It’s easy to get carried away with shine and glitter, but a few fundamentals are important to keep in mind when remodeling your whole house in Connecticut. 

Create a strategy, not just a plan. Consider how you’d like the entire house to be affected by the renovation – not just the room in question. Combine projects to maximize the space gains and the future gains. For example, use a kitchen renovation to bump out a wall on the side of the house and expand an upstairs bedroom. Think outside the box – what if you changed the size of the living room, office, or moved back a wall to put the fridge further back instead of sticking out into the room? 

Add light if you can. If you’re adding or shifting windows, raise them higher up on the wall. This allows light to reach further into the house. Expand windows to be wider, even if you can only do it a few inches. If you have a tilted roof on any part of your renovation space, ask your contractor if he can turn it into a skylight or type of open space toward the sky. More light makes spaces feel bigger, especially if tilted windows reduce the ceiling height. 

Think about the way air, sight, and light travel through the house. When you’re doing a renovation, keep spaces open near windows and open up areas if you can. For example, don’t let a big refrigerator sit in front of a kitchen window and don’t block a back window with a side décor wall. Let light travel through hallways whenever possible, and this will also help with airflow and a sense of openness and direction to the home. It will add cohesiveness to your décor and your design. 

When possible, keep what you have. If you’ve got something as cool as a fireplace – even an old one -- don’t change it. Refinish it to its former glory and create an area around it that invites the family to come gather around. 

Resist the blanket urge to open up walls. Big, blended spaces are all the rage these days for whole house remodeling in Connecticut, but knocking out a wall is not always the best choice for every house. Some private space is good, not worth forfeiting for a more open plan. If you have cabinets on a kitchen wall right up against the living room, for example, ask your contractor how you can open up the space to feel larger. It may not be the best thing to knock out the entire wall; a partial opening can retain the separateness of living and kitchen areas while giving it a more expansive feel. 

For more ideas on remodeling, check out this blog post.