Lenny | Colony Home Improvement

Add functional space to your home when adding a sunroom.

What to Consider Before Adding a Sunroom in Eastern MA

March 3, 20160

If you’ve ever wished you could bring the outdoors into your home and enjoy sunlight and the sights of nature year-round, you can! Adding a sunroom in eastern MA allows you to enjoy the serenity of nature, even on days when the mercury dips into the single digits. A bright sunroom can be a cozy spot to curl up with a good book or the ideal spot for an inspiring home office. Before you begin looking for a home improvement contractor to tackle your sunroom addition in Dover, MA, there are a few decisions you should make.

Is It Allowed?

Before proceeding with any construction project, check your plat to see if you are subject to setback or easement restrictions. If you live in a historical district or HOA community, find out if your sunroom design plans need to be approved before you proceed.

Where Should It Be Located?

Living in Massachusetts, we often deal with frigid winter temperatures but rarely experience oppressive, unrelentingly hot summers. A southern exposure makes the most sense for a Massachusetts sunroom. Building your sunroom with southern exposure will maximize the amount of sunlight the room will receive each day and help heat it in winter.

Add value to your home with a sunroom addition.

A sunroom addition can add value to your home.

What Should It be Constructed Of?

It’s not possible to build a room entirely of glass so you will need to decide which material you’d like to use for the sunroom’s supports, which are the components that will connect the windows in your “room of glass.” Vinyl, aluminum and wood are all options. Supports with vinyl exteriors covering internal metal reinforcements are the affordable, lowest-maintenance and strongest option. Vinyl also is a good insulator, which can reduce your utility costs. Wood supports cost the most and requires periodic maintenance, but some people prefer that look. Aluminum costs more and doesn’t insulate as well as vinyl. However, many designers like to combine vinyl vertical supports with aluminum supports for the roof, since aluminum is stronger.

Is Your Contractor Knowledgeable and Qualified to Build a Sunroom?

When looking for a home improvement contractor for Dover and the surrounding area to build your sunroom, make sure they have built sunrooms before. Unlike adding on a regular room, a sunroom requires specialized expertise. Sunroom windows and doors are of paramount importance. A builder with experience with sunrooms will know it’s usually best to choose windows and doors with durable roller wheels on stainless-steel tracks. The last thing you want is for your doors and windows in your door-and-window-filled room to stick. Additionally, contractors knowledgeable about sunrooms will know whether a sunroom’s design will be best served by using surface-mounted electrical boxes and conduits to run wires and mount outlets or by using electrical raceways instead.

Once you’ve done your homework to make sure you’re allowed to build a sunroom and have a general idea of what you want it to look like and where you want it built, it’s time to find a skilled contractor. Colony Home Improvement has extensive expertise building sunrooms, as well as all kinds of beautiful home additions. Contact us! We’d be happy to look at your space and provide you with a free estimate.

Talk to your home improvement contractor about kitchen islands.

home additions, kitchen remodeling

Should Your Eastern MA Home Improvement Contractor Build an Island in Your New Kitchen?

March 1, 20160

Depending on how you use your kitchen, adding an island can offer many advantages. This holds true for both large and small kitchens, something you may want to consider when planning a Westwood, MA, kitchen remodel. An island can add style, functionality and valuable storage space to your kitchen. When you have an expert in kitchen remodeling and room addition in Westwood build an island for your new kitchen, you can design it to meet your specific kitchen needs.

Increase Space in a Small Kitchen

In a small kitchen, the shape of the room makes a major difference in whether an island will work for you. In a narrow kitchen, it may not be your best option. However, having your eastern MA home improvement contractor add an island to a small square or not so narrow, rectangular kitchen can significantly increase the available floor and storage space.

Choose an island that can serve as a streamlined dining area, with stools that tuck under the edge when not in use, and you can eliminate the kitchen table and chairs. An island with custom designed drawers and shelves can expand your available storage space and serve as valuable counter space. Add electric outlets to it so you can use that additional counter space as a work station when running mixers, blenders and other small kitchen appliances.

Consider an island for your kitchen remodel.

A kitchen island is a great kitchen remodel idea.

