, ask a realtor, not a designer or a builder, the best course of action.

Btw, we had Home on market last year and no one wanted to go through effort of remodeling a kitchen... they said “too much work”! Meanwhile other old house with inferior location, yard, exterior that had remodeled their kitchen sold for a premium.

That kitchen is darn cute -dont mess with it!
Fix any drawers or doors that dont close right, touch up dings to the paint, and make sure the faucet doesnt leak. Also make sure you have Gfci outlets around the sink and that your outlets are grounded properly. Buy one of those little plug in testers and find the problems before the buyers do

Vintage home buyers like original cabinets, nooks, and wide trim. Every year there are fewer and fewer unremuddled houses available and originals will charm people who are looking for just that type of house

If your house did not sell last year it was priced too high.

The other house may have sold for a "premium," but did that premium equal or exceed the cost and inconvenience of remodeling the kitchen? If it was equal to the cost, then the sellers just broke even. Only if the premium exceeded the cost did they recoup their investment. And even then, what was the percentage return? Was it worth the effort? Could they have invested in something else that would have yielded them a greater return? Of course, you probably don't know all the details. In addition, you can't put a price on the inconvenience and stress involved in remodeling the most-used room in your house, only to turn around and leave it!

Just because the other house sold for more does not mean they came out any further ahead . Kitchen remodels are $$$$$$ and IMO ask a realtor what the difference was in prices and then go get an estimate on doing your kitchen because it will involve tearing out walls and bringing electrical up to code and probably the plumbing. If this was going to be where you live for the next 5 yrs I would say do it so you would have a better kitchen but it will not payback in a short time.

corner sinks are a pain.

On looking at the plans you posted, they are not optimal at all. For one, the corner sink, as so many have noted, is not a great idea. Add to that the position of the dishwasher: it would be almost impossible to stand at the sink and load the dishes, since the door would be in your way.

so people identified the need for remodel. Valid. Problem may be your asking price point. Second problem: current space is really tight, won't be comfortable to use for very long, or at all. Many people see a kitchen in a listed house that needs redoing and accept it because the existing kitchen is usable. Make this usable. You have to, in my opinion....and this is an exception to "let the people do it...leave everything alone". Get a 24 in electric range installed on fridge wall along with 18 in dishwasher, eliminate the cooktop, replace sink with single bowl, get a normal top freezer refrigerator at sears scratch n dent or craigs list. So you will be tearing out the counters and have some costs:appliance, counters, labor . Spend some time to search for sink/faucet/range/GE 18 in dishwasher [or Bosch/Miele if budget allows] and standard 28 or 30 fridge. Where you have gaps on fridge wall with new sizes for [ range dishwasher fridge] install a local made filler and maybe tray cabinet or small stack drawers.This will cost you some. I would look at after market cabinet chrome rollouts and get the pots inside. You could put something better on wall that has that rack, as you will have counter below. I would get a local tradesman to come and talk about that counter removal, removal of cooktop and ascertain the cabinets surviving this..I think so, but you should have a look with someone. If I had free counter around the U, a more appropriately scaled fridge, even if basic, it would allow me to use the space, and not run away from the kitchen.

All of the people telling to you to remodel are doing so because it puts money in their pocket, not yours. The average cost of a full kitchen remodel is 65K. And if you are lucky, you get 80% of that back. Which means you lost 13K before the home ever went on the market. And that’s best case scenario.

If I were looking at buying a house of your type and vintage, I'd rather buy it as is and redo it to my own liking. Most homeowners do a terrible job of renovating an old house, and I wouldn't want to spend any extra money on a remodel that I would have to again redo when I moved in.

Yeah, what Diana Bier said. If people want a modern home, they’re not offering for yours. It’s charming, and will need a specific buyer.

When we were buying three years ago I cringed at all the 80s oak kitchens I saw with new granite and paint slapped on the cabs. I knew I would be ripping it all out and would never pay the surcharge the homeowners included for their kitchen “update.”

I’ll echo the others. If your house didn’t sell, it’s because it was listed too high.

