Remodel With Ease

Special Advertising Section from September 2006.

Minor home improvements—wallpapering and tiling bathrooms, turning storage space into bedrooms, landscaping, painting the house—can give a home a satisfyingly fresh feel, particularly if the cost of major renovations is prohibitive.

But that feeling—the satisfaction you get from completing any home upgrade—can sometimes seem out of reach, especially if you’re not looking to redo your entire home. Thankfully, for each “my-house-feels-old-and-boring” problem, there are dozens of remedies. We polled several local remodeling gurus—the same ones whose work will be on display during the Parade of Homes Remodelors Showcase from October 13–15—and compiled a list of easy, inexpensive ways to give your house that little something extra.

Curb Appeal
Sprucing up the entrance to your home is one way to bring about a sense of freshness: It’s the first thing everyone sees when they arrive at your home, and an attractive exterior will help welcome you and your guests.

“Adding stone to the front exterior,  adding some trim, a new front door—these things can make a huge difference,” says Ryan Smolik, of Lake Country Builders in Excelsior. He also says anything that showcases flowers—such as planters and sconces—are simple ways to up the home-sweet-home feel.

To help call attention to landscaping, Smolik recommends investing in lighting updates. “Landscape lighting is a huge thing right now,” he says. “People want to highlight the work put into their yards, which can get lost—especially at four o’clock when it’s getting dark in the winter. It can make such a difference lighting the evergreens and the different aspects of the house,” he says.

Upkeep of the greenery in your yard will also help keep things looking new, says Gary Knight, of Knight Construction Design in Chanhassen. Plants and flowers are great, he says, but getting rid of old shrubbery and overgrown plants is the key to a consistently fresh look, as too-tall trees will overwhelm your house. “Overgrown evergreens hide the sidewalk, hide the front door, and the house gets lost,” he says. Instead, Knight says putting in some new bed mulch and fresh perennials for a splash color is one option for a fresh look.

Other exterior updates include adding shutters or replacing old ones, or even something a little more ambitious, like building a covered entry or portico. One of Knight’s covered entry projects involved tearing out the front stoop, replacing it with a new brick stoop, and adding columns, a pitched roof that matches the roofline of the home, and a tongue-and-groove ceiling. The result, he says, is a much more inviting and warmer entrance.

Interior Views
Indoors, Knight says replacing the things used daily—plumbing fixtures, hardware, cabinetry, and flooring—eliminates the worn look a house gradually acquires.

Jack Williams of J.W. Williams Construction also notes the ease and effectiveness of replacing countertops, cabinets, and hardware, such as faucets. “It’ll make your house look a lot cleaner, but it’s not a major remodel,” he says.

China and other fine dining ware can be displayed in the center, which looks particularly good with properly crafted lighting. “The lighting can change the entire mood of the house,” Williams says.

Most important, though, Knight says, is taking an integrated approach to any redesign. “People have a habit of running out to Home Depot and picking up a couple of gallons of paint and saying ‘Oh, honey, let’s redo the kitchen cabinets!’ That’s not a good approach. You really need to think the whole thing through, look at the whole house and then take it one room at a time. But look for the broader appeal of the changes.”