THE MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL IS UNDERWATER

Home renovation requires you to balance two partially opposed interests. The first is what you as a homeowner want; it's important that you make choices that will work for your needs and make you feel happy and restful, at least as much as you can be considering most of your personal wealth is tied up in a physical object that could just go up in flames for no reason while you're out to dinner. Surely the insurance company will work quickly and cooperatively to help you out!

The second interest is resale value and appeal. That can be a little harder, because you don't necessarily know what a future buyer is going to be interested in. Tastes and styles change, after all. Still, it's useful to think about your layout and design choices and consider if they're so specific to you that another potential owner down the road will be put off altogether.

Choices like, say, gray flooring that looks like a parking lot. Now we're gonna have to list this as a tear-down, Eastern Michigan. You coulda redone the master bathroom with that money. Idiots.