house design basics Archives

How Do I Get the Best Value in a Remodel?

14 min readMake sure you get the best value in your remodel and JUSTIFY your time, energy and expense by considering how you can tweak the layout of your home to fit your life!

Here’s how you can get the best value in a remodel … you can super charge any remodel using adjustments to your home’s layout. By the way … this episode and topic are the PERFECT preamble to this weekend’s Mid-Century Design Clinic. Listen up here and then go save your seat for the Workshop!

Look, beautiful finishes can make your life so shiny and pretty.

You can wake up in the morning and smile because of the color of your bedroom wall.
Touching the surfaces of your kitchen cabinets can bring you genuine joy multiple times a day.
The perfect paver stones under your feet on the patio can be warm, smooth, and classy.

But just changing the surfaces of things doesn’t have a power to change your life the way adjusting your layout can-do.

Use this remodeling framework to plan your ideal MCM update

7 min readDesign a well rounded remodel that turns an every day ranch into your dream house with this easy three part framework borrowed from … the Romans!

Want to make sure you’ve thought of everything when you design a ranch remodel? This easy three part remodeling framework will make sure you are covering all the bases in your MCM home update!

Basement: the Midwestern Ranch House’s Secret Weapon

6 min readA basement is the secret weapon of the midwestern ranch house
(This is one clear advantage we have over all those cool, glassy California Pinterest ranches.

Upper midwestern basements secretly expand square footage, storage and differentiation of spaces all without bulking up the house to the street or eating up the building site.

Sure, basements CAN be your extraneous junk space. They CAN be your quick and dirty work out or project space. But they they COULD be the inner sanctum – the most private and cosy spot in the house, insulated from temperature, sound and other people’s view. The secret of an effective basement is not to treat it like part of your home, not a second class space.