Remodel With Ease

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.”

Kitchens & Baths
Changes in the bath and kitchen can give the impression of a serious overhaul without actually wandering into heavy construction territory. Old bathroom and kitchen surfaces can easily be replaced, says Lynn Monson of DreamMaker Bath and Kitchen in St. Louis Park. Innovative products that act as “slip covers” over existing surfaces allow for quick upgrades without completely replacing a surface. Monson suggests three types of products to achieve this: acrylic wall systems, a man-made solid surface such as Corian or Swanstone, or Soterra Stone, which is applied to an existing surface in a light-weight, quarter-inch thickness. “You don’t have to tear anything out, but rather go right over it,” Monson says. The new surfaces are permanently mounted and sealed, don’t leak, and don’t require much maintenance. Granite Transformations is another company that can install granite over existing countertops.

Likewise, a bathtub can be covered with ease. “Maybe [the tub] is beat up, or maybe it’s one of those fifties- or sixties-era pink bathtubs,” Monson says. “You can have a new tub made of acrylic that fits right over the old bathtub. It’s the same thickness as a new tub you buy off the shelf.”

Vanities and sinks are another area where change is easy to come by. Monson recommends installing a new vanity top to match any other bathroom updates, again suggesting a slip cover-type improvement. Vanities with attached pre-made sinks can be put on top of existing vanities in short order, he says.

“Bathrooms are starting to have more of a furniture feel to them,” Smolik agrees. For example, vanities are showing up with large vessel sinks. “You’ve almost got a furniture piece doubling as a sink,” he says. Whole walls of mirrors are also popular because they have the effect of adding space to small bathrooms.

An exciting new technology for floors in both the bathroom and kitchen is a product called Genuine Tile Laminate by Edge Flooring, Monson says. Real ceramic tiles are built onto a backing that clicks together and is laid over the existing floor with flexible, grout-based caulking.

For another simple upgrade, Monson suggests refacing kitchen cabinets. “The sky is the limit here—wood, laminate, thermal foils, exotic wood.” But, he says, sometimes just changing the hardware on the cabinets is enough of a lift. To avoid replacing cabinet doors, Smolik recommends setting off one aspect of a room, such as a center island, by staining it a color or tone that complements the other cabinetry.

Painting techniques can also make a big impact in the kitchen, Smolik says. If everything else in the room is stark white, paint the center island a cream color for a bit of contrast, or try a complementary color scheme, which can sometimes create the illusion of more space. For texture, distressing, rubbing, highlighting, and all kinds of finishes are useful. And as for the island countertop, try a dual material surface, like wood and granite, to warm the kitchen and avoid the cold feeling characteristic of all granite or steel.

Replacing a basic backsplash with something more de rigueur is a popular option, Monson and Smolik say. “If you’ve just got a painted backsplash, go with tile or painted laminate,” Monson says. “You can even get a mirrored backsplash with a TV built into it.” Another possibility is to have an artisan paint tiles and have them fired for a one-of-a-kind backsplash.

A frequently untapped resource, Williams says, is the space your home already has. Rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars adding on to your home, he suggests finishing or remodeling the basement. “It’s a lot less per square foot to finish that off than to add onto the house,” Williams says. “It’s a great way to give the family more room.”

“People just get scared because it’s kind of daunting to go in and tear things up,” Monson says. But, he says, they shouldn’t worry. “There are a lot of fun things that you could do.”