Home Improvement Blog

Benefits of Building a Garage Apartment in Brookline, MA

February 2, 20160

Is a garage apartment part of your custom built home plans?

Custom built home plans should include a garage apartment.

Space needs often change over time, requiring residents to either upsize or downsize a home. A garage apartment can be an ideal way to meet those changing space requirements, whether you’re considering room additions in Brookline or looking to downsize. A garage apartment can be as simple or luxurious as you choose to make it. It can be designed to serve as a temporary living space, for long-term living, as a home office or as recreational space, depending on your needs.

More Living Space

Families often grow and change, sometimes in unexpected ways. A tough economy has led to an increase in the number of adult children returning to live at home after college. Sometimes young married couples return to parents’ homes while saving up to buy their own house. Perhaps it is time for an aging parent to join the household. Choosing a garage apartment over room additions in Brookline has the advantage of privacy and a greater degree of independence for the soon-to-be residents. That can make the living arrangement more comfortable for everyone involved.

Guest Quarters

A garage apartment is an excellent option for short-term or long-term guests. If you have visitors who come during the holidays or vacation season, they can enjoy the visit without the added expense of staying in a hotel. If you’re building a home, you may want to include a garage apartment in your custom built home plans in Brookline. When your in-laws come to stay or your adult children visit home with their own children, the ones you’ll want to spoil and send back to their parents, you’ll have the space you need.

Room additions can include a garage apartment.

Consider a garage apartment for your room additions.

Special Use

If you have a specific use in mind for your garage apartment addition, talk to your local southeastern MA home improvement contractor. They can help you custom design the space to create exactly what you need. For instance, if you are envisioning an art studio, sewing room or home office, natural lighting, smart space-saving storage and built-in amenities can maximize productivity and comfort.

You could use a garage apartment to increase your income by designing a rental unit with your local contractor design. This apartment can be designed with an entrance separate from your garage entry for maximum privacy for the tenant and you. Using a skilled professional builder is important for this type of project because vehicle fumes must not make their way into tenant living space. Be sure to check local zoning laws before making this investment.

Ready to Down-Size

If you are ready to downsize, you might want to do the opposite – custom design an easy-to-care for, low-maintenance garage apartment for yourself and rent out your house. That home rental could significantly add to monthly retirement income for seniors who no longer want or need all that space. This arrangement can be a creative way to reduce monthly expenses or increasing monthly income without having to increase weekly work hours.

Should You Have Your Southeastern MA Home Improvement Contractor Paint Your New Concrete Floor?

January 28, 20160

Talk to your home improvement contractor about using concrete floors.

Your home improvement contractor can help you with your concrete floors.

Painting your new concrete basement floor offers practical advantages, but it can also be a quite attractive option. Concrete flooring is no longer just for the basement but has become a design trend eastern MA premier home builders have watched develop over the past decade. In fact, today’s concrete floors can be gorgeous, sophisticated and stylish. Concrete floors, ground smooth, polished, stained, dyed, painted and even stenciled, are appearing in kitchens, bathrooms and living rooms far more frequently.

Practicality Comes First

The rise in the popularity of this flooring option has to do with improved coloring and sealing technologies. Properly sealed and painted, a concrete floor is extremely durable. Unlike lesser flooring options, concrete floors finished by skilled eastern MA premier home builders resist surface damage from high heels, heavy furniture, pet claws and other normal household wear and tear. It also resists damage from moisture when properly sealed with a quality sealant.

Concrete floors are typically easy to care for and often require just a quick pass with the broom and mop. They resist staining and don’t absorb odors. They aren’t high maintenance either. Depending on how highly used the area is, you may want to replace your sealant coat every one to three years. With muddy springs, wet autumns and snowy winters, it’s no surprise painted and sealed concrete floors are an increasingly popular choice for home remodeling in Dover and the surrounding areas.

Consider painting concrete for your home remodeling.

Painting concrete can be great for home remodeling.

Let’s Talk About Looks

While some types of beauty may be fleeting, unable to withstand the test of time, that is far from the case when you paint, tint, dye or stain a concrete floor. When you use a knowledgeable, skilled southeastern MA home improvement contractor, you can expect your painted concrete floor to retain its good looks for years to come. With today’s polishing, coloring and sealing technologies, that floor will typically outlast the usual flooring options.

There’s an incredible array of options to choose from when painting your concrete floor. You can go old-school, keeping that industrial sort of look you’d typically see in a basement or you can go for a highly polished, gleaming and gorgeous concrete floor. You can use stencils to create the look of hand-painted medieval tiles or amazing Byzantine art inspired geometric patterns.

Coloring concrete floors can produce several visual effects, depending on the products used. Tinted stains offer a full spectrum of shades. Acid-based stains tend to be more translucent and more subtle in nature. Water-based stains can have those qualities, but they are also available in deeper, more paint-like colors. You can even include metal flakes, adding some shimmer to your floors.

