Lenny | Colony Home Improvement

2016 Trends for Your Eastern MA Bathroom Remodel

January 12, 20160

Bathroom remodel trends include bright colors.

Vibrant colors are part of bathroom remodel trends.

The top real estate agents and leading Massachusetts premier home remodeling and additions experts agree: a stylishly remodeled bathroom can add value to a home. The coming year is full of exciting eastern MA bathroom remodel trends sure to enhance appeal and functionality, part of a larger trend of stay-cations and joyful home living.

These remodels can transform a room often thought of in rather utilitarian terms into a restorative experience, a space that appeals to the senses and eases away the stress of the day. No wonder experts find remodeling a bathroom can be a boon to home price. A custom built floor plan in Scituate and the surrounding areas can easily incorporate these 2016 bathroom trends.

Vibrant Colors

Rich, vibrant colors with depth and fullness are among the leading eastern MA bathroom remodel trends. Pink has made a strong return to the bathroom color scheme and in large doses. Bold and bright or delicate and feminine, you are going to see a lot of it in 2016. However, it isn’t just pink taking a starring role in bathroom remodeling. Warm, deep hues like earthy browns and autumn wines are also taking the stage.

Metallic Shimmer

In 2016, bathroom metals will shimmer more than gleam, offering richer color tones than shining, gleaming highly polished stainless steel can. Burnished bronze and slightly aged copper are among the top trends for bathrooms in the coming year. You’ll find luxury bathroom fixtures, including over-sized shower heads and smart faucets, available in these stylish metals. These metal fixtures will be gorgeous for years to come and are well worth considering for your eastern MA bathroom remodel.

Include a bathroom remodel in your custom built floor plan.

Your custom built floor plan should include a bathroom remodel.

Crisp Lines

Bold colors are well complemented by crisp lines. Geometric tiles, sharp color divides and a clutter-free minimalist approach are all trending this year. Not everybody is ready for bold colors, but bright isn’t the only color option. Over-sized while tiles have garnered a great deal of attention, as much for their ease of cleaning as for their visual appeal.

Out-of-sight storage is big this year, creating tranquil, clean spaces. If you’re considering a custom built floor plan in Scituate and the surrounding areas, consider maximizing your available storage space before finalizing those plans. It’s not just an issue of style, but of practicality as well. As most Massachusetts premier home remodeling and additions experts can attest, it’s rare to hear someone complain they have too much storage space.

Living Greenery

Whether a full-out, carefully planned indoor garden or a few well placed potted plants, living greenery is an important 2016 bathroom design trend. Plants are being used as a main feature and a fashionable accent in a vast array of bathroom styles, from gorgeously retro and vintage bathroom designs to those that are up-to-the-minute modern. Built-in niches for plants designed for water access and ease of care are a part of this trend you may want to include in a custom built floor plan in Scituate and the surrounding areas.

Thinking about updating your bathroom in the new year? Contact us to find out how we can use these trends to transform your bathroom during your next home remodel.

Upgrades to Consider When Building Your Custom Home in Westwood, MA

January 7, 20160

Find out how to protect your home from contractors for room additions.

Contractors for room additions can protect your home.

With a few upgrades to your custom built home plans in eastern MA, you can easily take that new home to the next level of style while making it simpler to maintain. Ease of maintenance will save you time and money over the long-term. Experienced contractors for room additions in Westwood and the surrounding areas can offer smart design tips that can help preserve the beauty of your home for years to come.

Style and Ease

Upgrading kitchen countertops is a common custom home improvement. The added durability of using granite over lesser materials can keep a well-used kitchen from showing signs of wear for longer. Since cooking can get messy, upgrading your kitchen to include high-quality, easy-to-clean backsplashes just makes sense. In addition to protecting the wall behind working and cooking areas, a custom backsplash design can serve as a gorgeous style accent to the overall look of your kitchen.

Adding wainscoting to kitchen and dining areas is another way to beautify and protect your walls. Bathrooms and living rooms can also be well served by adding this feature. This design style works well with wallpaper and paint, complementing the look of a room while preserving areas vulnerable to wear and tear. That’s always a consideration when raising children, when grandchildren are frequent visitors and in homes with pets.

Relax and Enjoy

When making custom built home plans in eastern MA, consider upgrading to enhance your outdoor living space with gorgeous, sweeping porches and wide decks. Custom designed to complement and accentuate the style of your home while expanding your living area, these outdoor spaces can be ideal for summer entertaining. There’s a lot to be said for having plenty of room to relax outside and enjoy a summer supper dining on a screened-in deck or tea on the porch on a colorful autumn afternoon.

Include unique touches with custom built home plans.

Custom built home plans should include unique touches.

Plan to Protect

Custom built home plans in eastern MA should always take into account the wet springs and the snow characteristic of the climate in this region. A mudroom is a practical addition that can help prevent mud and snow from being tracked into the house. Plan that messy weather buffer zone for ease of use and with winter gear in mind.

