5 Inexpensive Decorations to Modernize Your Home

A modern home has to be well-designed and cozy as well because you obviously don’t want to go into a lackluster place after a day’s of hard work. There are plenty of ways that don’t need breaking the bank or tearing down the walls to make a home look attractive. If you think your home looks dull, but you don’t have the budget for major renovations, check out these 6 ways to modernize your home without spending big bucks.   

Increase Functionality

A modern home is cozy, but it also utilizes every nook and corner of a home. There should not be any unused space. If you have a formal dining area that you don’t use because your family loves to dine in the kitchen, turn the room into a cozy den for doing your crafting work or a library for reading books. If you don’t have any available room, look out if there’s any empty corner that you can turn into a home office.

Create Open Space

Image via J Design Group

The concept of open space is really popular these, but you just can’t tear out the walls if your home doesn’t have an open floor plan. Don’t worry! You can still make your home open, airy and transform it into a cozy den that every modern home should be.

The trick of getting that look is actually pretty simple. Get rid of the bigger, bulkier furnishings, making room for more natural light to get in, and using mirrors strategically in a couple of places. In case if you want to keep one or two big furniture pieces, move them around the room to see in which positions they don't take much of the open space.

Add New Lighting

Proper lighting can breathe life into a place, and LED pot lights are one of the most popular light sources that people use to modernize their home. A grid of pot lights is able to spread light evenly over a large are and brighten those spots where wall lights can’t reach. View the ideas Model_Home_Makeover shared to make your interior renovations easy.

You can support them with a couple of pendants and floor lamps strategically placed in dark corners. Light them up and see how your dark, cramped room has instantly transformed into a lively, welcoming place.

Image via Studio Momentum Architects

Upgrade Window Treatments

Windows seem to be the most overlooked place in a home. In most cases, homeowners leave the windows bare or install simple blinds because they can’t decide on the right style for the rooms.

Window treatments can inject massive style into a room. You can choose bamboo shades if you are a minimalist and love to be in contact with nature, go for gauzy white sheers to create a beach vibe, or install geometric patterns for making a style statement. However, the safest trick is to choose the color of the curtain panels two to three shades lighter than the color of the window frame and adjacent walls. Besides, semitransparent curtains are the best option for both privacy and not hindering natural light.

Image via Beach Glass Interior

Update the Hardware

It’s a genuinely inexpensive way to update your home. Nothing dates your home more than dirty, worn, or broken handle pulls and knobs. So, choose from the plethora of options such as aged copper, bronze, stainless steel, etc. that are available in the market and give all the cabinets and doors a new look.

Don’t think too much about matching styles because you can easily bring stainless steel knobs in a country kitchen and vintage aged copper into your chic and trendy bathrooms.

A few other tricks for updating your home is to clean the clutter, giving it a fresh coat of paint, cleaning the dirty areas, installing wallpaper in a few selected spots, and more. In fact, you have a whole lot of options for sprucing up your dated home in a cost-effective way and turning it into a relaxing retreat. Just remember not to overthink about matching styles. Keep everything simple, and the result will turn out to be something magical!

Can I build a custom home and sell it and make money?

Can I build a custom home and sell it and make money?

This is a question that I am asked more and more in this current market and economy.

The fact is that it can be very tricky to try and make money from building a custom home and then trying to sell it right away.

A lot of people think that the way to do this is try to build the custom home without the use of a general contractor. The reason that they think this is because contractors charge you a percentage on the whole project, this is their profit. It is true in principle that you would save money without using a general contractor expect that it isn’t true if you actually sit down and way the pluses and minuses of trying to build without a general contractor.

Here are some of the problems that you will run into if you try to build your home without a general contractor;

• Building a custom home is a full time job. You will have to take the 8 to 12 months off to build the house just to organize and supervise the trades.

• Builder discounts. You will not qualify for these at the local lumber yards, tile suppliers and construction material warehouses.