Another way of painting concrete floors is with dyes, which add a rich depth of color due to the higher degree of color saturation. For marbled color effects, you can use water-based dyes. Add a high-gloss sealing coat and you’ll have a gorgeous floor that, with proper care, can last for decades. When you consider the lifespan of a painted concrete floor, it is a highly cost-effective choice.

Once you see the wide style potentials of painting a concrete floor, you may want to talk to your local eastern MA premier home builders about concrete floor painting options that are right for your custom built or remodeled home. Contact us to learn more about painting your new concrete floor.

Designing Your Own Home in Brookline, MA? What Comes First, Land Purchase or House Design?

January 26, 20160

Are you thinking about designing your own home.

Designing your own home requires careful attention to detail.

When working with skilled eastern MA premier home builders, your custom built home can be a success, whether you obtain your land first or design your home plans first. However, your decision regarding which to do first can have an impact on how smoothly the overall process goes from start to finish. It can determine whether you have to make design compromises. There are many factors at play in this sort of project and lots of planning to be done so the order of operations does matter when designing your own home in Brookline, MA.

Major Factors to Consider

Zoning and land use laws can impact the type and style of home you can build on a parcel of land, as well as whether you can even build there at all. When selecting land to buy, you’ll need to have a clear understanding of all applicable zoning laws and land use regulations. Guiding covenants can also apply to the way land is used, such as limiting the removal of trees to a certain percentage of the tree population on the parcel, specifics about how far structures must be from property lines, perhaps significantly farther than local building ordinances demand, and rules about utility or access easements. All of those things can impact custom built home plans in Brookline and the surrounding region.

If you design your home before you acquire your land, that can make finding the right land a more daunting task. Not only do you have to find a property that works to satisfy all the bureaucratic demands, but that land will also have to work topographically with your design. Certain types of homes, for example, work better in flat open land spaces than on land with rolling hills. Slope and water drainage may make positioning a home within a lot’s legally buildable space difficult. However, without having an idea of your basic home plan, choosing the right land for your eastern MA premier home builders to construct your dream home can be difficult.

Consider the property regulations in your custom built home plans.

Custom built home plans need to consider the property too.

Take a Different Approach

Instead of choosing one or the other to do first, take the middle road in designing your own home in Brookline, MA. See it as the dynamic, fluid project it is. Come up with a basic design, then look for land within your budget, distance from work and other essential elements. Then, add further depth and detail to your custom built home plans in Brookline, shaping those plans so your home works with the topography of the land and all laws, regulations and restrictions associated with the land parcel or building lot. When you use eastern MA premier home builders offering 3D design technology, you get a better view of how tweaks to your custom home plan will look and function, making the process a lot easier.

Contact us for further information about how 3D design technology can help you efficiently bring together land purchase planning and custom home designing, reducing the difficulties in making your dream home a tangible and pleasurable reality.

Why In-Law Suites for Aging Parents Are Becoming a Part of Many Southeastern MA Home Improvement Plans

January 21, 20160

Is an in-law suite part of your home improvement plans?

An in-law suite may be an important part of home improvement plans.

With the large population of baby boomers now in their senior years, many adult children are planning for the time when they will open their home to at least one aging parent. If these plans are in your future, here are some design suggestions for in-law suites that are part of many southeastern MA premier home remodeling and additions.

Why Build an In-Law Suite?

Staying Close and in Touch — Many people spend time worrying about an aging parent living alone, especially if they are unable to see them often enough. In-law suites take the worry out of being far away from an elderly parent and provide the convenience of being there when needed.
Avoiding the High Cost of Assisted Living Facilities – The cost for affordable assisted living facilities varies with location and level of service; however, residents of assisted living communities can typically expect a 4.28 percent annual increase in their base rate.
Designing for Future Use – Current and future homeowners can easily transition an in-law suite to comfortable accommodations for out-of-town guests and visits from children and grandchildren.
Increasing the Resale Value – Another upside of having an in-law suite is having the additional square footage to offer when it’s time to sell the home. Today’s home buyers appreciate having guest accommodations that are less intrusive for the host and more private for the guest.

Where to Build an In-law Suite

There are actually several ways additional living space can be incorporated into your southeastern MA home improvement plans. One of these suggestions might work perfectly with your current floor plan.

Add an extension to an existing bedroom or guest room to provide a comfortable sitting area.
Convert two existing bedrooms that have a connecting bathroom by turning one of the bedrooms into a sitting room/living area.
Build a one or two room addition with a bathroom that may open onto the family room.
If backyard space allows, build a stand-alone quarters, or a ‘tiny home,’ with a full kitchen, bedroom, bath and small living room. Future use may be the ideal guest quarters or rental space.
Build a new master suite for the homeowners and utilize the existing master bedroom and bathroom for an in-law suite.
Building a second story might be your only option for an in-law suite, although at some point you may need to install an elevator shaft or a chair lift onto your staircase.

