A patio is a great addition to any home. It’s the perfect place to hold barbecues during the spring and summer, and during the colder months you can still get together with friends with the help of a heater and cozy blankets. If your house has a back porch that you’d like to convert into a beautiful patio and deck—also known as an outdoor living space—our home renovation experts in Round Rock, Texas, can make it happen. Continue reading “How to Transform Your Back Porch Into a Beautiful Patio and Deck”
Tag: In Progress
3 Ways to Remodel a House to Make It Look More Spacious
If you’ve finally decided to go ahead with the home renovation you’ve been planning for years, it only makes sense to make the most of it.
Typically, the homes we buy or build are largely based on our present needs. Over time, our requirements change, and often, the space requirements are no longer the same, given that families grow.
So, if you’re remodeling your house, it’s best to plan ahead and maximize space.
And of course, while adding a few extra square feet would be ideal, it may not be an option for many. So, here are some ways you can still create space or at least an illusion of it.
Bring in the Patio
One of the simplest ways to add more space to your interiors is to make your exteriors a part of the house.
While, of course, a porch or a patio is part of the floor plan, they are exterior spaces with limited uses. You can expand the house and make these spaces more functional by enclosing them.
For instance, you could use them as an extra entertaining space or completely cover them to create a home office at the side of the house—the possibilities are endless! You could also just install bifold doors to open up the space and merge the interior spaces with your patio whenever you need to.
Get Rid of Some Interior Walls
Interior walls are meant to divide large indoor spaces into smaller ones. So, it makes sense to remove them if the small spaces are beginning to feel too small.
While, of course, the bedrooms require privacy, we suggest removing the interior walls between the kitchen, living room, dining area, and other shared spaces. This would give you a large open space that you can decorate and design smartly to maximize space.
Even if you decide to keep the room furniture in exactly the same spot, eliminating walls can transform multiple rooms into one larger space.
Utilize the Vertical Space
While most of us think about adding more horizontal space, we often overlook the vertical space we already have.
If you have taller walls, you can utilize them for storage. And in some cases, you could even consider building lofts if you have the space. This would open up your floor space, giving it a more spacious look overall.
If you’re not quite sure how to go about this, reach out to the renovation design experts at Freccia Group.
We’re remodeling contractors in Round Rock, TX, and can help you with our home remodeling services.
Call us for more information on how to get started.
Kitchen Remodeling: Why and When Should You Do It?
You’ve been overlooking your outdated kitchen for years now, thinking, “What if … ?” How do you know it’s time to make improvements—both functionally and aesthetically—to everyone’s favorite room in the home?
Allocating the finances to fund your redo could be more appealing since remodeling your space essentially adds value to your property, especially if you’re about to put it on the market. However, if you’re planning on staying in your home for at least five years, remodeling your kitchen is both a financial investment and an investment in your home life.
Here are two of the many ways that remodeling could help.
Makes the kitchen more spacious
Kitchen remodeling updates your kitchen’s style and can provide more space. Many homes built before the 1990s automatically included a formal dining room in their scope. As lifestyles have changed, that room has been used less and less. Fortunately, many floorplans located the formal dining area right next to the kitchen, now opening up the possibility of making the kitchen larger and incorporating seating in the kitchen’s island. This reflects how the kitchen has evolved from an isolated cooking-only area to a space where cooking, social interaction, and dining are all within a few feet.
Helps you organize your kitchen better
Kitchen remodeling can help with organization, too. You should be able to add storage with open pantries, wider and longer countertops, cabinets, and shelves. When people try to remodel their kitchen themselves, storage is often overlooked because people like to think about aesthetics. When you hire a professional designer, you leverage his or her years of experience to help you rebuild a kitchen that looks amazing, is more open, and has plenty of solutions that help you store food, dishes, appliances, and kitchen tools so that they’re hidden but easy to access when you need them.
How you know when it’s time to remodel your kitchen
That fact that you’re reading this blog says that you already know, but here are the top two reasons homeowners decide to redo their kitchen.