• Sub trade priority. Trades such as electricians and plumbers are loyal to contractors because contractors will give them work year over year. You are a one time job and since you are the general contractor they will look at you as a hassle, because you will not know as much as a general contractor. If your not there every day to talk to them they will leave every time there is a decision to be made and there is no one around to make it.

• Sub trades charge more to homeowners then they do to contractors. There a couple of reasons for this; one is because contractors will give them more work, the other big reason is the risk that you will not pay them. This is a real worry for sub trades; collecting money is not a fun thing for sub trades.

• Knowledge. You will not have as much knowledge as a contractor. You will end up doing things that will cost you more money than if a contractor had organized them. The contractor with experience knows the pit falls and will save you money steering you around them.

• Safety, safety, safety. If take on building your own house you have to give every trade a safety tour of the house. You as the owner of the property have to ensure all safety standards are met and if anyone is hurt on the site you will have to answer to the labour board. Any lawsuits (because of injured workers) will be directed at you because you are in charge of the site.

• Clean up. One of the major concerns about work sites is how clean they are kept. Sub trades don’t always clean up after themselves. You will have to do it, or you will have to pay someone to do for you. If sub trades find a site to messy they will charge you more for hassle or walk away because of safety concerns.

• Code. You better memorize the code book. A lot of sub trades will give you exactly what you want, even if it’s against the code. You will find this out when the building inspectors fail it. Since you asked for it, the sub trade gave you exactly what you wanted and now you have to pay to have it done again.

• Building officials. You better learn when you need all your building inspections and you will have to take the whole day off to meet with the inspector. They will not give you a time they will be showing up, they will just confirm the day that they are going to show up.

I have seen home owners that have tried to build their own home to save 50 thousand that the general contractor would make and blow that 50 thousand in mistakes that they make before the house is half built. I have seen homeowners hire sub trades to frame the house under their direction and then have the building inspector come in and fail it. Forcing the homeowner to bring more sub trades in to fix the problems and then get it engineered because the inspector doesn’t trust what the home owner did. This is well within the building inspector’s right to force you to pay 5 to 10 thousand in engineering costs to prove to him that the house is structurally sound.

Things such as the order of how the trades are called in to install things in the house can cost the homeowner money. I have seen homeowners call the electricians in before the heating contractor to wire the whole house. The electrician is happy because there is nothing in the way of their wiring, but when the heating contractor shows up to run all the duct work and finds that the electrical wiring is in the way, they will simply cut it out. This will force you to get the electricians back to rewire the house. This will cost you money, because it’s your fault. To sub trades time is money, if you cost them time because you didn’t know what order things should be installed in your home then they will charge you money for all the time they lost during installation and for every hour that they are forced to redo something because of your poor scheduling. It is not a sub trade’s job to give you advice on how to build a house; it is your job to hire a general contractor to do that for you.

The way you finish the house will be only as good as the people you hire to do it. The best finish carpenters are already employed and are kept employed by contractors. It will be hard for you to hire the best which means that you won’t get the best job. The other thing is when you finish a custom home it is finished in your tastes, it is customized to you. This will be a major problem when you go to sell it. People who are looking to buy a custom home are looking to buy a home that meets their tastes. So right away you have removed a lot of the market that will be looking to buy a house in the price range you will be asking.
Also when you are selling your custom home you will be asking more then it cost you too build it because you will want to make a profit. Here lies the problem with custom home building. Why would someone buy your custom home for more money than it would cost them to have one built themselves? They could have one built and have it customized to them not you.

One of the biggest reasons that it is almost impossible to make money by building a custom home and then selling it right away is the warranty. If you do not have a contractor build your house then you don’t qualify for the warranty. In a custom home, warranty is a big issue because there is a lot that can go wrong. In Ontario we have Tarion (the new home warranty program) that is a 7 year warranty on all new homes, as long as they are built by a registered Tarion builder. It is actually illegal for a builder in Ontario to build a new home without being registered as a Tarion builder. This all costs money and is built into the percentage that a contractor charges the homeowner to build the house. Imagine walking into a car dealer and the salesmen says, I have this car that you could buy for $20,000 with a full 7 year warranty or this car for $19,000 with no warranty. I think for the small percentage more, most people will be asking for the more expensive car that has a warranty.

