House Tour – Residential Addition

You have seen bits and pieces of this residential addition on our social media pages, today, we have decided to give you the full project and its story. This award-winning project came together through a collaboration with a local architect. We created a sleek, modern addition that stayed true to the original style and construction of the house.

The clients, a busy family of five, wanted the addition to appear as if it had always been there. Along with the exterior addition, the kitchen was completely remodeled. The new kitchen design is a complex, full overlay, wood grain cabinet design that greatly improves storage and provides a new dining room for entertaining guests.

The separate island design, adjacent to the kitchen was designed specifically so the children of the family can enjoy breakfast, do homework and hang out with their friends. The area also doubles as an ideal entertainment area for when the adults host family and friends’ gatherings.

We love all aspects of this residential addition but our favorite parts include all of the storage space. For example, this coffee bar and these shelves for cookbook storage.

Another great part of this residential addition is the entry way. Everything has its place, shoes, coats, keys, you name it.

Lastly, we must call out the dining area and the living room. There is so much room for guests to gather and enjoy each other’s company.  

We are so proud of this award-winning residential addition and are so happy we were able to meet our client’s needs!

Be sure to follow us on social media for more photos of this project and many more: Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Sunrooms and Three Season Rooms as a Cooking and Entertaining Space

Have you ever thought of building a sunroom as your outdoor party space? Maybe you have an existing one that can be redone for that purpose. Instead of a simple seating or gardening area, your sunroom can actually serve as a full service outdoor kitchen and entertainment area. Keep your guests coming back with everything in one place. Here’s how.

Extra Cooking Space Without the Outdoor Weather

Too hot out? Maybe it’s raining on your parade? Not to worry when your outdoor kitchen is essentially indoors – in your sunroom. You obviously don’t want to smoke out your guests. So, your outdoor sunroom kitchen should include cooking areas that use electricity, rather than charcoal. There are more ways to do this than you might think. Talk to a remodeling and addition contractor to find out the latest innovations.

Keep the Party Outdoors

If you enjoy the outdoors, the sunroom is still an awesome place to build in a kitchen and entertaining area. With easier access to the yard, you and your guests get all the benefits of an outdoor party without being limited to just the outdoors. This way, guests who wish to be outside won’t have to go far and those who prefer the indoors can stick to the sunroom. This keeps people more social, as it’s easier for everyone to communicate.

Sunroom Feature Ideas

Cook tops are a great kitchen addition for sunrooms, as it eliminates the need to go in and out of the house while preparing food for your guests. The same can be said for griddle and grill tops that use electricity, rather than charcoal. This keeps things both convenient and social.

Another idea is to install a small powder or half bath. This is more convenient for guests and helps keep the mess outside, rather than in your main living space. These are especially handy if you have a pool or if guests have small children or will be over long periods of time.

Outdoor furniture, such as tables and ample seating is obvious. However, one may not always consider built-ins and fold-outs, which can be extremely convenient. Others may also decide to have a small mud closet area for guests to use during get-togethers. A pool table, card table, outdoor theater or stereo, and other entertainment-related amenities may be another choice.

Deciding What’s Best For You

When imagining your entertainment sunroom, think about the things you and your guests enjoy the most. Also, consider the space available to decide which features you need most, as well as those you can do without. If your sunroom is small, consider built-in options with high storage and shelving to maximize the space. A fancy entertainment space is nice, but only if you’ll use all of the features. Be sure to choose the best features for your personal idea of outdoor fun. Your contractor can help you figure out what works best with your budget, needs, and style. It helps to write all of your ideas, wants, and needs in a notebook when meeting with them. This way, nothing is forgotten in the final design.

When You Realize That You Need More Space

Getting married and starting a family is an exciting time in everyone’s lives. It is around this time that many decide to take the extra step of buying their own home. Home ownership is one of the rites of passage kinds of things that make most men and women truly feel like an adult. The combination of being a parent and owning your own home is like the ultimate American dream come true.

While owning your own home is a great thing, it also comes with its challenges. The biggest of these is when the planned family size is exceeded, especially when it is greatly exceeded. Many couples decide to have just two or three kids, but destiny deems that more is in store for them. When they have four their four bedrooms home simply isn’t able to accommodate the larger sized family.

What becomes such a problem is that many couples cannot afford to sell their current home to get a bigger one. That is an expense they simply cannot take on, especially since they have more children than what was expected. There are options that make sense, and the best one of these is the home remodel.

Remodeling your home can usually be done at a reasonable cost, keeping your financial security safer than deciding to buy a new home and move. One of the best places to start is to look at larger sized rooms and see if they can be turned into two smaller rooms. While some space is taken away by an additional wall and a new door, the fact is that two children get their own space, or four kids can share two rooms instead of just one room.

You can also look at great rooms you may have. Many families have a basement or downstairs living room that could be turned into rooms. A simple addition of walls and even a bathroom can do the trick for you and give you the added number of bedrooms that you need.

