When considering renovations to create your dream home, it’s easy to get lost in the magic of planning and imagination. Envisioning your dream home is a rabbit hole we all fall down from time to time, but that home needs careful planning—especially if you’re in the process of making the dream a reality in your remodel.
Top-notch home designs, especially layout considerations, are essential to a fully-functional and stylistically beautiful home. Nothing sours a remodeling project quite like an immediate realization that a seemingly carefully-chosen design element wasn’t picked carefully enough and now creates chaos in your daily routine. Fortunately, with the foresight of planning, you can avoid these easily made mistakes before they become a problem in your home.
Carelessness with Color
Market research suggests that choosing the wrong color combinations in your home costs you significantly on resale value. Not only does it hit you in the checkbook, but poorly considered color combinations can also affect your mood as well. The right color can make a house feel like a new home, poor choices may affect the appeal for a long time.
Color choices can be tested fairly easily. There are tons of online resources for visualizing your proposed mixes, or you can get some sample cans from your local hardware store and paint sections of the wall with the desired color to get a sense for how it fits in your space with your own eyes and unique lighting.
Adding Furniture Afterwards
Furniture may feel like an addition to the space of a home, but during the renovation or design process furniture is an integral part of successful home design. Adding a piece that doesn’t quite fit in a corner or against a wall can throw off the balance of the entire room. In order to make the best use of all your space, consider furniture inclusions along with the redesign, not afterward.
Mixing Communal and Private Spaces
Another no-no is creating passageways to communal areas that must snake through more private space. If you want your back porch to be an inviting place to host guests, you need its entryway to extend through the living room instead of a master bedroom. This is something architects deal with regularly, so avoiding this one should be as simple as a routine planning inspection.
Neglecting the Basement
Basements are the cornerstone of northern homes. Washing machines and storage space revolves around proper basement utilization and the prevention of damage to this fragile under home space. Maintaining your pipes and foundation and keeping up with any necessary repairs before they become major issues is a crucial part of keeping your entire home up to scratch, and it starts with the basement (check out BasementGuides.com for more on repairs and maintenance).
Ignoring Storage Needs
Speaking of storage, closet space, the laundry room, garage, and attic are all essential components of a good floor plan. If you don’t prepare for the necessary storage space in your house plan, you will have to keep items out in the open that would better be stashed away during off-season months or even year-round. Whether you have an extensive collection of Christmas and Halloween decorations or a large array of suitcases for travel, having precise and out-of-the-way solutions for keeping them safe and conveniently stored is a must in any home.
Planning your remodel or upgrade in advance takes some work, but getting it right will give you your dream home without any additional fumbling or changes. Take the time to plan it all ahead of your big reveal in order to start making the most out of your space right away.