Dont bother to redo the kitchen, it wont pay off if you consider all the costs
First is the cost out of pocket for the remodel
Second is the carrying costs of property taxes, utilities and mortgage while you are waiting for the remodel work to be finished
Third is the additional commission you will owe on the higher price
Then you have the risk that your remodel will uncover serious and expensive issues that need to be corrected. Once you find out such information, you have to disclose it so it may be better to leave such matters unseen

1- If it did not sell last year, the price was too high.

2. The current kitchen floor plan is not good at all for today's family expectations. But redoing the kitchen could expose your family to lead paint and possibly asbestos in those layers of flooring unless you move out. Bringing the kitchen up to current plumbing and electrical codes will be expensive. Don't remodel it now.

3. Pay a professional kitchen designer to draw up a great new floor plan (the drafts shown are awful, as others have said). Display the new floor plan on the counter (slip it into an inexpensive red frame and prop it up on a stand) when the house goes up for sale.

remodels of period homes can entail quite a bit. You have no idea what a prospective buyer would do...around here, roofs get removed for vertical expansion.....in law suites get added on.....bump outs of half the sq foot of the original footprints follow after a sale. Just make the kitchen useable, price this right: the people can plan their space over time , contemplate details for the setting. NO-don't put up a kitchen renovation plan...it's obvious work will be needed but others have resources,timeline, and imagination of their own.Seriously, if at the "looking stage" a renovation plan was there I'd think there was a flaw besides spatial use and age of the kitchen. It would make me nervous...

Don't paint that fireplace! It makes a stunning centerpiece to the room! I agree that the walls should be repainted, but I wouldn't choose any gray. You want to make the woodwork, floors and fireplace pop -- gray wouldn't do that, any more than the current color does. This is one of the few times that I'd recommend a shade of white, something rich and creamy -- maybe BM Mascarpone?

Thanks for feedback. When we bought the house 18 years ago we had hoped to put addition on to rectify kitchen issue but then over million dollar homes replaced the old houses, then recession and people fixing up and now we are back to tear downs. Plus life got in the way of doing a big project. We face either updating bc that is what buyers demand in this hood or bargain price it in which case the house will be torn down. I agree the kitchen designer did not do a great job but difficult balance of updating/finding right plan or sell as a tear down.

Even if you update it might end up torn down, if that is the way the neighborhood is going. It was so in my old San Diego neighborhood (my house was also torn down but that was no loss to the neighborhood LOL -- although I mourned the eight fruit trees that were bulldozed to make room for the giant house). That also happened to my aunt's house -- but she was fortunate to be selling when the market was really hot in a rapidly-becoming-very-upscale area -- bidding war, sold for about 50% over asking, and the lovely old home was torn down. I hope that doesn't happen to yours!

All you need is one person who loves this house enough to buy it. I think it's just about perfect the way it is. And...pretty much every woman wants her own kitchen so re- doing this one will be a waste of your time & money...let the new owners waste theirs!

PS when I first saw your post I thought it was a joke post because, I thought...who would want to change that house??

your selling do not spend a lot of money the people who will buy may not like what you do ,just make sure it's clean no clutter around and freshly painted. price it right .

I love your house. If I could find a house like that that wasn't priced completely out of reach (no such animal in my area of So Cal), I'd snatch it up in an instant! But not if its charm was remodeled away. I vote for leaving it alone, not even painting, especially since you said GREY. And NO to painting the fireplace, too. (I swear, I do not understand the whole grey thing that's going on!)

Like other posters I thought that house is beautiful. It is great to be the least expensive house in the neighborhood. If the schools are good etc, you might be able to find someone to pay a $/sq ft premium to get into the neighborhood. If it is going to be a teardown, why replace anything?

PLEASE don't paint the brick fireplace. The next buyer will either (1) love the vintage charm of the brown woodwork and vintage kitchen and, thus, be heartbroken if the brick is painted (its impossible to get paint off old fireplace brick); or (2) like the fireplace painted BUT I'd guess that such a person would also paint all the brown woodwork white and redo the kitchen (get rid of cabinets, remove nook, remove walls etc).

