kitchen design

High Value and Luxurious Remodeling Ideas for Your Home

Posted on by dhopkins
By Natalie Akins, Guest Blogger, Innovative Building Materials, With Photos from Eklektik Interiors

Everyone has their own luxury home remodel wishlist, whether it’s a deep soaking tub and spa-like bathroom, custom wall coverings like bespoke wallpaper, a feature wall with custom artwork, or high-end appliances in the kitchen, there is something out there for everyone’s taste. 

Whole House Luxury Upgrades

Some upgrades are worth doing throughout your home, and they aren’t limited to just one room. 

Radiant Floor Heating

One of the most popular luxury upgrades to any home is the addition of radiant floor heating. Once you have heated floors, you may not remember life before! Designed to evenly heat a space from the floor up, instead of from the ceiling down such as with forced hot air or traditional radiators, this feature is about more than just warm feet. Radiant heat more evenly heats a room and takes advantage of the fact that heat rises, making it a very efficient heat source.

 A word of caution: to get the best return on your radiant floor investment, you’ll need to consider radiant floor heat insulation in your subfloor. These specific subfloors help to retain heat, spreading it out even better and more efficiently. The right subfloor can also help your floor retain heat for longer, requiring less power to heat overall.

 Feature Walls

Walls are blank canvases begging for interesting details to add dimension and depth to any room. Making one of a room’s four walls stand out from the crowd can add a custom feel to your home, as well as allowing you to try bold colors, types of wall coverings, or accents that might be overwhelming across your entire space, but just right for one wall. A smaller space also allows you to splurge without breaking the bank.

High-End Wall Coverings and Custom Millwork

High-end wall coverings come in various textures, color schemes, and styles, from patterned wallpaper to natural textiles. When combined with custom millwork like moldings, trim, wall paneling, and crown molding, it can put a refined touch on your space. Particularly helpful in rooms with large, expansive walls, wainscoting can break up the space, add visual interest, and draw attention to any artwork displayed above.

 Kitchen Upgrades

An inviting kitchen is the focal point of a home for family and guests. It seems like no matter what, everyone ends up in the kitchen at some point whether they are preparing for dinner or picking out dessert. Kitchens are a great place to show off your personality and create the most functional space possible, bringing glamour to your home with luxurious appliances, custom cabinetry, and breathtaking finishes that will make every day feel like you’re on vacation.

Beverage Centers

Beverage centers have exploded in popularity, and for good reason. A well-stocked beverage center allows you or your guests to easily grab or mix their favorite drink in a dedicated spot complete with refrigeration, a coffee station, and the guest-worthy glassware. This also helps control traffic in the busy kitchen hub, keeping your main prep and entertaining space available for food.

Custom Ranges, Hoods, Ovens, and Warming Drawers

When choosing where to invest in your kitchen, a good range never goes out of style. With more and more custom options on the market, you can completely tailor your range to your cooking and entertaining style, and accent it with a custom hood for an extra tailored look in your kitchen. Customizing the color, finish, and shape of this kitchen staple immediately brings a personalized look, replacing the standard rectangular hoods of the past. 

A beautiful kitchen will undoubtedly get some use, and for larger gatherings or meals having multiple ovens can help consolidate prep and cooking time. For even more convenience, a warming drawer can keep your food warm for seconds and thirds.

Sail Over to your Kitchen Island

Kitchen islands are central features to any kitchen, and what better way to draw attention to this focal point than with a custom, complementary color to offset the island from the rest of your kitchen? Top it with a one-of-a-kind countertop, and you can easily make a bold statement with this relatively simple upgrade.

Countertops on your island and throughout your kitchen are a good opportunity to show off your personality and highlight your taste. Natural stone, like quartzite slab, offers subtle beauty, with neutral tones and natural variations, while remaining durable and easy to maintain. Mixing materials such as natural stone with butcher block combines complementary styles with function.

 If you’re replacing your kitchen island, consider incorporating amenities like built-in refrigerated drawers, a warming drawer, bookshelves, outlets, and storage space maximized for awkward items like cutting boards or particularly large pans.

 Primary Bed and Bath Upgrades

Your day begins and ends in your primary bed and bath suite. It should be a space you can’t wait to get back to! We spend hours each day in our bedroom between preparing for the day, sleeping, or even just resting. High-end details in primary bedrooms and bathrooms can make them even more comfortable and convenient.

 Dressing Room

Closets have certainly trended towards being bigger over the last several decades, but have you made the leap from a closet to a dressing room? Beyond just being a walk-in closet space, a dressing room is equipped with counters, storage, mirrors, vanities, and more.

 Dressing rooms are not just a place to get dressed—they are a place to truly get ready. For an added perk, add a mini-fridge stocked with your favorite beverages.

 Spa Bathroom Upgrades

Being able to relax in a spa-like oasis, right in your own home, gives you a private and customized place to truly let go of any stressors. Instead of packing up to go to the spa, you can head right into your bathroom for an unforgettable experience.

Popular bathroom upgrades include everything from tub upgrades to changing out the hardware. Deep soaking tubs have risen to popularity and come equipped with features to maximize heat retention, prolonging your soak.

Custom double-vanities give you and a partner space to spread out, while still being together, with high-quality craftsmanship and custom color schemes. While you are looking at your vanity, don’t forget about high-end faucet upgrades, like black bathroom faucets, that can stand out against popular neutral bathroom fixture colors like white and grey.