So when you add up all the costs associated with a custom home you can clearly see that building a custom home and then selling it will not net you any great profit. Now if you waited 5 or 6 years as house prices and building costs continue to rise then maybe you would have the chance to make a profit on your custom home.

If you are thinking about building a custom home please feel free to check us out at www.villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Tips on designing your ski chalet

Tips when you are planning to build a ski chalet
Here are some things that you should remember when you are planning to build a ski chalet that will allow you to get the most out of your investment.
First things first, plan the size and shape of the building so that you maximize the space and the views that are around the building site. If you have a view, plan to put as many windows on that side of the building as possible. You should also plan to put any decks or patios on that side of the building.
Most modern ski chalets are now designed with “great rooms” in them. This is usually a high ceiling room with a large fireplace that becomes the focal point and the gathering area of the interior chalet. Your fireplace or fireplaces in a ski chalet are more important than any other room in the house. In a normal house the most used and most important room in a house is usually the kitchen but not in a chalet. You need to remember that in a chalet you will be returning from the cold weather of the hill and want to have a hot chocolate in front of a roaring fireplace. You want to make the fireplace in the chalet the focal point, a point where the family can gather and relax. You want the largest fireplace in the house installed or built in the great room and a large hearth stone placed in front of it so that people can use it as a seating area during gatherings. If possible, install fireplaces in certain bedrooms will help give that romantic feeling and allow you a warm and cozy area to get away from it all.
In the great room there should be cathedral ceilings; this lends itself to installing large rustic beams in the cathedral ceiling. If you light them appropriately washing the ceiling and highlighting roof features it can bring a warm and cozy feeling to a room no matter how large or small in scale. It can also give your guests the feeling of being in an expensive resort.
Another thing that you need when you are designing your chalet is a large mudroom. A large mudroom is important so that you can have a large group of people stomp in and out wearing their ski boots and be able to change and shed layers. In the mudroom you will want to maximize storage. A lot of the chalets that we have built have walls of cabinets so that you can store all your skis, boots, coats, snowshoes and ski bags. This is the easiest way to control the disaster that is a group of children or teens coming in, dropping clothes and equipment all over the house. Tiling the floor in this area is a most, this will allow easy clean up of melting snow and give the floor the durability to withstand ski boots pounding on top of it.
Every ski chalet should have a garage where you can store snowmobiles and any other equipment that you don’t use during certain seasons. A lot of ski chalets are used as summer homes when the family likes to go mountain biking, hiking or wants to just to be part of nature. Bikes take a lot of room and need to be properly stored during the winter. With so many different winter sports now a days you really need to have a lot of storage for equipment and the best way to do that is with a properly organized garage.
If you are looking to build a chalet that doesn’t need a lot maintenance then having a steel roof installed is a great way to inshore you wouldn’t be hiring anyone to climb up on your roof to shovel it off after a heavy snow fall. Steel roofs are great at shedding snow and ice. Steel roofs also will last the life time of the home. Steel roofs now have a colour warranty that is 50 years insuring you won’t ever have to repaint.
If you want a true ski chalet then you should think about adding two things;
1. A hot tub. Every ski chalet needs a hot tub. The hot tub should be placed close enough to the chalet so that you can walk out a door and get in the tub. Remember some poor person is going to have to go out there and shovel the snow off the top and create a walking path.
2. A sauna. You need a sauna in your chalet. This is a great thing for people to relax in, especially if the weather is too ugly for you to get to the hot tub. A sauna does not take up a lot of room; it can be built in a corner of the house or in the garage. In house saunas are a lot safer than they used to be and if they are built properly you should not have to worry about moisture penetrating the rest of the house.
With modern insulation and modern heating, having a chalet that you leave and come back to without having to adjust the heat is now the norm. With modern chalets, you use them the same way that you use your house at home. You leave the water and the heat on so that when you return next weekend it is ready to go.
A lot of people are building there chalets with an eye to making it there retirement home. If this is the case then you should make the floor plan in a way that you can comfortably live in it full time. Just because it will be your retirement home one day doesn’t mean that you have to spend a lot of money on fixtures now. If you don’t plan to retire into the home for 10 or more years then I recommend that you don’t spend a lot of money on the fixtures. With wear and tear and changing trends most houses should be renovated every 15 to 20 years. This means that when it’s time for you to retire you should do some minor cosmetic renovations, like changing taps, upgrading counter tops and painting. This will give your chalet a homier feel and allow you to move into your home without dealing with the dust and debris of renovations later on.
Remember that when you are planning to build a chalet you should plan the building around having fun with family and friends, this will allow you to enjoy it to its full potential.
If you are thinking about building a chalet feel free to check out some of the chalets that we have built at www.villagebuilders.ca. If you need an estimate on your upcoming chalet project please email me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

