Designing Your Large Renovation

When you are looking for a contractor to take on a large renovation that includes kitchens, bathrooms and large parts of the actual layout of your home or chalet then its not just important to find a contractor that can do the work but they also will need to be able to help you with the overall layout and flow of the home.

What do I mean by the layout and the flow of the home? Well if you were building a new home it's something that your architect would be worried about. It's how the home actually functions for you and your family.

Now style is important when doing any renovation but its not the only thing that you have to consider. One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they get so wrapped up in the style of the home that they forget about how the home is suppose to perform and function.

Whatever style you like has to be able to work within your life, that means that you shouldn't be planning renovations that don't improve the quality of your life just to fit a trend or style.

Here are some things to consider when you are planning a large renovation of your home or chalet;

Placement

The placement of the rooms in your home is very important. If your planning to move things around in the house make sure that you are not putting the bathrooms all the way at one end of the house, farthest away from the rooms that you use all the time. Nobody wants to miss a big part of the movie because it takes to much time to walk to the bathroom and back.

Openness

This is one of the biggest changes in houses in the last 25 years. Homes went from having designated and closed off rooms to being open and flowing from one room to the next. Kitchens should flow into the next room whether that room is the dining room or the living room. People cooking want to be able to interact with their guests and vice versa.

Flow

If you have a living room filled with couches and chairs that is hard to navigate through just to get to a main area like the kitchen then you don't have good flow. You want people to be able to move around your home in designated walk ways so that travel from one room to another is simple and obvious. That doesn't mean that you need hallways everywhere, just the opposite actually.

In new homes this is all organized by the architect as they draw the house they give you ideas of the best possible way to achieve Placement, Openness and Flow. But in an existing home that is about to undergo a serious renovation its up to the homeowner to achieve these 3 things.

But how do you as a homeowner do this? Well the simplest thing is to find a contractor that can do this for you, someone that can not only give you the high end renovation that you desire but also help you in the planning an layout of the home. A good contractor will have plenty of experience doing this for people and will already understand the basics of placement, openness and flow.

Now you can have plans created by a draftsmen or interior designer, these will help but once walls start coming down and floors are stripped there are always changes that have to happen, these changes are best handled by the contractor working with you.

Where do you find a contractor that can help you with all of this?
You just found them....

Great Lakes Custom Homes Inc.

We don't just help people with new custom homes, we also spend a lot of time renovating peoples homes and chalets. Usually we are doing this with little too no plans from the homeowners or other design professionals. Communication is the key, the more informed choice you are able to give the homeowner the better, the more information they have from us will also help the project move along at a faster pace and have a much smoother finish.

If you are planning a large renovation project and think that we could help you with it please feel free to email us at greatlakescustomhomes@gmail.com

Let us help you,

Rob Abbott
Great Lakes Custom Homes Inc.