Either you are a contractor who can do alot of modern updates (at lower than retail cost) -which seems always means painting brick fireplaces (or replacing it with granite/other smooth stone) or a regular home owner who should just clean, paint walls, and sell it. Google for the 'cost value report 2017' and you'll see renovations don't earn back 100%. Of course realtors want you to update - its not their money being spent. Just clean, paint walls, and be done with it.

Not to beat a dead horse but its VERY easy for a buyer who hates brick fireplaces to paint one. Anyone who wants that fireplace painted will also want to change alot of other things in that house, so don't bother.

OMG, do not touch it, it's adorable.

I adore your breakfast nook!

I agree with the advice others have already given, that you need to consult a realtor. I also think their advice to do very little to the home beyond a fresh coat of paint on the walls, a deep clean, a good clean-out and good staging is sound. A kitchen remodel is very disruptive - dust everywhere, noise and workers always in the home - and costly, and you never know what unhappy surprises you may uncover in the process, especially in an older home that looks like it hasn't seen much if any remodeling.

Unless a realtor can guarantee that you'll recoup your investment, I don't see how you'll come out ahead. Or even break even.

I like apple-pie-order's suggestion to hire a kitchen designer (not an interior decorator) to draw up a kitchen plan and display it, framed on the counter when your home is shown. You could do 2 plans, one working with the existing footprint and one that opens the kitchen up to the DR.

Many people are not good at visualizing a space's potential - they can only see what is, not what might be - so posting plans, would help them see what's possible, making the prospect of a remodel less daunting. Frame an elevation or two and leave the rest of the plans, including overheads, on the counter for prospective buyers to leaf through.

However... if more than one realtor tells you that you absolutely have to give the kitchen a small update, here's a small tweak to the sink wall.

Big plus is that you won't have to move the plumbing. Other big plus is that you're replacing 3 small cabinets with one wide bank of drawers, which is *always* going to provide better storage and will also likely be cheaper than buying 3 cabinets. The corner is void (no storage); corner storage doesn't give you a lot of bang for your buck and good corner storage mechanisms are expensive.

Re-use the shelf you have, mount it 18" on the wall above the counter and stage it with dishes and coffee mugs.

If you're going to pay for anything to get your house to sell, pay for staging.

Don’t do anything, especially if you think there is a possibility of this being a tear down. And I’m also going to say ‘no grey’ and do not paint the brick. Love, love, love that breakfast nook. Always wanted a house with that feature.

I decided to post to a local group to get feedback. Many expressed interest in our downtown Naperville house so I said they can see this weekend. If no continued interest I will move forward with updating Home. Thank you all. I will be posting about our new house soon if you like to follow and/or give suggestions... #muellerhouse2018.

Here are some of the other interior photos.

Good luck to you, Theresa!

Post to the Facebook Groups devoted to OLD houses. Not just selling houses. If the price is right, it will get a lot of activity. If the price is wrong, putting money into a cheap redo will not make you money or get your house sold.

This is Naperville, IL correct? I agree that your agent should direct you on a perfect selling price so you can move on! Beautiful area. Good luck!

Good idea Sophie.., did not know about old house fb groups.., will look into

Remember that those that make their living from remodeling will be wanting you to choose them to do so ... for their interest rather than for your best interest. A small home -- small kitchen -- could be great for an on-the-go professional(s) that prefer to eat out and whose career(s) could find them moving to another state in a few years ... alternately maybe even a home for empty nester(s). Adjusting the price could make the home a more affordable investment for those that could actually like it as is. Good luck w/your sale.

Wow- love it more the more I see of it! I am, however, happily ensconced in my own old house far across your northern border. I hope you find someone who deserves such a treasure,.

Paint away the yellow/beige wall color! Grey in some rooms, white, blues or teals. ..

Love all the wood work in your home! Don't paint the wood work and don't bother painting the fire place, just touch up the walls. Make your color palette a balance of warm and cool instead of all this beige and brown and wood tones. Keep the wood, cool everything else.

In the kitchen, go as close to the cabinet color as possible and stage it as a B&W kitchen. I don't think you need to remodel to sell, good luck!