Archives for October 2015

Sun Rooms and Screened Porches for Year-Round Living

Sun Rooms and Screened Porches for Year-Round Living

Adding extra living space to your home always provides more options for a comfortable family life and entertaining, but having an entire addition put on can be cost prohibitive and too disruptive. When you don’t need another whole room, contact experts in home renovation College Station, TX or home remodeling Brazos Valley, TX to find out what your options are for sun rooms and screened porches.

Five Useful Reasons to Get a Sunroom or Screen Porch Addition

  1. Creates another whole room to play or work in.
  2. Allows you to enjoy the outdoors without glaring sunlight or biting insects.
  3. A great place to grow plants and extend your garden indoors.
  4. Helps regulate home temperature in an earth friendly way.
  5. Increases property value.

General Remodel Options for Home Additions

Sun rooms and screened porches give more living space and create an interesting combination of indoor and outdoor living that is very accessible and dynamic depending upon the season and weather conditions. Deciding which one to have built is something you, the homeowner, need to discuss with experts in home remodeling in College Station, TX or Bryan, TX. They should be able to use their knowledge and experience about home construction and remodeling to recommend the best option for you.

A sun room is much closer to an actual room of the house, but with a lot more windows, glass walls or sliding glass doors that lead out to the backyard or a patio or deck. Although most people install shades or curtains in the sun room to keep out the hottest sun, they do tend to heat up in the hot Texas weather. They make excellent greenhouses if you want to start seeds or grow exotic houseplants.

The screened porch is more like a deck or patio that has an impermeable roof to keep off the sun and rain and screen windows to keep out insects and debris. These can be built on top of an existing deck or added separately to the back wall of the home or even created from a freestanding gazebo. Experts in home remodeling and design can help decide what works best for your needs.

Although both sun rooms and screened porches get a large amount of light, there are additional options that may accentuates the sunny glow of your new home edition. Many people put skylights in these types of rooms in order to increase brightness and offer a way to create more airflow to remove heat accumulated near the ceiling. Although they do not open, Suntunnel skylights offer a simple way to illuminate a screened porch or sun room without the need for electricity.

Home Remodeling in College Station, TX

Home Remodeling in College Station, TX

Home Remodeling in College Station, TX

Improve Kitchen and Bath Lighting With Suntunnel Skylights and New Windows

Before your first cup of coffee or invigorating shower in the morning, the harsh glare of fluorescent or incandescent bulbs can seem like a shock after the quiet dark of your bedroom. During a general remodel of a home, light fixtures can be changed and dimmer switches can be installed, but there is another option that brings natural sunlight into your kitchen and bathroom without the need for electrical re-wiring or extensive home remodeling (bath & kitchen in particular) in College Station and Bryan, TX.

Choose the Right Windows for Every Room

When you undertake home remodeling in College Station, TX, replacement windows may be one of the improvements in your budget. Although it is good to have a cohesive window type throughout the house, there are options for particular rooms that may serve you better.

Bathrooms require not only a way to get some fresh air but also privacy. Having large windows in the bathroom is not standard design procedure, but they can work if certain steps are taken to ensure no neighbors or passersby can begin and what you shower or change. One option is to replace standard, clear glass with frosted glass or even stained-glass options if they match your overall decor style.

Kitchens are usually meant to be bright and sunny places, so large windows are perfect for them. Natural light is easier on the eyes and can help you see particular ingredients better when cooking. Some say that people enjoy food better when they can see its attractive presentation.

Other Options for Natural Light in Kitchens and Bathrooms

If you peruse online home decor websites or magazines, you will notice that many kitchens and bathrooms have spotlighting or recessed lighting strips to add additional light to the work areas of the room. Experts who do home remodeling in Bryan, TX can certainly install these types of lights so you can cook more easily or shave and apply makeup in front of the bathroom mirror.

Besides electric lights, there are other options that will give you sufficient brightness in natural tones without having to spend any money or energy at all. Skylights are one option. They come in various sizes and styles to suit particular room’s needs.

In a kitchen, a large skylight that can open and close and provide not only lights but a way to vent the heat of cooking or any smells that may linger after dinner. The same benefit can be found in the bathroom, but since they are usually smaller rooms, a large skylight may be overwhelming. One option that provides an amazing amount of light but not the vent benefit is Skytunnel skylights. These cylindrical holes through the roof have special lenses above to magnify the sunlight down into the room. They are essentially natural spotlighting for workspaces.

Whatever option you choose for additional light in kitchens and bathrooms, be sure it fits your purposes and decor style. During you home remodel, changing windows and adding skylights can be affordable way to spruce up your living space and make it easier to manage those early morning tasks.

Outdoor Living Space: Create the Perfect Garden Oasis in Brazos Valley, TX

Outdoor Living Space: Create the Perfect Garden Oasis in Brazos Valley, TX

With all the wonderful sunny weather in the Brazos Valley, Texas, homeowners like to spend a lot of time in an outdoor living space. That sunny weather can become excessively hot, however, and force people back inside the air-conditioning. Creating a perfect garden oasis can help you enjoy the outdoors more often without risk of sunburn or heat stroke.

