Home Builder Jacksonville | Creating the Perfect Powder Room

Home Builder Jacksonville | Once, it was the room that no one would show in movies or even mention in polite company—but these days, a fabulous bathroom is a prime home feature, and for many proud owners, the subject of major bragging rights. They’re luxurious! They’re high-tech functional! They’re beautiful! Plus—and here’s the real point—today’s HGTV-savvy homeowners know that upgrading their bathroom is likely to impress buyers and boost home valuations.

“Bathroom remodels now rival kitchens in popularity,” says Nino Sitchinava, principal economist at home renovation site Houzz, which released its 2015 U.S. Bathroom Remodeling Survey in March. The survey polled nearly 3,200 Houzz users who are in the midst of planning or have recently completed a bathroom remodel.

“The bathroom is reinforcing its place as an important room in a home,” says Francesc Zamora Mola, co-author of the recently released “150 Best New Bathroom Ideas.” But unlike the increasingly public kitchen, Zamora notes, the bathroom has evolved into a private haven—a tranquil space for relaxation and self-indulgence.

Zamora fills us in on the top trends in bathrooms and how to incorporate them in your home.

Home Building Trends | Upcycling Your Garbage Into Something Great

Home Building Trends | Your garbage might pile up faster than you think. In 2013, Americans created 254 million tons of waste, an average of 4.4 pounds per person every day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While some of that refuse—1.51 pounds per person, per day—is recycled, the majority ends up in landfills, adding to an ever-growing ecological nightmare.

But there is an alternative: upcycling. It’s easy! It’s good for the environment! And it’s fun. Really.

OK, hear us out on this one: Converting your used or unwanted junk into newer and infinitely more awesome stuff is a truly rewarding way to spend a weekend. And you don’t even have to be all that crafty to pull it off!

New Home Communities | Bringing Beach Style Into Your Home

 

New Home Communities | Summer is drawing to an end—in some parts of the country, kids are heading back to school. Maybe you’re already getting nostalgic for your summer vacation at a beach house (or wish you had one). There’s no reason that beach style has to be a seasonal thing—you can bring the natural colors and textures of the coast into your home year-round, no matter where you are.

Inspiration from the source

Great coastal design should start with organic inspiration from the very place you’re using as a visual reference.

“Inspiration has to come from the source. By simply looking at editorial shots in magazines and imitating the decor, all we wind up with is a diluted version,” says Tim Neve. Neve notes that some of the homes whose ocean-inspired style he profiles in the book are actually many miles from the water.

New House Builder | Selling Your Home? Avoid These Issues!

 

New House Builder | A home might have any number of scary structural problems, from mold to a cracked foundation to decaying beams. But what really gets home inspectors’ blood boiling?

“The three things that are going to damage your house most are water, water, and water,” says Larry Stamp.

After all, most of those “scary structural problems” stem from water. Mold? Give it up for water. Cracked foundation? There are many causes, but a main one is water. And decaying beams? Almost certainly water.

If you’re concerned about moisture-driven maladies, we recommend calling in a licensed home inspector. But if you’re not sure if water’s worth worrying about, here are some ways to see if your home’s at risk.

Home Builder Jacksonville | 7 Things Your House Painter Wishes You Knew

Home Builder Jacksonville | With the exception of hardened DIY-types (you know who you are!), just about all homeowners will hire painters at some point—whether to prepare their home for moving in, or for a sale, or perhaps to kick off a remodel with a new color scheme.

But homeowners tend to get nervous around painters. What if they spatter the new carpeting or shatter the china cabinet window? What if the colors you’ve painstakingly selected don’t work out?

Take a deep breath. You’ve hired a professional. Here’s how to help them do their best job.

Home Building Trends | Bathroom Terminology Defined

Home Building Trends | Bathrooms have come a long way over the years. The British word for the toilet, “loo,” comes from the French garde à l’eau, meaning “watch out for the water.” In medieval Europe, people would yell this phrase out the window before throwing the contents of their chamber pots onto the streets. At least they warned passers-by.

But today, the once-humble lavatory has become a primary home oasis, often with some serious renovation dough behind it. In fact, bathroom remodeling requests have shot up 64% on HomeAdvisor, a marketplace for online home improvement services.

The bathroom is one of the rooms that prospective home buyers focus on most intently, and as such has been the focal point of a slew of innovation. So what do you call all the sexy features that are prized among homeowners today? Look no further than our Learning the Lingo series where, this week, we take a deep dive into the terminology of bidets, vanities, and more so you can navigate your choices for the best bathroom ever.

New Home Communities | What is a Renovation Coach and Do You Need One?

New Home Communities | Cher Lewis was living in Paris when she found out that the rear wall of her historic New York City carriage house was in danger of collapsing.

In order to fix it, she’d have to file the appropriate paperwork with the local historic preservation board and then hire managing engineers, architects, and other contractors—from another continent. Then, of course, she’d have to oversee them.

So she turned to a renovation coach, Alex Bandon of North River Renovation Management in New York City, to get the job done.