Pre planning your custom home project can save you time, money and stress

Pre-planning for your custom home will save you time, money and stress during the build

When you start the process of getting a custom home built, you should take the time to make as many decisions about the house as you can before you even start constructing it.

Once you have had the plans drawn, you should work with a designer on what you want the interior and exterior of the house to look like. If you can manage it, you should even have the interior paint colours chosen before your contractor breaks down the price of the project. If you make these decisions then this will free you up to make a lot of the choices that come up when you are building a house.

Choosing everything that you need and want in your home does a couple of things;

·         It allows you to enjoy the building process, instead of being overloaded with decisions during the build.

·         It allows you to make smarter decisions when unexpected things come up that you didn’t foresee.

·         It allows you to set and follow a budget.

·         It allows you to consider upgrades, comparing them to the budget and the existing choices.

·         It allows the general contractor to build your home quicker because they don’t have to wait for you to make decisions that slow the build process done. It also allows the builder to pre-order things that might save you money compared to ordering at the last minute.

·         When you make decisions under pressure, you run the risk of making a snap decision that you will regret later.

·         It allows the builder to source out the proper trades for special installation.

·         It allows the builder to turn the house over to the homeowner completed with all the finishing’s and fixtures hung, instead of homeowners moving in and then shopping around for some light fixtures and paint colours. There is always an added expensive if trades have to come back after the homeowner’s furniture is in the house. Special things have to be done to help protect the homeowner’s things and that takes time and time costs money.

If you find a designer that you can work with, this can make everything run smoother. Think of the designer as management for you. Then the builder calls the designer first with questions, leaving you to focus on what the designer wants you to focus on.

Remember that building a custom home will be the most expensive investment that you ever make in your life, especially if you want it to be your retirement home. With the cost comes stress. Stress muddles the decision making ability of most people. So the more choices that you make before that stressor of the house being constructed happens, the better your decisions will end up being.

So find a builder that you can do a lot of pre planning with and a designer that can help you with the style choices of your future home. Remember the more planning you do now, the less stress you will have during the building process.

If you are looking for a builder or an interior designer feel free to contact me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca or check out our website at www.villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc.

Custom homes: some do's and don't when designing and building your home

Some do’s and don’ts when building and designing your custom home

Don’t make the mistake of designing your new home around your existing furniture.

Many people these days make the mistake of designing their new home around there existing furniture, instead of designing the furniture around there new home. I have witnessed people spend thousands and thousands of dollars having plans redrawn and buildings changed when they are being framed so that their existing furniture will fit. This is people not seeing the forest for the trees. You’re building your dream home so that you can live in it for the next 30 to 40 years. Your furniture usually will not last that long. With changing trends and with overall wear on furniture items it doesn’t make sense to spend any extra money when the house is destined to outlast the furniture. Especially these days when there is countless custom furniture makers that can make you whatever you want if you can’t find it at a normal retail outlet.