You’ll want a comfortable place to sit down to take boots and shoes on and off. You’ll also want a place for damp hats, coats and gloves, as well as closet space for storing those things when not in use. Consider a passive solar design when planning window size and placement to take advantage of the heat of the sun during the seasons you’ll need it.

Whether you are planning a big project like a custom home or talking to a contractors for room additions in Westwood and the surrounding areas, think about your high-risk zones and how to protect them. Stylish upgrades with an eye toward preserving and protecting the look and function of your home can yield higher home value and save on long-term maintenance costs.

Contact us to learn more about custom home upgrades that offer lasting style and function. With 40 years of experience designing and building homes in this region, we can serve a valuable role in your custom home planning process. Ask about our 3D custom plans that allow you to fully visualize how your dream home will look.

2016 Kitchen Trends for Your Custom Built Southeastern MA Home

January 5, 20160

Include a new kitchen in premier home remodeling and additions.

Premier home remodeling and additions can include a new kitchen.

If you’re planning a kitchen for a custom built southeastern MA home, you’ll want to see these 2016 kitchen trends before you make any final design decisions. Fashion forward kitchen trends include an eclectic blend of vintage styles and objects with clean, ultra-modern lines, use mixed textures and focus on incorporating warmer metal tones. New dimensions of grays, rich retro hues and crisp contrasts are some of the most important 2016 kitchen color trends. It’s a great year for designing a new kitchen with southeastern MA premier home remodeling and additions experts.

Sleek Modern Colors

Perhaps the better way to describe the trend is a lack of color, a dialing back from the richly hued kitchens featured in many custom built floor plans in Needham and the surrounding towns. Black and white are popular color schemes, but shades of gray have become particularly trendy recently as well. Instead of a monochromatic look, many creating custom built southeastern MA home plans are choosing to blend varying shades of this neutral color.

Naturally, everybody isn’t ready to jump on the no color bandwagon. For those who enjoy rich colors, there are some gorgeous retro hues making a grand comeback. One of the most eye-catching of these is a rich peacock blue, a shade with depth and a feel of luxury about it. Use it as an accent or be adventurous and choose it as a bold statement.

Consider a retro look for custom built homes.

Retro meets modern in custom built homes.

Old-School Goes Ultra-Modern

Shaker furniture and cabinetry has long been appreciated for its clean, simple lines. That’s why Shaker cabinets have found a new niche – the ultra-modern kitchen. Today, they’re likely to be painted, often white, but increasingly gray or that combination of gray and beige that some have taken to calling “greige.”

Another way classic Shaker style cabinetry is being used in the modern kitchen is instead of the traditional vertical rectangle cabinet placement, many are placing the length of the rectangle horizontally. This is sometimes used to accentuate long, sleek lines, drawing the eye across a long parallel. Ask your southeastern MA premier home remodeling and additions expert if your Shaker style cabinets can be revamped with a modern new look.

Also an important trend for the coming year is accenting cool, almost monochrome color palettes and sleek lines with the occasional and brightly colored, curvy vintage item. This isn’t one to overdo; just a few items are all you need. A brick red bread box from the 1930s or 40s, a brightly colored retro-look stand mixer or a bit of carnival glass is just enough vibrancy to set off the near-absence of color perfectly.

New Choices for Sinks and Counters

Because of their classic style and durability, it will be quite a while before custom built southeastern MA home plans see granite displaced from kitchen counters. In fact, granite is also making its way to kitchen sinks. However, quartz is picking up speed as a trendy choice for kitchen counters. There’s a movement away from the dual sinks towards large, deep single sinks. Aside from granite sinks, 2016 will also see a resurgence of the classic cast iron sinks of yesteryear and some fascinating, durable resin and stone blends.

Contact us, your local southeastern MA premier home remodeling and additions experts, about how to bring your kitchen into 2016 gorgeously.

Eastern MA Home Improvement Contractors Can Update and Modernize an Older Home

December 29, 20150

Raise ceilings with the help of a home improvement contractor.

A home improvement contractor may be able to help raise the ceilings.

If you’re considering the purchase of an older home, you may turn away from a potentially wonderful house on a beautiful lot simply because the house has only one bathroom. Perhaps you want to stay in your existing home but long for a modern, updated kitchen.

There are many possibilities to explore for modernizing an older home that are affordable and can make a world of difference. An eastern MA home improvement contractor knows how to bring an older home into the 21st century. Here are just some of the ways they can help you with this project.

Raise the Ceiling

Most older homes have eight foot ceilings, which can feel oppressive. A high, vaulted ceiling greatly opens up a living area. Even older ranch style homes can benefit from a heightened ceiling, which, in many cases, can be raised up to six feet.

Take Down Walls

Older homes tend to have many separate rooms that can look and feel boxy. Many contractors who specialize in Massachusetts premier home remodeling and additions have transformed an older home simply by knocking out the wall between the living room and dining room. This can provide a wonderful great room and give a more expansive feel to your home. Even the removal of part of a wall or a half wall between the kitchen and dining room will create a better flow and make your home feel more open.