New House Builder | 6 Sneaky Ways to Make Your Home Look Expensive

 

New House Builder | Want your place to look like those home design website images you drool over? Of course you do! Problem is, your budget may not match your design aspirations. Fear not! Making your home look high-end isn’t always about spending tons of cash.

It’s a matter of taking the time and care to arrange things in an eye-pleasing way—and making small, inexpensive updates that have a big impact. In other words, it’s about being sneaky.

Here are a few tricks to pull if you want to add the illusion of luxury.

Home Builder Jacksonville | Renovate Your Kitchen—Without Knocking Down a Wall

 

Home Builder Jacksonville | When most people think of redoing a dated ’70s- or ’80s-era kitchen, their first instinct is usually: Knock down a wall! Open up the space! Buy some gleaming, modern appliances! All fine ideas, but, sadly, not within everyone’s reach, financially or aesthetically.

Maybe you’re part of the emerging backlash against open kitchens, or maybe your checking account just can’t accommodate the open plan of your dreams. But here’s the good news: There are plenty of other approaches to maximize the space and functionality of your enclosed kitchen—and you’ll likely love the results! Check out these pointers from the experts.

Home Building Trends | Using Shipping Pallets for DIY Projects

 

Home Building Trends | Home improvement can be expensive—even if you want the slightly battered reclaimed-wood look, be prepared to pay through the nose. Or you could get creative with shipping pallets, the bulky wood crates companies use to move goods.

No, really. Pallets are the perfect material for just about any home project, rustic or modern, you can imagine. And you might be able to get those pallets for free. Repurpose them as smaller décor pieces, furniture, or even remodeling material for your house.

New Home Communities | 5 Huge Mistakes People Make Furnishing Their New Home

New Home Communities | Hey, we know: Moving into a new home is exciting. Like, obsess over decor blogs and catalogs, binge-watch HGTV for eight-hour stretches, find ways to interject phrases like “open kitchen shelving” into everyday conversations exciting. So it’s understandable that you’re dying to start filling every corner with stuff as soon as you’ve unpacked your last box. Beware: Time and again, interior designers see overeager new homeowners make the same mistakes when furnishing their home. Big mistakes! Take heed and tread carefully into your new space.

Mistake No. 1: Buying everything at once

Of course, you want to make those empty rooms look like home, sweet home, pronto. So you whip out your laptop and go on a mad room-by-room shopping spree for every stick of furniture from coffee tables to your canopy bed. 

New House Builder | All About Bedrooms

 

New House Builder | Ah, the bedroom: Few places in a home beckon quite like this sanctuary where we sleep, dream, steam things up with significant others, and just chill. It’s our ultimate escape.

So it makes sense that we’d want to furnish this room with finesse—and that all starts with bequeathing the proper names to all items within, right?

Look no further than our Learning the Lingo series. This time, we present a glossary of terms for beds to mattresses and beyond so you can truly rest in peace and make this space the stuff dreams are made of.

Home Builder Jacksonville | 5 Great Made-in-America Home Improvement Ideas

 

Home Builder Jacksonville | The made-in-America movement is going strong these days: We’re producing more of our own energy, more of our own cars, and more of our own manufacturing jobs. In fact, even foreign automotive brands have adopted the “Made in America” credo. Let’s take a moment to appreciate great pieces for your home that were proudly made in the U.S. of A! And let’s do it state by glorious state!

Made in Florida: When wire hangers and a single hanging rod won’t do, ClosetMaid offers SuiteSymphony, a step up from the standard closet but not quite the stuff of a two-story Chanel-inspired closet. ClosetMaid, the inventor of wire closet shelving, offers a new weathered wood-look product that is manufactured in Florida. “Sixty-one percent of all recent home buyers will upgrade their closet systems within 18 months,” says Lisa Engel, vice president of consumer business at ClosetMaid. With a $2,000 investment, she says, homeowners can create their own version of a glam room.

Home Building Trends | 4 DIY Projects for Leftover Pieces of Marble

Home Building Trends | After you finish a big remodel, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself tired, satisfied, suffused in pride—and swimming in an unwieldy pile of scraps left over from your various renovations. Don’t dump those quality remnants—and don’t even consider piling them haphazardly in a corner of your garage. In this new DIY series, we focus on ways to transform your construction leftovers into something special and beautiful.

This installment focuses on marble.

Whether you have a sheet of the stuff or smaller pieces in the form of tiles, there’s always something you can do to repurpose them brilliantly. If you need to cut your leftover marble into a specific shape, you can do it yourself with a circular saw (or, even better, a wet saw). What, you don’t have a circular saw?! It’s OK—most places where you can buy marble will also cut it for you.

New Home Communities | Putting Color Back in the Kitchen

New Home Communities | Growing up, I watched every episode of “Grace Under Fire.” The show’s heroine, Grace Kelly, had a small robin’s-egg blue refrigerator in her kitchen. It was old and had a single door and rounded edges—I loved it. After every kitchen scene I thought, “I’m going to have a fridge just like that in my house.”

Later in the series, the refrigerator was painted white. Suddenly, the cheery blue appliance I’d been coveting for years looked just like any old fridge. I was devastated.

New House Builder | The Renovation Dilemma: What to Fix If You're Selling

New House Builder | It’s always a grueling task to set a budget for a renovation—or at the very least an ever-moving target—but if you’re planning to put your home on the market, you’ll have a way different set of calculations than a starry-eyed new homeowner.

Before you embark on a gut of your circa-1990 kitchen, consult with a Realtor and a general contractor about which renovations will yield the biggest return on investment. How much work you’ll need depends on your home’s value, your market, and the comps in your neighborhood.

Home Building Trends | What Does Your Living Room Say About You?

Home Building Trends | Your living room says more about you than any other room in your house—whether or not you want it to.

With most floor plans, it’s the first room guests are ushered into, and where they spend the most time schmoozing, hanging out, and generally soaking in your style. Some people are messy; others are obsessively organized. Some living rooms are closed off, others are open.

So what signals is your living room sending about you?

Moving Tips | Surprising Things Your Movers Won't Move

 

Moving Tips | Let’s face it: Moving companies can be lifesavers. They’ll carry everything you own, they can handle three flights of stairs, they don’t flinch at bad weather, and they’ll move you any distance. Hey, is there anything they won’t do?

Well, yes, actually. Movers draw the line on certain things, and if you don’t know about it ahead of time you might end up out of luck on moving day. So here’s a handy no-go list.

Home Builder Jacksonville | Using Space in Your Bathroom Efficiently

 Home Builder Jacksonville | Making a minuscule bathroom appear practical, tidy, and even a tad stylish is pretty darn impossible, right? Wrong! If you focus on clever storage solutions and go bold with color and accents, you can create a space that’s both functional and stylish without breaking the bank. Or the commode, as it were.

From storage solutions to playful accents, here are clever design secrets to get the most out of your Lilliputian powder room.

New Home Communities | 7 Upgrades That Will Make Your Home Feel Brand-New

New Home Communities | If your home has you down in the dumps but you lack the cash to fix it up, don’t despair! Not every upgrade has to take a big bite out of your bank account.

Here are seven foolproof ways to make your home feel like a totally different place through small changes—and small expenses.

1. New hardware

Swapping out the boring chrome hardware the previous owners installed can go a long way toward making your home look like yours—not to mention give the entire space an easy, inexpensive refresh. Depending on your style, new pulls or handles can cost mere dollars.

“The first thing I do to give the home more of the look and style that I like is swap out the hardware,” says Doug Mahoney. “All it takes is a screwdriver, and it’s surprising what a difference it can make.”

New House Builder | Want to Go Wild on Exterior Paint Colors? Read this First!

New House Builder | When I was a kid in Saratoga Springs, NY, this house mesmerized me. It was rundown and had a dirt floor, and then, suddenly (it seemed) a coat of paint—or lots of coats, in eight different shades—transformed it.

Rarely do we see super colorful exterior paint jobs. Benjamin Moore suggests silky straw and sand hues, toned-down olive greens, and soothing blue-grays to maximize curb appeal. Those are the norm, the language most homeowners and buyers understand.

Admittedly, those are some sweet shades, but not everyone wants their home to blandly blend in with its surroundings. So here’s what to think about if you plan to boldly go where most homeowners don’t: into the land of color.

Home Building Trends | 6 Tricks That Will Supersize Your Small Bedroom

Home Building Trends | At the end of a long day, nothing is more relaxing than heading straight to your bedroom to unwind. To cuddle. To crash. To dream! If you have a tiny, cramped room, though, that space might feel more like a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare.

But it doesn’t have to: Making a few smart choices in terms of furniture, color, and lighting can make all the difference in transforming your constricted sleeping quarters into the true sanctuary it should be.

Just pay heed to these smart design tips for small bedrooms, and you’ll be on your way to resting easy.

Home Builder Jacksonville | The Best Time to Furnish Your Home is Now

Home Builder Jacksonville | Now that the holidays are blessedly receding in our rearview mirrors, many of us may be surveying our homes and thinking, “Man, why did I squander all that money on an TV when we don’t even have a decent couch where we can sit and watch it in style?”

If this lament rings a bell, you’re in luck. According to WCVB News in Boston, the best time to buy furniture is right after the holidays. The reason for this boils down to the fact that sofas, credenzas and coffee tables hog up a whole lot of floor space in a showroom—and January is the month when designers literally clean house to accommodate the latest styles and new models.

“Furniture makers release new models in February, so stores need to make room in advance,” Lindsay Sakraida. “Thus January is an excellent time to get good discounts.”

New Home Communities | Say Goodbye to These 10 Home Design Trends That Are So 2015

New Home Communities | It’s hard to think of today’s decor trends with anything other than a myopic view. We have finally perfected interior design! you might think, smugly ensconced within the enveloping folds of your velvet couch while staring at your gallery wall—complete with a faux taxidermy deer head, of course.

But never forget the ’70s—or the ’50s, or any decade you find garish. No one was plastering their homes with a veritable Crayola box of colors in the ’80s as an intentional effort to look ridiculous. It was cool!