Friday, June 1, 2012

A cool new resource for remodeling clients

One of the many challenges in remodeling is for your designer to understand your aesthetic. To say, "I like traditional" or "I really don't like country" begins to narrow down what might work but, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words. 

For years and years we have told clients to find "shelter magazines" - you know all the magazine about different aspects of homes - and tear out images that appeal to them. Maybe one image is the knob you simply have to have on your cabinets or another image is the perfect window for your new family room. Regardless of the specifics, creating a resource like this is a huge help when it comes to helping your designer understand what you like. Our old process involved a fair amount of paper and time going through stacks of magazines to try to get a good representation of what you really like. As you might guess, today's solution is a great web based tool we have been recommending to our clients call Houzz. This is a great site that allows a user to create a free account and then scan thousands of image all organized by style and project type. You can then tag images to be stored in your folder along with your notes about what appeals to you in that photo. This tool can really help in the initial communication process with your designer. Try it out and let us know if you like it.