Do you renovate to the top of the street, or one notch below it?

I'm planning the first purchase carefully and this is the decision I keep stalling on, before I've even picked a house.

On a live-in flip you're the one living with the choices, which pushes toward finishes you actually like. Quartz you don't wince at, a bathroom that works on a Tuesday morning. Two years is long enough that cheap finishes will look worn by the time you list, so there's an argument that mid-grade in a live-in flip is worse than mid-grade in a fast flip, because you get to wear the material down yourself before a buyer ever sees it.

The other side is that the exclusion caps your tax-free gain, and past a point you're spending a dollar to add sixty cents of value. Renovating to the top of the street means competing with new construction on a 1972 floor plan. Going one notch below the top means you're the value option on the block when you list, and the money you didn't spend is money you keep either way.

There's also the version where you do top-of-street on the kitchen and one bath and stay plain everywhere else, on the theory that buyers price the two rooms they walk into and shrug at the rest. I don't know if that reads as a considered choice or as a house where somebody ran out of money halfway.

What did the room actually do, and did you regret the tier you picked when it came time to list?