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Health & Fitness

What's Your Remodeling Style?

Once you decide to remodel your home, the next thing to do is to decide on what your remodeling style is going to be. This can be a problem if the family is a large one made up of strong minded individuals – even kids can have strong feelings on the subject. What needs to be done then is to have everyone sit down together and talk about what they want and why and evolve a compromise that, even if it will not make everyone happy, will prevent some people from blowing their tops and sulking.

A word of caution here; compromise, in the context of home remodeling styles, does not mean that a room or a house should have a little bit of everything. A contemporary designed living room with old fashioned furniture in it may keep the members of the family happy, but the look is going to be really odd. How the right solution is found depends on the family dynamic, but whatever it is, the end result is a home that must reflect a certain theme or style in a smooth and integrated manner.

Finding the Right Style

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One of the problems in deciding on a remodeling style is the huge amount of options available in terms of design and materials. You could spend days or weeks going through magazines and websites trying to decide on what will be right for your home. Contractors and professional designers can give you inputs, but the final decision must be yours. This can be incredibly tough, but there are a few tips that can make to process a little bit easier.

Begin by asking yourself (and the family if they are involved) the following questions:

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  • What colors will be right?
  • How important is maximizing natural light?
  • What is the real function of a room or space going to be?
  • What kind of furniture will be right?
  • What kind of furnishings and decorations will work?

As said before, getting everyone to agree on common answers can be tough, but decisions must be taken. Going ahead with a mish mash of conflicting and non-compatible styles will lead to chaos. Once the answers to these questions are in place, the next step is to consider how the elements will complement each other. For example, do you want to have a clean, uncluttered geometric design? If so, will old style Shaker furniture (which everyone in the family wants) fit in? One or the other – the modern look or the Shaker furniture – will have to go. Will the existing elements of the house that you want to retain work with the new design? If not, either the old elements must go or the new design modified to accommodate the older elements.

An easy way out of the style problem is to go with an Eclectic style that will allow you to mix things up a bit and create a style that is uniquely your own. But be careful here. If the mixing is overdone or not carefully planned, it could look like you are living in the middle of a huge garage sale.

Decision Time

When all the options have been weighed and all the discussions are done, it’s time to start making decisions. Not everyone in the family will be agreeable to every decision, and the larger the family the more argument there will be. But if you (or the majority) are sure of what is wanted, then stick to it. You have your home remodeling style in place and now It’s time to start doing your budgeting (compromises may be called for here) and talking to the contractor about project execution and completion dates.

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