Don’t micro manage a custom home build when you have a contractor. If you did your proper research and due diligence on your contractor then they are the right company for the job. They do not require you helping them organizing things. They need you to make decisions on a timely manner and pay your bill when asked. As long as you’re happy with the quality of their work then they really don’t require you to show up on the job site everyday to oversee them. This can be a major distraction for the employee’s working on the project; it can actually cost you money because you could slow them down. Most foremen on projects have been trained to stay with the client the whole time that they are on the site. This is so that the foremen can answer any questions the client might have and it is also a safety issue. Construction sites can be very dangerous places when you don’t understand what is going on. You can not only put yourself in danger but the workers too who have to keep an eye out in relation to where you’re standing.

Don’t assume that the contractor knows everything that you are thinking about. Make sure to ask questions. Questions are what contractors like, they would rather you asked a question when you don’t know something, then having you make an assumptions that could be wrong. Good contractors will strive to educate their clients, the more the client learns about how their house is put together the easier the building process becomes on the homeowner and on the contractor.

Don’t always settle for the normal product. In today’s fast evolving construction world you need a contractor that is comfortable using new products that they deem worthy of your project. If you want to build the walls out of concrete instead of wood, find a contractor that is comfortable doing that. If you want bamboo floors instead of North American hardwood then you should be able to work with the builder to find the right kind of bamboo. As long as you understand that sometimes the materials you want can take longer to get and might cost you more money then you first budgeted then you should be able to have it.

Do try to hire a contractor that has an interior designer on staff. If you unable to do this then hire an interior designer that you believe can work with you and the contractor. This can be very important because it can take people months to pick plumbing fixtures. Without someone to help weed out what you do not need or want in your house you can end up lost in the plumbing fixture world not knowing what you should choose. Also your interior designer should know the boundaries of what she has been hired to do. A lot of interior designers believe that once they have been hired it is there job to manage or oversee the project. This can cause major problems with contractor. I have seen the interior designer make major changes to the house that cause the home owner thousands of dollars just so that they can put their personnel stamp on the project. You have to make sure that when hiring a designer that you define the parameters of what they are being hired to assist upon.

Do make sure that you have a financial budget that reflects what you can afford. A good contractor will present you with either a bid or a budget for the project, but that doesn’t mean this will be the total cost of your project. There are a lot of factors that come into a major renovation or home building project, factors that the builder will not be able to foresee. So there will be extra’s depending on certain things like ground condition and design flaws. Also its human nature to change things, so when the average house build takes 8 to 12 months your mind will change on a lot of things. A lot of these things will be upgrades on what you originally choose your budget. From more expensive flooring to upgraded kitchen appliances. These chooses raise your budget from the original cost to a new higher budget. You do not want to end up in the situation where you can’t afford to finish the house because you didn’t borrow enough money.

Don’t get over focused on one part of the house to the point of down grading the rest of the house. If you are solely focused on having high end finishes in your house, so you down grade on the insulation and the overall construction of the house. High end finishes look nice but if you cheapen out on everything else like the insulation, heating system, windows and exterior finishing’s your house will not look that good after a few years. Also you will have higher maintenance costs and heating and cooling costs that could add up to massive amounts of money over time. It also will affect the resale value of your house in the future. Especially in a world where energy costs keep going up and up. Make sure that you balance your budget so that you get a house that you can save you money in the future. It’s easier to upgrade the finishes later. It’s not easy to upgrade the insulation in the walls later.

 Don’t get caught in the cycle of keeping up with the neighbours. If the neighbours build a house that is 4000 sqft that doesn’t mean that you have to build a house that is 5000 sqft. Many a person have ended up house rich and cash poor because they convinced themselves that they needed to keep up with the neighbours or friends. A lot of people end up with overly large houses and can’t afford to finish the house inside to what it deserves. If you want to spend a million dollars on a house you don’t have to build a 5000 sqft house. You should be looking at what you want to pay per sqft that will tell you what size of house you have to build. If you want an amazing house with the most expensive of everything you could end up spending 400sqft! That means that your million dollars only builds you a 2500 sqft house. So figure out what you want in the house and then you can figure out how big the house should be.

These are just some helpful  do’s and don’ts to help people and their contractors get you what you really want, your dream home!

If you are looking for a contractor or want to see what we do at Village Builders Inc then go to www.villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village builders Inc.