Choose a section of your backyard or a corner near and angle of the house to turn into a comfortable spot for relaxation and entertaining.

Your Home is the Backdrop

Always remember that the wall of your house provides the backdrop for any garden or landscaping style. Start with a home remodeling service in College Station, TX for painting or other wall cover installation. Stone facing and Hardie-Plank siding are two very popular choices in this region of Texas. They are both durable and very attractive.

Construct an Outdoor Living Space

What type of structure build in this section of your yard depends on what you intend to do with it. Decks and patios are both popular as solid surfaces for outdoor tables, barbecue grills and sunbathing. A professional deck builder in College Station, TX can survey the area and tell you the best options. One level and multilevel decks are able to be built in almost any yard.

Because of the hot sun and highest temperatures in the Brazos Valley area, a garden oasis should include some structure to provide shade. This will not only make it more comfortable for you to sit outside, but will also help shape the house and possibly reduce power bills. Arbors/pergolas are excellent choices for this purpose. In fact, pergolas in College Station, TX are built very frequently above flat decks and patios to extend the living area outside of the house.

Choose Texas Style Landscaping

Once the painting or Hardie-Plank siding is complete, the patio or deck laid and some sort of shade structure installed, it is time for landscaping. Because Texas has a hot climate, it is good to choose plants that are native to the area and very heat and drought tolerant.

If you want more privacy and shade in your backyard garden oasis, consider a creeping vine to climb up and over the arbor or pergola covering part of the deck or patio.

Some decorative tree options that do well in Texas include oaks, desert willow, althea and hollies. Bushes or shrubs can be used for more privacy and shade. Popular options include Texas mountain laurel, flowering spirea, desert-style yucca and Texas sage. Liven up garden beds or position large flowerpots along the edges of your deck and patio. Great plants for these options include showy hibiscus, marigolds, roses and the ever popular Texas bluebonnet.

The hot Texas weather invites people to enjoy the outside, you can get oppressive if no shade is provided. Through clever planning and planting, you can create a garden oasis perfect for your family and entertaining guests in your outdoor living space.

Five Steps to Kitchen Home Remodeling in College Station, TX

Five Steps to Kitchen Home Remodeling in College Station, TX

Kitchen Home Remodeling

Kitchens are the rooms in a house that people most want to remodel. It is one of the most used rooms in the house, other than the bathroom, and people come together in the kitchen for family meals and fun times. If you want to undertake a kitchen remodeling in College Station, TX or Bryan, TX, there are five basic steps you will take to transform either an empty space or an old, out of date kitchen into a new style you can be proud of.

1 – Get Inspired and Plan Your Dream

Cut out pictures from home magazines or browse online to get ideas about what styles and accents you would like in your dream kitchen. The first step is inspiration. The next step is tempering those dreams with your working budget.

2 – Hire Someone Who Can Make Your Dream a Reality

Even the best kitchen home remodeling in Bryan, TX cannot make the impossible happen when it comes to the design of kitchens. Within the bounds of reality, however, there are innumerable options to turn this most popular room of the house into a place where cooking and spending time with the family is perfect.

Always hire professionals who are licensed, insured and experienced in the type of kitchen remodeling you want done.

3 – Floors, Walls, Ceiling and More

Whether you are faced with an empty room in a new construction house or have had your old kitchen torn out for a complete remodel, the floors, walls and ceiling comes first. Flat painted ceilings are popular these days, but an expert home remodeler may suggest exposed beams or other accents to make the space more unique.

The floor should be durable and easily cleaned, which means that stone, ceramic tile and wood planks should be sealed properly. Other less expensive options include vinyl tile and laminate flooring. Painting the walls allows you to be more creative. Perhaps you would like a bright accent wall, paneling and a chair rail or even an extended backsplash that spreads the tile across more of the wall surface.

4 – Cabinets: Make Sure Everything Will Fit

The professional home remodelers in Brazos County, TX understand how to arrange the cabinetry in a kitchen to leave plenty of room for standard size appliances. If you have an extra-large stove or fridge, cabinets must be designed around them. Work closely with the cabinetmaker or home remodeler to make sure you have enough cabinets that are easily accessible. There are many options for drawer or shelf styles and inserts that that you get at things even at the back of the shelf without a problem.

5 – Appliances, Plumbing, Fixtures and Hardware

When the floors and walls are completed and the cabinets installed, the movable parts of a great kitchen are added. An expert from professional handyman services can help switch out old appliances for new and add fixtures and hardware like overhead lights or ceiling fans and cabinet handles and drawer pulls.

These five steps will guide you through the kitchen remodeling process whether you are having a home built from the ground up or tearing out an old kitchen that needs revitalization.