How exciting! I loved the planning/design stage. My husband and I bought a 1990s tract home last year and remodeled it. We put in maple hardwood floors throughout (except the bathroom and laundry room which have tile), new 5″ baseboard, retextured and repainted every wall, professionally painted kitchen cabinets, new appliances, new countertops, new hardware throughout, new window treatments, etc, in an effort to try to make the home look less “tract-like” and more “custom coastal”.
Our style is a mix of modern and traditional (eclectic, they say?). We tried to make our kitchen look early 20th century with the antique white cabinets, subway tile and honed granite. Probably not your style! However, we also love mid-century modern and we have nods to that design period in certain places like the chair in our living room and we have a George Nelson saucer bubble lamp hanging in our sons’ play room.
My advice for lighting would be to incorporate solar tubes in dark areas. Our hallway was extremely dark and now with the solar tube it is beautifully bright (see pic of hallway). Solatube is based in Vista and they did a great job!
The fireplace was awful and originally extended to the ceiling. We tore it out and hired a mason to install a new coastal looking stone (it is actually called “Coastal Ledge”) and hearth that we choose from the stone yard, and we finished it off with driftwood gas logs.
I love Houzz too and got many ideas and inspiration from the site while we were remodeling. I even posted pictures on the site after our house was finished. You can visit this link if you’d like to see it!
