Bellagio Vanity

[gallery]If you’ve ever been to the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, you may have seen what we like to call, the Bellagio Vanity. The Bellagio Hotel has beautiful bathrooms but my favorite part of the entire bathroom is the vanity.

If your bathroom is lacking in elegance, character, and especially storage space, this might be the perfect option for you. As I recently posted in a blog, my perfect bathroom includes a Bellagio Vanity.

It can be built according to your needs… one sink or two, innovative storage, custom made countertops, and more. All you need is 4 inches of space behind the vanity to ensure you get all of the great qualities of a custom vanity.

If you’re renovating your home or building a new home, the only specifications of building this luxurious vanity is having an extra 4 inches of space behind the vanity. You get an extra 4 inches of space above your sink that runs the length of the entire vanity.

Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes design home plans, renovation plan. We build traditional, modern and contemporary new homes; do renovations, remodeling and home additions. We do the architecture including interior design details as well as new home plans. We manage all phases of the new home construction and renovation work. We build throughout Oakland County including Birmingham, Berkley, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy. Our work can be found in neighborhoods such Quarton Lake, Poppleton Park, Midvale, Holy Name, central Birmingham and other fine areas.

Renovations… Let’s be smart about ‘em.

The term renovation has become more popular than ever. We hear this on home design shows, in magazines, and the amazing before and after pictures. 

The market offers deals you couldn’t have imagined possible a few years ago.  It’s an opportunity for those in a position to buy, to take advantage of it, particularly in the immediate areas: Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Beverly Hills, Bingham Farms, and Franklin areas.

Just about anyone knows about a bargain or one that will soon be available. We do plenty of home renovation work, so we keep a close watch on the market.

We always have and still spend a lot of time evaluating renovation candidates with clients.  We actually talk about homes in terms of “candidates for renovation”.  Some homes are good candidates, some are okay, and some are very problematic.  By problematic we are not necessarily talking about issues relating to the physical structure or the condition of the home.  We are referring to the cost of making a home suitable for a client without making compromises and without excessive costs. We are always looking for the “smart renovation” for our clients.

No one wants to buy a house and realize that it is going to be harder and more costly than originally thought to transform the home into what was envisioned.  You should never be in the position if you do the upfront due diligence. A home is a smart renovation when it meets your needs AND the changes be renovated affordably.  Unless you do the upfront work correctly, you may end up with a house that isn’t what you planned and can’t be without breaking the bank.

Borrow from our experience. Here are some things to consider and before you sign a purchase agreement:

The Obvious Pre-Purchase Renovation Checklist

Your Realtor and other advisors- be them architects, builders, or inspectors can always help you get through an important list of items that will help you get to the first step of qualifying a house as a good renovation candidate.  They will help you verify a list of these items and more: 

1. Condition – Does the house pass the basic home inspection criteria – is it structurally sound and in good condition.
2. Does the subdivision have any restrictions to consider.  For example until just recently the Westchester Village subdivisions didn’t allow second stories; in Bloomfield Village all exterior renovations have to be approved by the association Board of Trustees, etc. 
3. Make sure you know what the setback limitations are and whether or not they will limit what you may be planning. 
4. Find out if there are “lot coverage” restrictions which might limit the size of an addition.  Bloomfield Township, Bloomfield Village and Birmingham all have them as do most other areas.
5. Make sure there are no issues in the home inspection which would make a renovation more expensive.

So we don’t throw too much at you at one time, we will continue discussing the “good” renovation candidate and the “not-so-good” renovation candidate in later blogs.

Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes design home plans, renovation plan.  We build traditional, modern and contemporary new homes; do renovations, remodeling and home additions.  We do the architecture including interior design details as well as new home plans.  We manage all phases of the new home construction and renovation work.  We build throughout Oakland County including Birmingham, Berkley, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy. Our work can be found in neighborhoods such Quarton Lake, Poppleton Park, Midvale, Holy Name, central Birmingham and other fine areas

Smart Renovation, Dumb Renovation

The Not-So-Obvious Issues

A couple days ago we talked about renovations in terms of selecting a home to renovate. 

Now let’s get down to brass tacks. As home designers and experienced builders and renovators, we think of renovations as two types – “smart renovation” candidates and “poor renovation” candidates. 

A smart renovation candidate is one which minimizes the structural work on the existing house and allows you to easily add rooms with relative ease. 

A poor renovation candidate is one which requires a great deal of interior restructuring to meet your needs. 

Making a determination is a matter of having a solid tentative plan before you buy a home and hiring a company that has completed renovation work to give you a reliable and rough estimate of the cost. This sounds tough, but it isn’t really hard to get this information- it’s vital.

We see renovations much differently than most people do.  We see a very unattractive house from the outside and understand what can be done to make it attractive.  Often you’d be surprised.  Take a look at these before and after photos of exteriors.  Each one was done in a way that added substantial economic value to the home.  Each one created a home which the owner was happy to come home to and very pleased to have friends visit. 

Each of these was classified from aesthetic and value as smart exterior renovations:

Exterior renovations are pretty simple.  We rarely find a house in which we cannot create a much more attractive house design. 

What about interiors?

More than exteriors, interiors can make a house a poor renovation candidate.  It is a matter of understanding what you want to create in terms of living areas. 

We’ll ask you many questions about your proposed renovation of an interior before you give you an opinion as to whether a house is a smart or dumb renovation candidate.  Here are a few of those questions.

1. What rooms do you need?
2. How large do you want each room to be?
3. What rooms exist now that you don’t need?
4. What rooms are missing?
5. Do you need an informal family dining area – for example, a morning room.
6. Should the house plan include more bedrooms?
7. Should the renovated house plan include more baths, second floor laundry?
8. What is you approximate budget?
9. Do you have an idea of the finishes?

 

Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of a “smart renovation” candidate and a “dumb renovation” candidate. There is a lot that goes into a renovation and although it seems as if anything can be renovated, there is a lot more that goes into the renovation process. Home renovations give you as the home owner a house that suits your needs and is aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

The process of deciding if your house is a “smart renovation” candidate is a phone call away, so before you decide that you want to renovate your house, preparation work is crucial.

Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes design home plans, renovation plan.  We build traditional, modern and contemporary new homes; do renovations, remodeling and home additions.  We do the architecture including interior design details as well as new home plans.  We manage all phases of the new home construction and renovation work.  We build throughout Oakland County including Birmingham, Berkley, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy. Our work can be found in neighborhoods such Quarton Lake, Poppleton Park, Midvale, Holy Name, central Birmingham and other fine areas.