How to Create a Custom Range Hood in Your Kitchen

Custom range hood
The custom range hood of this black-and-white kitchen in one of our custom home remodels is the perfect focal point for the room.

More and more homeowners are steering away from industrial-grade, stainless steel range hoods and are opting for custom millwork to complete their kitchens.  If your stove is the focal point of your kitchen, then the range hood should complement it accordingly.  But installing a custom range hood is not just a matter of building a wood box and painting it.  As in all things construction, you can’t forget about the logistics behind the finish piece, and that often involves multiple trades.  Here are a few tips to help you when considering a custom range hood for your kitchen.

Continue reading

Five Ways to Make Your Custom Home Project Cost More – and How to Avoid Them

 

Custom Home

When you’re building or remodeling your home, you’re not buying towels or dishes.  In most cases, it’s one of the most costly purchases you’ve ever made.  So when it comes to budget, you probably want to figure out the best places to save money right off the bat.

There are many parts and pieces to a renovation or a construction project, and many ways to save money.  That’s the beauty of working with a qualified Design-Build company, as their professionals usually have years of experience on pricing and can guide you in the right direction on which design items to select to stay within your budget.  We often save our clients thousands of dollars by finding them finishes and fixtures that still look good and are in keeping with their tastes, but are far less expensive than what they might find on their own, as a consumer.  

When we sit down with our clients for their initial design consultation, there are five major areas we like to discuss before we proceed.  These big-ticket items can make or break the bank when it comes to a custom home project, and the direction we take depends on finding that balance between budget and aesthetics.  You have to decide – are these items so important to your custom home that you are willing to stretch your budget a little?  Or does budget take priority?  Is there a middle ground in any of these areas?  These are all important aspects of the design and planning process.

Here are five places where you can sway your budget considerably on a custom home project:

Continue reading

The Continual Love Affair With Gray: Design Trends 2017

Grays in Bathroom

Gray has taken the limelight for far longer than people think.  True, the book Fifty Shades of Gray gave it a Hollywood boost – but it earned its fame fair and square through its own innate beauty.  Hence, it has become known as the “color of the decade.”  In 2017 design trends, gray rises to new heights as many paint companies increase their range of gray shades, and homeowners find new ways to incorporate it into their homes.  Read on to find out about the new era of grays, and how you can make it work with any motif in your custom home.   

Continue reading