Reduce Steps in a Large Kitchen

Many of the advantages of a large kitchen lie in space. There’s plenty of space for storage, food preparation, cooking and family dining. In many homes, a large kitchen is often the social center of the home. It’s where the children do their homework and where friends gather to chat over coffee. However, there can be a downside to all that space for a person preparing and cleaning up after family meals on a daily basis. It can take a lot of footsteps to complete those daily tasks.

Talk to your Westwood, MA, kitchen remodel expert about the ways a custom designed kitchen island can help reduce steps in a large kitchen. An island can create that magic kitchen triangle that makes food prep and cooking so much easier by putting everything you need to perform those tasks within a few short steps. For people who use their kitchens for serious, daily cooking, that can make a major difference in their kitchen use experience.

There are numerous options to consider when planning a labor-saving kitchen island. You could add a sink especially for food preparation needs or a stove top. Talk to your contractor and design the specific type of kitchen work station you want according to the way you work, how you’d like to see your kitchen space function and how you’d like the working and social spaces of your kitchen divided.

Tips for Keeping Your Southeastern MA Home Addition Construction on Time & on Track

February 25, 20160

Keep your home additions on the right track.

Home additions can easily get off track.

It takes a lot of planning and preparation for a home addition to proceed smoothly from start to finish. Most project delays can be traced back in one way or another to a fault in planning. Weston home additions are far more likely to go according to plan, starting and finishing on time, when you start with a plan, not disorganized scribbling on scraps of paper, but well thought out, detailed plans for the addition, project funding, building permits, paperwork and materials, and the flow of work, from start date to end date.

Planning the Addition

Countless decisions are involved in the creation of custom built floor plans in Weston. Smart planners don’t just plan how space will be used today, but also for how it may be used in the future. An addition slated to be a rec room today may house aged parents tomorrow. It makes sense to design today’s addition with that eventuality in mind, such as planning wide walker and wheelchair accessible doorways and a bathroom spacious enough for someone using mobility equipment to maneuver comfortably.

You lose time if work has to come to a stop while you decide between ceramic tiles and wood floors or whether you want a door to open inward or outward. Changing your mind disrupts progress as well, especially if you do it multiple times. If you want your home addition finished by its projected end date, complete your final version of the plans well before the purchase of construction materials.

Learn how custom built floor plans can finish on time.

Keep your custom built floor plans on track and on time.

Make Sure Funds Are in Place

Increase the probability of the project being completed on time by avoiding last-minute financial wrangling over loans and other money matters, a common source of construction delays. A well planned project has the funding in place prior to engaging contractors and is prepared to sign contracts, make financial agreements and to schedule payments as needed.

It’s natural to be in a hurry to get your southeastern MA home addition started, but it is better to wait to begin building until after all funding is secure. This reduces the chance there will be a work delay while you work feverishly to raise money to pay for more materials or because construction had to halt because a financing deal fell through.

Preparing for the Start Date

Make sure you are clear on what tasks you are responsible for and what tasks the contractors will handle. Permit applications must be turned in on time because work can’t start until they are approved and at the work site. Materials need to be ordered early enough for an on-time delivery. Prior to the start date, your local southeastern MA home addition expert will have a detailed work flow plan ready for review. Talk to your contractor daily so you know how close the work is running to schedule.

Benefits of Natural Lighting for Your Custom Built Room Addition in Scituate

February 23, 20160

Natural light is important when you design your own home.

When you design your own home, natural lighting can help.

Natural lighting holds many benefits, not just in terms of interior design and reduced energy consumption, but also in terms of health. If you are planning to adding to your home in Scituate, you may want to consider ways of maximizing the amount of natural lighting brought into your home. Window placement and style can bring sunlight to just about any room addition or room improvement project in your home.

Practical Value

Making sure your custom room addition plans in Scituate allow your home to be filled with natural light has practical value. With natural lighting, you use less electricity, which saves money on your monthly utility bill. Skylights can bring sunlight into your home in ways windows can’t. Use smaller windows to bring natural light into closets and pantries so you can keep the lights off. Window installation and placement can stylishly brighten hallways and foyers.