The unfinished basement is one of the best places to remodel, usually because they are made to do with as you please. Many are just big open spaces with some support beams around spread evenly around. These support beams make it easy to add walls and build the additional rooms you need.

There are times where that may not work. You may not have extra space like that, and so you will need to add space to your home. This can be costly, especially if you do not have a lot of property to build off of. For many the solution is to look at the garage as an option. The garage can be used in one of two ways to solve your problem. If you do not need to park in the garage you could turn the garage into a room or two. Frequently there is water access in the garage so a bathroom can be added as well.

If you need to have your garage space, then look into putting the room above the garage. This is obviously more costly, but is a way to use the space you have to accommodate your needs.

Adding on to Your Shrewsbury Home

Hunting for a new house can be stressful and time consuming. One of the reasons people move is because they need more space.

Many people enjoy living & working in the Shrewsbury, Westborough, or Metro West Boston area.

Homeowners should consider adding on to their existing traditional-family-roomhome to avoid paying higher mortgage rates and to make their homes more valuable. Adding on to an existing home can add value to the property when deciding to sell it. The property will be more desirable to a potential buyer because it stands out from the other homes and offers additional features. Additional rooms can be very profitable to the seller. There are several ways to expand upon the property, but planning is the key.

Home owners should determine what the extra space is going to be used for. Consider areas of the house that are a priority. The extension should be determined based upon the needs of the household. A couple may need more room for the children or a larger work space. Extending the home does not only occur indoors. Outdoor extensions include patios, gazebos and front porches. For a warm climate area such as California pools may be a great investment.

This can be a big job to complete alone without expert advice. RemodelWerks is a Design/Build Specialist and we pride ourselves in making the process of adding on to the home a breeze and stress free. We will provide expert advice about the best location to make the extension within the home.

Have more questions about design or building your shrewsbury home addition? Should We Expand? How much additional square feet should we add? Will the design and scale of the addition fit in with our existing home? Can we handle the disruption that may come from building an addition?

 

Visit our home additions page for more information.

Visit our In-Law Apartment Addition Gallery page.

 

Now’s the Best Time to Remodel Your Existing Home or Build That Custom Dream Home!

Are you thinking about selling your home and buying a bigger, better home that’s currently on the market? Recent evidence suggests you may be in for a rough ride in finding a listed home that meets the needs of you and your family.

That’s because right now there’s a decreased inventory of homes on the market here in Massachusetts, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette (T&G) reported recently. According to Zillow.com, there were 27 percent fewer homes on the market in June 2013 than there were just one year earlier, the T&G noted. The article pointed out that in today’s market would-be buyers—that would mean you!—can’t be as picky as you could be in a more robust buyer’s market.

Read more

Reflections on What Homeowners Wish They’d Known Before Starting a Remodel

Here at RemodelWerks, we’ve walked countless homeowners through the remodeling process—from bringing their initial vision to life using cutting-edge 3D design technology to plot out their new space, firming up their budget and obtaining the necessary permits from their towns to demolishing walls, cabinets, flooring and other features that must come out so the new design can come in! Finally, we continue to deliver high-quality construction services and finish work to give our clients’ phenomenal new spaces they can enjoy for years to come.The fact is, though, sometimes we’re not the first contractor on the job. That means sometimes we must correct things that may not have been done properly in the first place. Fortunately, we’ve got years of custom design/build experience so we are not intimidated by this. But, we’d like to share with you some of the top things homeowners often tell us they wish they’d done right in the first place.

Read more

Need More Space? How to Use What You’ve Got Rather than Moving

When you need more space to accommodate a growing family, your first thought might be to move! But, consider adding an addition to your home to get the space and design you crave!

Read more

Four Tips to Get Your Kitchen Remodeling Juices Flowing

For the past couple of weeks, RemodelWerks has been talking about research that shows home remodeling is likely to rise as the economic recovery continues and more folks become motivated to turn their glorious kitchen redesign plans into a reality.

Read more

Enter Now for Your Chance to Win Dinner and an Overnight Stay in Boston!

What do the Omni Parker House Hotel, a luxury establishment in the heart of Boston,  Maggiano’s Italian-American Restaurant, also in the center of Beantown,  and RemodelWerks, Central Massachusetts’ premier design/build firm, have in common?

For starters, right now like RemodelWerks on Facebook for your chance to win a night’s stay at the Omni Parker House Hotel and a $100 gift card for Maggiano’s!

Read more

Get a jump on renovations now for the 2012 holiday season

It’s only July, you may be thinking? Ah yes, but in a few short months we will have stored the patio furniture, covered the pool, and stored the grill in favor of other American pastimes—like trimming the tree, shopping for holiday gifts and entertaining family and friends for the holidays.

Now is perhaps the best time of year to get a jump on any plans to remodel your home so it will be pristine, modern and inviting for those holiday get-togethers with your friends and family.

Read more