Where do you find a good kitchen design?

Where to find a good kitchen design

One of the most important area’s in your home is your kitchen not just for the functionality of the home but also for the eventual resale of it in the future.

To maximize the value of your home a proper kitchen renovation must be completed, to achieve a stylish and functional kitchen you will need a professional to lay the room out.

I’m talking about hiring an interior designer to design your new kitchen. Interior designers are true professionals that have years of experience in designing spaces in many different types of homes for many different people who have many different needs and wants.

It’s one thing to renovate your kitchen with new cabinets and appliances it’s a completely different one to have your kitchen function well, look correct and also fit your personal style.

An ill planned kitchen renovation will show not only in the amount of the final cost but also with the fit and finish in the kitchen. Interior designers today are able to draw everything on computers allowing you to be able to walk through your new kitchen virtually before you ever sign off on the final layouts.

New design software allows designers to place not only cabinets and appliances but also lighting so that one plan is able to do everything for all the trades that will be involved in the project. The lighting is particularly interesting as it lights up an area just like a real light would allowing you to see the area's where there are dark spot in your kitchen or area’s where you want a little more light to do food preparation.

As interior designers are extremely knowledge in all aspects of lighting and furniture you can also get them to source and purchase the lighting and furniture that will fit correctly in your new kitchen. This saves you the time of having to go out and find it yourself and a lot of interior designers are able to extend their professional discounts to you basically paying for their own time in the money that they save you on the fixtures.

I have learned a lot from the interior designer that we have worked with for the past 4 or 5 years. It’s amazing how easy they make the layout and design of kitchen spaces.

Hire a professional interior designer and you won’t be disappointed.


Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

Do you want your house to look like it should be in a magazine?

Do you want your house to look like it should be in a magazine?

If your answer is yes, then there is a simple answer to your problem, hire an interior designer. There are a lot of reasons why you should hire an interior designer, here are just a few;

• The homes in the magazines where all designed by interior designers. If you want your house to look like that then you need the same kind of professional that can give you what you want.
• They have the experience to help the project move along and know where to find certain things that help take a normal room into something with a “wow” factor.
• They will help free up your time to do other things that you should be doing instead of shopping for curtains and lamps.
• They receive really good discounts on all manner of things, from door hardware to furniture and even paint.
• They can communicate directly with the contractor so that you are not bothered with every little decision.
• They are able to keep every room in a theme or a mixing of themes so that each room doesn’t clash or run together.
• They will help stage your home giving it that magazine feel at the end of the project, helping you fall completely in love with your home renovation.
• They can do detailed drawings, allowing you to see what you are getting before you have to pay for it. This also helps the contractor and sub trades to give you what exactly you want and a proper quote on it as well.
• They can help you stay on budget with suggestions on how to reduce costs or alternatives to help you spend more on one thing and less on another.
• They will help you identify new and upcoming trends so that you are able to keep your home current, which can also help your property value if you are thinking of selling.

So the next time you are looking through a magazine and are wondering if your home can ever look like that, remember that all it will take is the help of an interior designer.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

Renovating in Creemore

Renovating in Creemore

If you’re planning to renovate your home in the Creemore area you have chosen a wonderful place to invest your money and your time. Any upgrades you do to your home here will give an immediate return on your investment. Creemore has become one of the premier places to own a home or cottage in all of Ontario.

Since you’re planning to spend your hard earned money on your home then you should be doing it the right way. You should do it in a way that will give you the maximum return on your investment and it should turn out to be the home you always wanted. The worst feeling in the world is when you have spent thousands of dollars on renovations and at the end of the project it turns out not to look like what you had envisioned in your mind.

There are ways to avoid this happening to you. The most important thing you can do is hire a professional to do your renovating, a professional that has the experience to do your job in the high quality that you expect.

Here are some things that you should be looking for when you are going to hire a renovator;

·         Insurance. This might sound like an obvious thing that your renovator will have insurance, but it’s not as simple as you think. You need to make sure that they have the right insurance and the proper amount. What I mean by the right insurance is that they need insurance depending on what they are doing in your home. If they are renovating a bathroom and you are still going to be living in the house then that insurance needs to reflect that the homeowner is living on the property. The right amount of insurance is extremely important, if the renovator has a million dollars in insurance that’s sounds like a lot until you find out that your house and all its contents are worth 1.5 million to replace. If the worst happens you want to be able to have all your possessions replaced and your house rebuilt.