However, reducing electric light use isn’t the only way natural lighting can reduce your energy costs. You can position your home and windows to use the sun’s heat instead of your utility company’s to meet a major portion of your winter heating needs. A passive solar system design features a lot of south-facing glazed windows to collect the heat of the sun during winter. Precisely measured and positioned overhangs on those southern windows help prevent too much sun from coming through during the summer months. That could cause the home to overheat, and the cooling system to work too hard.

Talk to your local southeastern MA premier home remodeling and additions specialist for ideas on how to incorporate this type of solar planning into your custom home design. You may even want to consider going all the way, completing your passive solar system with a heat absorbing thermal mass to enable you to gain even more utility cost-cutting benefits from the sun.

Use natural light in your custom built room addition.

A custom built room addition requires natural light.

Natural Light Is Healthier

Numerous studies during the past decade have confirmed natural light holds benefits for health. Natural light is important for proper eye growth and development. Too little exposure to sunlight can contribute to the development of vision problems in children. Spending three hours a day in natural light can reduce the risk of children becoming nearsighted. Separate studies in different countries found bringing natural lighting into work sites and schools improved productivity rates for both adults and children. Spending time in sunlight during the day can yield longer, deeper sleep at night and can improve cognitive function and mood.

Plan to Benefit

When you design your own home in Scituate, plan your windows carefully, positioning them so you can maximize the health and energy benefits natural lighting has to offer. Talk to a southeastern MA premier home remodeling and additions expert who uses 3D design technology to help you experiment with window placement until you find an attractive arrangement that yields the amount of sunlight you want throughout the day.

Use These Design Tips to Decorate Small Rooms in Your MA Home

February 18, 20160

Decorate smaller rooms in your custom built floor plans.

Do your custom built floor plans include smaller rooms?

Smaller living has become trendy and stylish. The tiny house and smaller living movements have produced a veritable wealth of design tips to make your small rooms fabulous. The use of light, color, illusion and scale can make small rooms look and feel bigger than they are. Your eastern MA premier home remodeling experts can add custom designed built-in features to enhance that sense of space a well decorated small room has.

Windows and Lighting

If your small room looks out on the yard or has a nice view, you may want to talk to contractors for home additions in Needham and the surrounding areas about replacing the room’s windows with larger ones. The big windows will open up the space, and the natural lighting is the right kind of lighting for a small room. When lighting a room of this size, avoid dark corners, which will make the room look small and dim. However, the lighting shouldn’t be harsh, stark, operating-room bright either. Accentuate the vertical line and draw the eyes upward for that sense of spaciousness by choosing pale, sheer curtains for the windows, hanging them from the ceiling instead of using standard curtain rod placement.

Scale Down

Avoid over-stuffed, large furniture like the standard sized living room couch or stuffed chair. Instead, use smaller scale items, such as a fainting couch or an airy vintage or reproduction love seat with gleaming blonde wood and richly colored seat cushions. Try delicate, almost spindly side tables in a light wood or skip the wood and go with glass to reflect light. For a bedroom, consider a brass day bed or a foldable futon. If remodeling a small bedroom, another option to think about is custom built floor plans in Needham featuring a stylish Murphy bed.

Decorate small rooms with the help of contractors for home additions.

Contractors for home additions can help you decorate small rooms.

Create Space With Color

Avoid dark, deep colors except as high-contrast accents or to add a touch of warmth to a cool color atmosphere. Use these colors with a light hand and, with rare exceptions, keep them in the lower half of the available vertical space so they don’t break the eyes’ upward sweep and mar the illusion of height and space. A pale, monochromatic color scheme is another way to use color to create a feeling of openness.

Clutter Can Be Suffocating

The elegance of simplicity is an excellent concept to bear in mind when decorating a small room. Ideally, the space can be meticulously planned and created from custom built floor plans in Needham. This keeps things out of sight in custom designed, almost invisible storage spaces, leaving clean lines and open space broken by just a few carefully chosen objets d’art. Less is more is another important phrase for small room decorating. Arrange fewer pieces of furniture in the room, rather than crowding the room with many pieces.

Author: Lenny