13 Home Remodeling Trends For 2013
December 2012 | By Barbara Ballinger For RealtorMag
The design choices of 2013 will be shaped by uncertainty over how
long current home owners will stay and what future buyers’ tastes may
be. So, home owners’ needs and style preferences are more influential in
today’s designs than what buyers want.
Here is a baker’s dozen of changes that design pros and manufacturers say are emerging and will make greater inroads:
1. Smarter, Less Costly Automated Controls: With
lives continuing to be busy and automation costs coming down, it’s
become more affordable to control a home’s systems—temperature,
security, electronics, lighting, and more—through a single device, even
from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod. Doing so can eliminate multiple controls
and make it easy for home owners to manage things around their home,
even when they aren’t there, says Jim Carroll, a founder of Savant Systems
in Cape Cod, Mass., which designs and develops integrated automation
solutions. “The average family has more than 80 different devices that
can be controlled with one system,” he says. Anna Lowder and husband
Harvi Sahota are incorporating more of these systems in homes they build
for their Mercer Home residential building company in Montgomery, Ala. One example is the Nest Intelligent Thermostat, which can be controlled remotely, react intuitively to home owners’ habits, and adjust to conserve energy costs.
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2. Outdoor Living Rooms and Screened Porches: A
trend that began a few years ago continues to inspire home owners to
think beyond terraces and decks. These spaces have more of the feeling
and function of an indoor room—better furnishings, fire pits, curtains,
and even televisions and audio systems. Some spaces are designed as
courtyards for greater privacy, yet with high-efficiency glass windows
and doors to make them energy-smart and seamless with indoor rooms, says
Lowder of Mercer Home. Further helping to blur lines between outdoor
and indoor spaces is the rise of screened porches, which have gained
more indoor accoutrements such as fireplaces, making them livable nearly
year-round.
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3. Outdoor Kitchens, Vegetable Gardens, and More:
Interest continues in outdoor food preparation of all kinds—as simple as
a grill and as elaborate as a built-in cook’s station with sink,
storage, beer tap, pizza oven, refrigerator, and countertops. Newer
amenities include a hybrid grill that permits cooking with both gas and
wood or charcoal and prefabricated kitchens that save funds, says
landscape designer Michael Glassman in Sacramento, Calif. With a kitchen
in place, many home owners move on to plant a vegetable garden,
preferably including raised beds to avoid bending too much, Glassman
says. He suggests starting with what home owners want to eat and
cook—tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and herbs for gazpacho or spaghetti
sauce—and learning through practice what thrives in an area’s soil and
climate. Essentials are healthy soil, drainage, and readily available
water. The next new food trend is a backyard pond with
organically-raised fish that home owners can consume without trekking to
a market, says Erik Coffin, CEO and owner of Gotham Capital Management
in West Hollywood, Calif.
4. Themed Designs: After years of stark contemporary
design, themed decorating is making a comeback, according to Montclair,
N.J.-based designer Blanche Garcia. “There are more home owners asking
for a European flair, perhaps antique sconces and velvet pillows,” she
says. And partly due to excitement from the recent royal wedding,
British-style motifs continue to proliferate, including Union Jack
flags, red phone booths, and hounds tooth, floral, and crown patterns,
says Paul Berberian, creative director of Brewster Home Fashions, a
wallpaper company in Randolph, Mass.
5. Media Frenzy: With more families remaining home
for “staycations” rather than traveling, rooms are being devoted to TV
and other multimedia entertainment with comfortable seating, tables, and
good lighting. They’re designed to have a more “home-y” feel than media
rooms of the past, Garcia says.