1. Little or no space
Your countertops are cluttered for a reason: You’ve got too many kitchen tools and appliances and not enough places to put them. The cabinets are packed and stacked to the point where the doors don’t close. The stove doesn’t have enough counter space on either side of it. If two people are cooking, they bump into each other trying to prep and cook at the same time. And, finally, the breakfast area where your family gathers most of the time is so far from the kitchen that it’s impossible to socialize while cooking meals. In most cases, the homes with these older kitchens have the space, but it needs to be utilized more wisely to open it up to the rest of the house. A professional designer can make this happen.
2. Worn countertops, cabinets, and appliances
Your oven is more than 20 years old. Your countertops have seen better days. Your cabinets are scratched and worn. If you have melamine or Formica countertops, congratulations, you may able to brag that you’ve discovered a lost archeological artifact!
This is the time to upgrade everything. You can replace your countertops with timeless granite or another hard surface that’s durable enough that you can cut on it. You can also replace those cabinets with wooden shelves to make the kitchen seem larger. And replacing your oven with a new smart oven can make cooking easier than ever.
If you are thinking about remodeling your kitchen, choose the right contractor that shares your vision while making sure you adhere to local building codes. At Freccia Group, we provide professional residential construction services in Round Rock, Texas, for homeowners who are ready to redo their kitchen or any other part of their home from interior upgrades to adding another room.
Our team provides kitchen remodeling, bathroom remodeling, and a wide range of other construction services based upon the latest construction best practices and your vision. Contact us today to learn more about how to get started.
How To Make A Small Bathroom Appear Bigger
With the right design, colors and fixtures, a small bathroom can seem brighter and more spacious. Here’s how you can do it:
How the Sandwich Generation Is Transforming Today’s Floorplans
Over the past few years, more Americans are taking care of both their children and their elderly relatives, including grandparents and parents. These caregivers who are “caught” in the middle are often referred to as the “sandwich generation.”
Instead of sending the elderly to assisted living facilities, these people have been taking care of their family members at their homes. In order accommodate both the elderly and the kids, the construction of new homes as well as the renovation of existing homes are changing based upon these new family trends.
This blog post will discuss some of the amenities that sandwich homes are incorporating to make everyone more comfortable, from the young to the old and those in between.
1. Accessibility Is Everything
Most elderly people suffer from some disability or other physical condition like arthritis, osteoporosis, or spinal cord injury that makes it difficult for them to move around the house, so they need extra help and spaces that accommodate that need. This is why houses with better access to common areas via ramps, wider doors, and hallways without sharp corners have become more popular among older families with children.
2. Separate Quarters
When elderly adults move in, they may be fairly mobile, but they may be showing signs of physical and or mental decline. Many families build rooms onto their home that are designed to accommodate wheelchairs and other amenities that the elderly need in order to stay independent but still under the watchful eye of family members. These spaces range from a single room with a small guest bathroom to a full-efficiency apartment complete with its own kitchen and master suite-size bathroom. These spaces are perfect for allowing the adults privacy now, but are built to be transitioned when the adults need extra care.
In new homes, for example, these suites are incorporated into the floor plans of many of the available models. Those who are renovating their homes may be converting a room or a garage (where the code allows) into a full living space.
3. Eat-in Kitchens
Today’s families want to stay together at home, especially if there are kids. As a result, most modern kitchens are designed to accommodate the dining area within the kitchen. This not only makes it easier for the caretakers to take care of everyone, but also allows the family to spend some time together every day.
4. Accessible Bathrooms
Many elderly people find it more difficult to get in and out of the bathroom without some level of assistance from bars on the walls next to the toilet and roll-in showers. These bathrooms are built in such a way that they are accessible to both children and the elderly.
Residential Construction in Round Rock
At Freccia Group, we keep abreast of how families are changing and provide design solutions for both home renovation projects and new home construction that accommodate the sandwich generation’s new challenges. If you’re looking for a home remodeling contractor or a new home builder in Austin and Round Rock, give us a call.