When You Can’t Find the Type of House You Like

Posted May 19, 2021 in Special Features

Sometimes it’s realizing the surprise you have, when something isn’t quite the way it should be in a home you view. I find that we recognize our surprise and see it mostly when we are hunting for a new home. We put on our “architect” hat at those times as we wonder why there aren’t more windows or a more open floor plan in a home that we might otherwise love to live in and are surprised that the home wasn’t built like that.

This is when a designer who is also a real estate agent can greatly help. A home is easily re-designed at this juncture. In the first house that I redesigned, the process was somewhat slow as I developed the best ways to integrate all of the steps for all of the services necessary to get the project completed as I envisioned. It’s important that ideas are able to become constructible and placed into drawings. This sometimes takes a designer eye for complex projects and is helped by putting the plan onto paper, I’ve learned.

After successfully creating a number of homes from homes that lacked livability, design services are the necessity when you are designing the home you love from a house that you couldn’t ever imagine living in.

So much is possible and mostly requires that you know how you want to live. As long as one wall is standing that is a part of the original home, it’s a remodel and not new construction. There are merits to this kind of re-creating a home.

As an example, it is possible to create a one-bedroom unit on a ground-level floor with a full-kitchen and living room area for parents. These units can have their own exterior entry as well as a door to the rest of the home. You can add an elevator shaft at this time in case you decide to add an elevator in the future.

Families are seeking to maintain a connectedness after these trying times that our country is coming through. New home areas to enjoy include media, workout, and play spaces as they are becoming popular connector rooms. The best ideas come from understanding how you want to recreate the way you live.

Many families are now sharing space with other family members or seeking to do so. How do I approach the process? Here’s my best advice on getting started:

Measure the space you have; try to calculate the space you want
Draw the configuration of rooms and how they are connected
Locate load-bearing walls
Consider electrical and plumbing needs for the spaces you want
Describe the feeling that you would like or how you would describe living in the space you want

It does help if you find photos whether digital or from a magazine that you like. When I have a sense of the new look that I need to design, I take a number of next steps:

Calculate what resources are available; this includes money on hand (or from a home being sold)
Shop carefully so that character is being created without spending to fill space
Think outside the box to spend money where it counts; buying stock supplies such as cabinets and adding moldings to create a custom look when you need to spend money elsewhere
Reupholster and add wallpaper accents to create a statement that ties the entire home together
Mix – don’t match; use diverse items with similar colors, fabrics or forms.

Creatively approaching the reuse of materials, recycled and up-cycled items creates a sustainable lifestyle that will give you the spaces you love to live. These spaces are more maintainable because each plan is customized to the person or family.

If you are in the market for a new home, but just can’t quite get excited about the houses you’ve seen, I can help you envision your options and help you to get the best price possible for your existing home.

A little help with something you can’t quite put your finger on will help you to visualize your next new home. When you think about selling your home, an investment with home sale staging can help you to have the funds you need to live the way you are dreaming of. You will have a more successful sale because of this.

Call me at 360.635.1121 or email me at DianneMorrisHomes@gmail.com

to learn more about the new and best practices to best list and create your new, most-loved home.