Lanie’s Timeless Home Remodel
Kitchen, Laundry Room, & Bar Renovation in Foxfire
Whole Home Drywall Repairs & Paint
Our client, Lanie, contacted us to give her kitchen a major facelift, completely gut and renovate her laundry room, give her bar an update, and complete drywall repairs & repainting throughout her home. This project is a great example of how quickly a home feels outdated when you follow the current trendy neutrals. However, there are some design guidelines to keep in mind when creating a timeless home remodel.
With a few exceptions, decade trends tend to be with neutral colors: browns, black, grays, etc. Just like the Tuscan earth tones (espresso & beige) from the 2000s, gray on EVERYTHING from the 2010s, and black & white from… now! (Maria Killam has some great thoughts in this blog post. Be sure to scroll down to see her trend timeline).
There is nothing wrong with brown earth tones, gray, OR black and white. But when it’s overdone… when your WHOLE space is covered head-to-toe in the trendy neutral, it’s instantly placed in that decade. When that decade is over and gone, the space immediately looks outdated.
We renovate a lot of kitchens because of the way they look, not just because they don’t function well. Want to take a guess when Lanie’s kitchen was last updated? In the early 2000s, during the Tuscan brown earth tone trend. This time, she went for TIMELESS design.
Before…
One of the BEST tricks for a timeless home remodel…
USE COLOR! A lot of clients are afraid of color because they think it’s too bold and they’ll get sick of it in a few years. And yes, color can be done poorly. Too much color: and you don’t know where to look, it starts to feel like a clown house. Color NEEDS neutrals around it to really shine.
Also, warm colors like orange, red, and yellow, can feel heavy, and are best when used as smaller accents.
However, blues and greens are calming. I believe it’s the fact that we see blues and greens all the time in nature that we are much less likely to get sick of them. Especially using them in mindful ways, like this client did with her backsplash and furnishings, blues and greens can feel like neutrals.
Lanie realized that the last time she renovated, she just picked what was trendy at the time. And she didn’t want to make the same mistake again, by replacing everything brown with black or white.
Instead, she chose an off white for her walls and cabinets, to coordinate with her off-white Citrine Quartz countertops. But, it’s the addition of the blue-green backsplash that really brings her whole design together, and doesn’t place it in this decade or any other. In this case, the color MAKES it timeless!
Note: stark, art gallery white walls are trendy right now. Keeping your white selection in the off-white range when covering large areas (like all of your walls) to ensure a timeless home remodel.
After!
The Laundry Room
She carried the same timeless design through to her laundry room renovation, too.
This part of the project was a complete gut. We created all new custom cabinetry and slightly relocated her sink to take advantage of every square inch of storage space. She also purchased a new stackable washer/dryer set to maximize counter space.
When we share our projects, some of our most loved spaces are the utility rooms: pantries, laundry rooms, and mud rooms. This laundry room was no exception!
I believe it’s because how our spaces look changes how we feel. We want to picture ourselves doing something we don’t love (laundry) in a place that lifts our spirits and inspires us. For your next renovation project, don’t neglect the utility spaces. They can often times have the biggest impact!
The Bar
Another big change was her bar area. Keeping with her timeless home remodel theme, she went with a classic bar design: SHINY. Mirrored backsplash and brushed gold fixtures bring the bling to this bar area. These material selections would not have felt timeless in her kitchen, but in an enclosed bar area, they won’t go out of style. Just like they say in real estate… it’s all about LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION.
The bar received a new countertop, backsplash, and a new sink and faucet. But perhaps the best update was the repurposed upper cabinet and custom wine rack. The upper cabinet was previously in the laundry room that we renovated. Instead of throwing it out, we were able to replace the doors with mesh doors, and rehang it in the bar.
For a custom feel, we installed the cabinet flush with the right-most wall, and built a custom-sized wine rack to fill the void on the left. It turned out beautiful and it all looks brand new!
The Rest!
Last, but certainly not least, we performed many drywall repairs and repainted her walls, ceiling, & trim. The previous wall color was, again, a trendy neutral of the times (yellow beige), and she updated it to a simple, timeless, off-white (Benjamin Moore White Dove). This gives her the option to update her decor as much as she wants, without it clashing with the walls!
If you’d like help creating a timeless home remodel, give us a call or fill out the form for a free consultation. We’d love to speak with you!