Bathrooms are the perfect place to use your green thumb—the relatively high humidity of your bathroom is the perfect atmosphere for a vertical garden, adding natural and relaxing elements to the space.  

 And one of the ultimate bathroom upgrades is an in-home steam or sauna room where you can go in, close the door, and be transported to another world.

 No Wrong Place to Start

Your remodeling options are endless for every room of the house. It’s just a matter of picking what is most important to you and then making some choices. Luxurious upgrades to your home not only make your space more welcome and comfortable for you but can add serious resale value for future prospective buyers. You can’t go wrong!   

Natalie Akins is the Interior Design Editor at Innovative Building Materials. With over 20 years of interior design experience, Natalie has worked on many projects including commercial office design and residential spaces.

The Importance of Home: What 2020 has Helped us Discover in Home Design

Posted on by dhopkins

Reflecting on all that we have faced with the beginning of a new decade, a pandemic, a presidential election, social unrest, and natural disasters, one thing keeps coming into focus: the importance of home. 2020 indeed has had its share of challenges, but because of those challenges, we have all had the opportunity to reprioritize and discover what is truly essential in our lives.  When the pandemic hit and we all stayed home, our thoughts focused very quickly to what the word ‘home’ meant to each of us personally.

Home has taken on new importance as it literally has become our place of refuge, safety, and peace, and with this focus has come new trends in home design.  As our homes quickly became our everything, it has also become very important to have more defined spaces for family gathering, personal renewal, work, and entertaining. Looking into 2021,  here are some of the home design trends that we are seeing as a result of living through 2020.

Kitchen:

Homes are really all about the kitchen.  It is where life centers.  A custom kitchen, designed to cater to the way you cook, eat, and gather, will add value to your home and your life.  Because the kitchen has become the hub of social activity even more, we’ve seen a continued trend in open floorplan kitchen renovations, which include many amenities such as islands, multiple sinks, larger refrigerators, and other customized appliances.  Beautiful countertops, fabulous hardware, and an exquisite lighting plan are also priorities in the kitchen. With a new warmth and comfort associated with these trends, the kitchen becomes a pseudo second family room.

Kitchen Favorite:  Natural stone countertops and walls create a beautiful focal point.  Quartzite is a fabulous option for natural materials. There are also some amazing porcelains on the market that are not only beautiful but are a ‘work horse.’  I, personally, am not a fan of marble in the kitchen. I know there is a lot of debate on this, and yes, marble is absolutely gorgeous and yes, it will patina over time, but typically, a LONG time. There is a big maintenance issue and if your kitchen is just for ‘show’, then go for it. But if you really live in your kitchen, I would suggest other products that perform much better and are easier to live with.

Bathroom:

With the stress and chaos that we all live with, a resurgence of creating a space to renew and relax is essential for self-care.  Bathrooms are an interesting space to design because they are so private.  This allows for a lot of creativity in the aesthetics.  A well-planned bathroom, catered to the way each client personally finds ways to renew and refresh, can serve as a spa-like retreat.  Statement slabs in the shower, mixed with different tiles and textures and plumbing finishes, can bring an elegance that creates a peaceful haven to start and end your day.

Bathroom Favorite:  Having a beautiful, comfortable bathtub available creates space for effortless relaxation that is not replicated by any other home amenity.

Home Office:

As the majority of the workforce moved home this spring, spaces that had served other purposes, were quickly transformed into home offices.  We are seeing a trend now to design these work from home spaces to be organized, functional, and also fun, as you add personality to the space you spend so much time in.  2020 has given us all the gift of time at home to analyze your life, goals, and what you are ultimately wanting for your own personal space. Office spaces tend to be a catch-all and sometimes chaotic.  Letting go of “things” and holding onto just a few statement pieces that you love can give you a sense of purpose and freedom as your home meets every need you have. Simplify your life and your home. You will be happier for it.

Home Office Favorite: Layered lighting is functional and fabulous.  Lighting is so important in an office space.  Window and lighting placement make a huge difference in the look, feel, and usability of a space.  Including a designer as early as possible in the construction or renovation planning process is highly recommended, as the details decided in the earliest phases of design determine the final aesthetic and functional feel of a space.

Home Bar Area:

When remodeling, more homeowners are wanting to incorporate a bar area into their home. With the trend of entertaining at home becoming more commonplace, along with the recent “stay at home” mandates around the globe, specialty spaces in the home set aside for entertaining have been utilized more than ever. Whether that is a wine storage space, a bar or beverage serving area, or a full-on lounge, the typical homeowner is looking to have that special place in their home to “belly up to the bar!”

Interior designers love this trend in home design because it offers an opportunity to utilize significant spaces for practical needs, while also offering the chance to create an unexpected and exciting focal point. A beverage serving area can add beauty and function to your home and can be utilized not only for intimate personal or family time but for entertaining clients or friends.

Bar Area Favorite: Creative storage options can add visual interest to the space.  A flashy or exotic backsplash is usually a good place to start. Shelves that hold liquor or beautiful wine racks add to the decor, while below the counter cabinets can hide various bar tools and appliances to keep the area uncluttered. Storing glasses is best when in a closed cabinet and even better if that door has glass and lighting on the inside for drama.

Looking ahead:  Even as we hope life will soon return to ‘normal,’ we can be grateful for what we have gained this year in wisdom as we have refocused our priorities.  Here is to looking forward to 2021, and to holding on to this new-found focus, hoping it will remain as we take more time to savor every aspect of life at home.