Revamp the Kitchen

It may surprise you to learn how affordable a kitchen remodel can be. Installing new cabinets or painting existing ones is a great way to update an old kitchen, along with adding a tile back splash. Tearing out worn linoleum and adding tile or wood floors is another great option. Replacing your old appliances with new, energy-efficient models is another good investment to consider.

Talk to your home improvement contractors about wood floors.

Home improvement contractors can install wood floors.

Expand or Add a Bathroom

Many older homes have one bathroom. The addition of a second bathroom will not only benefit your family, but increase the value of your home. With minimal structural changes, a bathroom can be added under a staircase or in place of an existing closet. Home improvement contractors in Hingham, MA, can show you how to expand an existing bathroom or where to create a new one.

Switch to Wood Floors

There are many options for wood floors or faux wood flooring that are not only easier to keep clean than carpet, but somehow make a home seem larger. Most Massachusetts premier home remodeling and additions include new flooring as an affordable way to modernize an older home. In many cases, there is already a beautiful wood floor that just needs polishing hiding beneath old, worn out carpet.

There are endless ways you can modernize an older home. Experienced builders and home improvement contractors in Hingham, MA, can provide great remodeling options you may not have considered. Colony Home Improvement has an outstanding reputation for home remodeling and additions. Contact us today to discuss your ideas and to get a free quote.

How to Organize and Prepare for Your Southeastern MA Kitchen Remodel

December 22, 20150

Realize your dream kitchen with contractors for room additions.

Contractors for room additions can help you realize your dream.

A kitchen remodel can be an exciting project, but you also want to make sure you’re fully prepared for what lies ahead. After all, when beginning a room addition in Westwood and the surrounding areas, it’s likely you will be displaced from your usual activities and your daily routine will be a bit disrupted. Here are some suggestions to help make sure you are set for the day construction begins.

Setting Your Expectations

No matter what the scope of your kitchen remodel, ongoing communication between you and your builder or contractor is critical to the overall success of your project. Contractors for room additions in Westwood, MA, suggest you have a thorough understanding of the following points before construction begins:

Construction start and projected end date, the sequence of tasks and schedule of daily activities, as well as what time workmen will arrive and finish at the end of the day.

How to prepare the work site and how to protect other rooms and household items. How will the construction area be cordoned off and the dust contained?

How you should prepare for each phase of the project (will the power or water need to be turned off and for how long)?

Who will be the project lead to answer your questions and how often can you expect project updates? Ask for contact and after hours/emergency numbers.

Designate a folder to contain all the necessary documentation from the project, such as lien releases, marked-up plans, copies of inspection reports, operating manuals and information on how to care for new surfaces, materials and equipment.

A Little Pre-Planning

Armed with the above information, you can begin to reorder your daily activities and plan for the least amount of disruption to your life. How long will the project take? If your builder estimates one week, plan for two. Most contractors for room additions in Westwood and the surrounding area will tell you it is far better to have a backup plan in place than to be caught off guard.

How will your pets be affected? Move your pets, along with their food and water bowls, into a safe area of the house a couple of days before construction begins. If keeping your pets offsite would be best, you will need to schedule this time at a boarding facility, a friend or relative’s house.

Note any previously scheduled activities on your calendar and arrange for them to be relocated or rescheduled. It’s best not to plan your remodel before a holiday or other important events because you could be setting yourself up for stress and frustration. Keep in mind delayed arrival of materials and equipment happens frequently during remodels and may throw the entire schedule off.

Eating out, getting take-out or having meals delivered are all good options while your kitchen is out of order. You may also want to cook ahead and freeze items that can be heated up in a microwave.

Pack carefully before your kitchen remodel.

Learn to pack for your kitchen remodel.

You’ll Need a Make-Shift Kitchen

Have you ever gone camping? Preparing for a southeastern MA kitchen remodel is a little like going on a camping trip as far as food preparation is concerned. If you have a spare bedroom or other available space in your house, turn it into a temporary kitchen with the following items:

4 x 8 foot folding table for your prep area
Small microwave oven and other small appliances (coffee maker, toaster oven, etc.)
Coolers for storing orange juice, milk and other drinks
Containers to hold non-perishable food items (peanut butter, crackers, cereal)
Disposable plates, cups and utensils
Paper towels and dish rags for wiping hands

Packing

After setting up your temporary kitchen, you will want to remove everything else from the area. Pack up all items and label the boxes as you would before moving. Then store them away from the construction area.

With a little planning and preparation, your southeastern MA kitchen remodel can be a relatively painless process. Keep your eye on the prize and don’t sweat the small stuff!

If you’re still looking for the right builder for your kitchen remodel, contact us at Colony Home Improvement. We have more than 40 years of experience with room additions in Westwood and the surrounding areas.

Author: Lenny