6. New Neutrals and Color Pops: With the country
still in the financial doldrums, neutrals remain more popular than
vibrant hues, says Erika Woelfel, director of color marketing at Behr Paint
in Santa Anna, Calif. Nevertheless, neutrals aren’t the same whites,
creams, and beiges, she says. “A blue-gray that works well with the
range of popular blues and the purples they’ve replaced are making
inroads; they offer a fresh background,” she says. In contrast, bright
new accents such as such as raspberry-pink may attract greater attention
than a straightforward red. There’s also a range of yellows, which
complement blue-grays. And designer Ron Marvin of Ron Marvin Design in
New York also sees a trend toward orange and purple accents. How long
will these colors last? “Paint colors tend to move in cycles of five to
10 years and follow other home-décor categories, which in turn follow
fashion,” Woelfel says.
7. More Double-Duty Furnishings: With homes
continuing to be scaled back and many baby boomers moving into condos,
more furniture and furnishings need to do double duty in smaller spaces.
Expect to see ottomans used for seating and storage, couches that
convert to beds, and coffee tables that can rise for dining. This trend
means that the one “room” in a house that’s not shrinking is the garage,
which is often still big enough for two cars and storage.
8. Lighter Looks: Smaller homes and spaces call for
scaled-back pieces and better illumination that makes rooms look larger.
“I don’t like overwhelming rooms,” says Courtney Fohrman of Fohrman
Interiors in Chicago. To achieve this, she suggests swapping out large
bookshelves for wall-mounted shelves, opting for tailored furniture over
clunky items, and welcoming natural light.
9. Green Merchandise: Interest in sustainable
products and materials keeps attracting attention—particularly when it
comes to choosing paints, adhesives, countertops, and flooring. “Most
furniture companies and paint manufacturers have at least one item or
line that fits the green movement,” Garcia says. Large paint companies
such as Benjamin Moore, Glidden, Kelly Moore, and Sherwin Williams offer
zero-VOC or odor-free paints, according to Healthy Homes Plans, founded by Linda Mason Hunter, author of The Healthy Home: An Attic to Basement Guide to Toxin-Free Living.
10. Energy and Water Efficiency: Efforts to conserve
energy and water throughout the home continue to be popular, including
low-water toilets and sinks, better functioning furnaces, and improved
insulation. Solar panels are more integrated into roofs so they’re less
of an eyesore. Gray recycled water can be used in toilets and to water
gardens, while more drought-tolerant plants and replacements for
impermeable hardscape allow greater water retention, Coffin says.
11. Panelized Homes: More factory-built homes help
to cut building costs at the site by reducing the amount of labor time
needed in the field. Besides cost savings, there’s the ability to
improve quality control, says Eric VanDerHeyden, executive vice
president of RSI Development
in Newport, Calif., which uses a variety of plans ranging from 1,232
square feet to 2,500 square feet. “It can cut the cost in half and
construction time from a year to eight weeks,” he says.
12. Handcrafted Elements: Many home owners desire
hand-crafted artisanal pieces for a greater personalized look. Some are
made from reclaimed rustic wood, which adds a homey, inviting feeling,
says Brad Ford of Brad Ford ID in New York.
13. Stylish Kitchens and Bathrooms: These remain at
the top of many home owners’ wish lists, as they reflect the trend of
remodeling rather than adding on, says Bill Millrolland, executive vice
president of Case Design Remodeling in Bethesda, Md. The transitional
look—a middle ground between traditional and contemporary—has become
more popular. This is evidenced by choices such as cove rather than
crown molding, dark-stained or painted finishes rather than natural
maple or cherry, and larger format 24” by 24” tiles rather than smaller
12” by 12” and 6” by 6” ones, he says. Designer Wendy Johnson in
Manchester Village, Vt., also sees continued interest in kitchens,
particularly when they become even more open “live-in” spaces for
cooking, eating, socializing, doing homework, or paying bills. Likewise,
master suites serve multiple functions, including unwinding, sleeping,
and bathing. Millrolland reports more requests for Universal Design
features that permit home owners to age in place but don’t convey an
institutional look: Grab bars masquerading as towel bars, kitchen
counters of different heights for wheelchair access, and wider hallways
and doors to permit walkers and wheelchairs through.
No matter what the market’s doing though, the best advice you can
give to home owners is to make design decisions based on their hearts
and wallets rather than media predictions and hype.
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