·         References. The builder/renovator should be able to give you a list of renovations that they have done in the area and the email or phone numbers of the homeowners so that you can call to ask them how the project turned out.

·         Quality. Ask around the area and find out what type of renovations that they do. You do not want to hire a contractor that has no experience doing high end renovations. A contractor might mean well but if they have never done a certain type of work they may become overwhelmed.

·         Ask a lot of questions. A renovator that has nothing to hide will welcome your questions. Ask about what they think of what you plan to do, do they have any suggestions that would make the job turn out better? Ask them how they are going to protect your property while their working around it. Ask them how they are going to control dust, dirt and debris.

·         Get a proper quote. Get the quote in writing. Any contractor that is a true professional will give you a written quote that states clearly what you are getting in the renovation and what you are not.

·         Designs. Find out if they do design and what is the charge for design. Try to find a renovator that has an on staff designer or works closely with a local designer. This is one of the most important aspects of renovating. If you can get the drawings done by the builder then you will be able to see exactly what you are getting. This will allow you to work with the designer to make changes before you even start. Every time you change something in a renovation after the renovation has already started it cost money. But if you can get drawings and make your changes before the builder even starts then you can reduce or eliminate that extra cost.

This is the single biggest way to ensure that you get the maximum return on your investment. A designer turns a simple renovation into a work of art, like what you see in magazines. Designers are able to give you that wow factor that everyone wants and most people don’t know how to get.

·         Schedule. Ask when they can start, when they will be finished and when do you as the homeowner need to be there to make decisions. If this is your cottage or second home and you are not going to be around all the time you will want to know when you need to be there. Or when you need to make important decisions like the choosing of fixtures, layouts and colours. A lot of this can be done over the phone or via email, but there are times when you simply have to be there to understand some of the choices that you are being asked to make.

·         Hire a contractor that can communicate in the modern world. A lot of older contractors do not like cell phones and do not use email. You want to be able to communicate with your contractor easily. In today’s world it’s not wrong to ask for a contractor that can communicate with the convenience that you are used too.

·         Hire a contractor that has a support team. A professional renovating contractor will have employees. You want to be able to call them and be able to talk to someone. No matter if it’s the operations manager, the owner or a secretary you want to hire a contractor professional with a support staff.

·         Hire someone that you are comfortable with being in your home alone without you. This contractor is going to be in your house alone without you more then he will be in your home with you. You need to be able to trust them and the sub trades that they are going to bring in to your home.

When you are planning to renovate in the Creemore area and you follow the points that I have laid out in this article you should come and check out Village Builders.

We are at 3 Caroline St. East in the village of Creemore. Check us out at www.villagebuilders.ca

If you are thinking about renovating and are looking for a builder or if you are just looking for a designer feel free to 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.

Why can't my house look like a magazine!

A question women ask us all the time is “why can't my house look like the one in the magazines!”

It's a good question, one I have wondered over the years. That was until I talked to our Interior Designer. She would have a client hand her a picture or pictures from a magazine and they would say “I really like that room”. She would reply “do you like everything in the picture, the lamps, the sheets, the colours, the window treatments?”. If the answer was yes then the only other question she would ask would be “what's your budget?”.

An Interior Designer won't just design you a wonderful environment, she will actually go and source all the products from lamps right down to the furniture. With your approval she'll purchase and have delivered all the items to finish off your space. Then when you walk in after the room is completed you'll feel like you walked right into the magazine.

The realization you need to come too is that it saves you money to pay someone to shop for you.

A well qualified designer will save you money by being able to buy from wholesalers and receive good discounts from stores.

I have witnessed home owners spent weeks looking for flooring, plumbing and lighting fixtures. I have seen a whole custom home project worth a million dollars shut down because the home owner thought that they could save money by finding there own fixtures and not have to pay for a designer.

I have had home owners admit that they really don't like the things they chose after the project is completed, they gave up looking because they ran out of time and energy.

So after all the money, time and stress of going through hiring a contractor, opening your home up to strangers you come away unsatisfied because you didn't find what you wanted to finish the space off to your taste and standards.

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc.