Everybody has an image of their dream home. You may be ready to begin a long-awaited dream renovation, or maybe the ink is still wet on your real estate contract and you’re gearing up to give your new home a personal touch.
Picture sunny afternoons by the pool, family barbecues in your outdoor kitchen, cool summer nights by a custom fire pit…sound like a dream? Make it a reality this summer. Transform your backyard into your personal oasis with a luxury outdoor renovation.
By definition, biophilia means “a love of life and the living world.” When it comes to home renovations, biophilic design is a modern approach to finding a way to connect your living space with the natural environment.
Are you dreaming of remodeling your home? Let’s take a walk through your imagination and discuss how you can design your remodel around your lifestyle. I’ll show you how you can adapt your home to fit your current and future lifestyle within your budget.
Many wine connoisseur blogs focus solely on wine, not the wine cellar. Our focus is on building a cellar that will ensure that your wine is perfectly preserved based on the individual needs of each wine type.
In a recent blog post (you can read it right here!) we discussed ideas for how to make the most of the winter months with worthwhile home improvement projects.
Today, let’s take a look at how you can maximize this colder, darker season by making updates that boost long-term value as well.
Winter is typically a season during which people huddle down, push through the cold weather, and look forward to the warmth and potential of spring.
Are you planning a home building or remodeling project? If you’re like many homeowners today, you might be looking for ways to not only build well, and with style, but also build responsibly. Awareness of the shortages that many natural materials and resources are facing has made “going green” appealing on multiple levels.
This growing, positive trend has opened the doors to numerous alternatives that maximize your home’s style while minimizing its impact on the environment. And, in many cases, these options will also minimize the impact on your wallet. Who doesn’t love that?
Let’s take a look at a few popular alternative building materials.
Hardwood is a limited resource. And, while some manufacturers are dedicated to ethically sourcing materials, not everyone is.
The key to successfully building in a green way is to work with an experienced professional who shares your values. Ask what they suggest, what they have seen work in the past, and how you could think outside the box during your project. The results will be stunning, and one of a kind, adding a unique flavor to the colors and textures within your home.
A new year brings new opportunity to remodel and update your home. And, with freshly trending colors, materials, and styles reverberating through the home improvement world, there is no shortage of awesome ideas to draw from.
As always, kitchens are a focal point. Investing in the heart of your home is never the wrong idea, especially when improvements are enjoying such high rates of return.
So, what are the kitchen remodeling trends of 2017? We’ve done some of the legwork for you, serving up a fresh helping of inspiration.
White and grey are still the two top kitchen cabinet color choices, dominating the scene. Both are neutrals that offer almost unlimited possibilities for surrounding backsplash, countertop, flooring, and wall colors. They’re really timeless too, adding to their popularity.
What else are we seeing?
Another trend we’re seeing more and more of is incorporating natural wood into your kitchen design, rather than working in another color. Especially with white and grey cabinets, it offers a beautiful touch of extra craftsmanship. Shelving, butcher block on the island, or wood seating, for example, are perfect candidates for keeping things natural.
Storage has always been important; there’s nothing new about that.
But with a renewed focus on shopping local, cooking with fresh, organic ingredients, and treating the kitchen as a gathering place, “function” is an especially hot kitchen commodity.
It used to be that your standard options were black, white, or stainless, right?
Those boundaries have been broken by the availability of vibrant, unique appliance colors that turn a utilitarian feature into a statement piece. Whether you love retro styles or just want to find something different than “standard,” it’s worth thinking outside the box with your kitchen remodeling professional.
We’re all for making kitchens that work smarter rather than just harder, right?
Technology has made kitchens more efficient, sanitary, and user-friendly than ever before.
This a huge question, as countertops tend to unite a kitchen space and can heavily impact the long term value of your updates.
Granite, the longstanding go-to option for a quality remodel, is faltering just a little. There’s nothing wrong with it by any means, but other materials are starting to gain speed. And, these materials have a lot of low-maintenance, stylish benefits to love.
Engineered quartz is the material to watch in 2017.
A completely man-made product, engineered quartz is about 93% ground quartz (the other 7ish% is comprised of resin and pigments). Why is this such a hot option?
Want to learn more? Take a look here to enjoy a closer look at quartz and what it offers. For a more in-depth view of all the popular countertop options, and their pros and cons, be sure to browse this article dedicated to the topic.
There are a lot of backsplash options out there, and each brings something unique to the table. Or, more accurately, to the kitchen.
What’s hot this year?
There are exciting changes taking place in the kitchen, especially as we see an influx of new materials and features that make kitchens more functional and beautiful than ever.
Perhaps best of all, the kitchen is really becoming the heart of the home again. Open concepts are making the kitchen not just a cooking space, but a living space, and it needs to coordinate and flow with the surrounding areas. Homeowners are also fearlessly making their kitchen their own, claiming colors, textures, and styles that they love. And, eclectic and custom works beautifully! Make it your own!
All of this starts by finding and working with an experienced kitchen design and remodeling professional who can catch your vision. Contact us at Gerety Building & Restoration with any questions you might have about your home improvement goals here in Fairfield and Westchester Counties. It would be our pleasure to serve you!
Nearly every home building or remodeling project, no matter how large or complicated, starts in exactly the same way. It all begins with an idea; a spark of creative vision that says, “What if we…”
The next step is to align yourself with others who have the skills and talents needed to catch sight of your vision and begin crafting it into a reality.
In the case of this Greenwich remodeling project, our clients have no shortage of creative vision. Working in the fashion design industry, an appreciation for style and unique blends of color and texture come naturally.
Their moment, that spark of creative vision, came when they decided to completely remodel this Greenwich property and turn it into their “dream home.” It would no longer just be a house, but a completely customized place that perfectly reflected their personality and met their needs. And, not just their needs, but also the needs of their two young children. While many custom homes are built with an emphasis on the “wow factor,” this house needed to offer the practicality that daily life as parents calls for.
The property is not just a show piece, but a home.
Our client supplied the overarching vision, working closely with well-known architect and designer Robert Couturier. We at Gerety Building & Restoration were invited to help with not only the design work in an aesthetic sense, but also to analyze the plans from a practical construction perspective. This is an area of specialty for us. We’re happy to not only provide design and architectural services, but also to work closely with a professional that our clients are already collaborating with.
In this case, we worked hard to determine how best to make the developing sketches and plans come to life. This included a thorough structural analysis, and we also invited an engineer to come and ensure that this new construction would endure.
“Once the infrastructure is built, we can move forward with confidence that the finished product will provide lasting results and stand the test of time.” -Keith Gerety
This analysis, collaboration, and planning was one of the most involved aspects of the entire project, but it laid the foundation for a build that was successful in every sense.
We’ve all heard the term “curb appeal.” It refers to that feeling you get, whether positive or negative, as you pull up to a home, peer out the car window, and look around.
The curb appeal for this property is undeniably breathtaking.
What exactly did our exterior work involve?
The colors, materials, details, and architectural lines come together to create a simultaneously stunning and warm style. It’s inviting and friendly while still offering more than you can absorb without a second and third look.
No longer seen as a purely utilitarian room, today’s kitchen is often one of the most prized areas of the home. The potential for customization and letting your personality shine through is nearly limitless thanks to the unique combinations of colors, textures, and patterns that you can include in your design.
Remember how we said that one of our client’s goals was to create a blend of beauty and function throughout their home? This kitchen really exemplifies that. Yes, the gleaming countertops and bright, clean look are stunning, but this is also a place where snacks will be prepared for the kids, or friends can gather and chat while the meal finishes cooking.
One of the major highlights of the home is the great room. As we mentioned above, the homeowners wanted a place where they could easily entertain and enjoy time with visiting friends. Their other goal was to have a space where they could feature their artwork. This phenomenal room meets both these needs, and does so in style.
Tall ceilings, exquisite trim, endless natural light, and the central fireplace all work together to make this a functional, beautiful great room.
While this complete, top-to-bottom home remodel had many complexities and moving parts, acquiring the materials for the bathrooms was actually one of the most demanding aspects of the work we did.
To show you exactly why this was, let’s start in the master bath.
The gorgeous material you see above is marble. And, not just any marble, but hand-selected Italian marble chosen by a fabricator that we sent over to Italy. Once custom-fabricated and in place, it creates a smooth, classy interior that really is unlike any other.
One of the guest bathrooms has another very unique and beautiful material incorporated into the design.
Can you spot it?
If the rich flooring jumped out at you, you have a good eye. Although, you still get points for noticing any of the other eye-catching features. This guest bath has a lot of wonderful details to soak in, including:
The flooring in particular, however, is worth highlighting. It’s made from teak, a wood that you often hear in association with boating. Wood flooring in bathrooms is generally frowned upon, but because of teak’s dense, water-resistant nature, it gets along beautifully with wet environments.
Because this remodel involved the entire house, we wish we could take you on a complete walk-through. There’s something to see around every corner, from the children’s wing with its bedrooms, bathrooms and playrooms, right to the beautiful new turrets. Every inch was carefully planned to maximize style and function.
This project took 18 months to complete, from conceptualization to the finished product. We truly enjoyed this experience and appreciate being entrusted with such an incredible home transformation.
If we can help answer any questions you might have regarding home building, remodeling, and design, why not contact us at Gerety Building & Restoration? This is what we love to do, and we make sure our passion shines through every detail.