Prepare for aging parents with the help of your home improvement contractor.

Your home improvement contractor can help you prepare for aging parents.

Features for Your In-law Suite

Depending on your particular situation, a Weston, MA, home improvement contractor can include a separate entrance to your in-law suite, which may simply be an exterior doorway to the patio area. A stackable washer and dryer, phone line and intercom system, as well as separate Internet and cable connections, are all features appreciated by both in-laws and future guests. Many homeowners anticipate dining with their aging parent so a kitchenette that includes a microwave and a mini refrigerator with a freezer drawer may be all that’s needed.

Other Considerations for Your In-Law Suite Plans

Doorways should be wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair and a walker.
A ramp for wheelchair access may need to be added to a porch.
Adequate storage should be part of the design plan.
Safety features, such as grab bars, handrails and non-slip flooring.
Separate heating and air conditioning.
Separate smoke, fire and carbon monoxide detectors.

Rather than waiting until their senior relative can no longer live alone, many homeowners are thinking ahead. If you’re planning for the time when you’ll be ‘welcoming home’ an aging parent, a Weston, MA, home improvement contractor can provide options for building an affordable in-law suite.

Colony Home Improvement has more than 40 years of remodeling experience in southeastern Massachusetts. Contact us today for a consultation at no obligation.

Painting with Warm Colors Versus Cool Colors in Your Southeastern MA Home Remodel

January 19, 20160

Your home remodel needs the right paint colors.

Paint colors are an important part of your home remodel.

Remodeling a home can be hard work, with more decisions to make than you had imagined. Just when you think your Southeastern MA home remodel is nearly finished, deciding what color to paint the walls suddenly becomes your next difficult decision. More often than not, a Wellesley home improvement contractor is halted in their progress when homeowners can’t settle on what color to paint the walls. However, choosing the color of your walls doesn’t have to be a dilemma. First, understand the difference between warm and cool colors with this simple guide.

What Are Warm Colors?

Warm colors are stimulating. Here are the warm colors predominantly used in decorating, along with their associated effects.

Red – Fiery, intense, romantic, bold, passionate

Orange – Optimistic, lively

Yellow – Sunny, happy, uplifting, cheery

Home improvement contractors in Wellesley and the surrounding areas might suggest using warm colors in the following areas:

Large rooms to make them appear smaller, cozier.
Where people gather often, such as a family room or kitchen.
A home office to create a more stimulating environment.
Contractors for a Southeastern MA home remodel recommend a warm white or a soft beige for baseboards and trim against warm colored walls.

What Are Cool Colors?

Cool colors are calming and soothing, the direct opposite effect of the warm tones.

Blue – Calm, tranquil, peaceful

Green – Healing, vibrant, renewal

Purple – Majestic, mysterious

Consider using cool colors in these spaces:

Small rooms to make them appear larger.
Where peace and tranquility are important, such as a bedroom or bathroom.
A tranquil cool blue might also be perfect in a living room where winding down after a long day is the goal.
For baseboards and trim, whites with a hint of gray work well against cool colored walls.

Ask your home improvement contractors for help with choosing paint.

Home improvement contractors can help you choose the right paint.

Beige, Grays and Whites

If time is running out and you’re still in doubt, go for neutral. For a warm setting, consider beige, or for a cool vibe, choose a light shade of gray. Beige, gray and white each have a large number of hues from which to choose. Your furniture and accessories, such as upholstery fabric, art and rugs, can provide pops of color against your neutral walls. You can decide to go for bolder wall colors at a later time.

Additional Tips

Dominant vs. Accent – You may love the idea of using a Chinese red in your Asian-themed dining room. However, some colors may be too intense for an entire room; consider painting just one “accent” wall or two adjoining walls.
Hardware Choices – If your remodel includes a kitchen or bathroom, the plumbing fixtures, cabinet hardware and light fixtures should complement your wall colors. For example, choose a nickel finish to work with cool colored walls and bronze or gold for warm walls.
Test It Out – Remember lighting will change the wall colors. You may love that shade of yellow in the nursery after the sun goes down and then discover it is too bright in daylight. It’s best to paint at least a two inch patch of color at eye level height and see how the light affects the color during the day and evening, as well as on sunny and overcast days. Light cast from fixtures and lamps will also alter the colors.

Remodelers and builders are familiar with the difficulty homeowners have in committing to wall colors. Colony Home Improvement contractors in Wellesley and the surrounding areas have more than 40 years of remodeling experience and can advise you on your color choices. Contact us today for a quote on your remodel project from start to finish – with no obligation.