4 Stylish Concepts for Your Next Remodel!
I share some of the latest trends in new home construction to help you with your next remodel!
As a realtor, I’ve seen a fair number of newer homes, so I wanted to provide my readers with an insider guide for the latest trends. I hope these are helpful for anyone considering a remodel!
The Trop-en Concept
Thanks to HGTV, everyone knows about the open concept now. Nearly every home features minimal barriers between the kitchen, family room, and dining area. Most are a big rectangle, though some dissident designers opt for a tasteful L-shape. The key to the trop-en concept is to make all of the parts the wrong size.
The entire space should be too large, yet somehow, each ‘room’ should feel too small. The best way to achieve this is an oversized island. Additionally, the living room and dining area should feel like they are intruding on each other. This is rather easy, as the lack of any clear line of demarcation between the two makes it extremely easy to purchase a table or couch that is too large for the space. If you’re an accomplished designer, you can try to take properly-sized furniture and arrange it in such a way that you succeed in creating the over-crowding effect.
Moving to the kitchen specifically, it must always be kept as clean as possible, since everyone who walks in will be able to see it at nearly every moment they are in your house. If you are not the type to constantly wash dishes, then a few solutions present themselves: never use your kitchen or add a butler’s kitchen! Regardless, the trop-en concept kitchen should be outfitted with the best appliances and finishings you can afford. Whether or not you actually cook, your guests will know you are rich from your kitchen.
If you opt for the butler’s kitchen, this should be hidden and can be as cramped as you want. After all, the help should neither be seen nor heard. Spend only as much money on the appliances as you must to get the quality of food you desire.
Finally, the lack of walls and the hard wood or stone floors—I won’t even entertain the idea of carpet and neither should you—will mean that more than three people talking in any of the three ‘rooms’ will create a headache-inducing commotion. But really, this is a feature! After all, no one has friends and family over to talk! It is an expression of yourself, and once everyone has expressed themselves, who cares if anyone understood anything. No, a good trop-en concept house has no need for anything which mitigates sound.
Anyone who desires quiet should be driven into a bedroom and detained.
I highly suggest this for those who don’t have enough intra-familial conflict or whose kids enjoy reading too much.
Faux Farmer
Faux Farmer is perfect for people who want the look of hard labor without the icky reality. This style is about treating farmers as a new aesthetic, not a necessary profession that requires hard labor and a connection with the land. In my estimation, the secret to the faux farmer style is to design everything with the most superficial resemblance to what you imagine a ‘farmer’ would build. One should never consider that modern farmers might like similar styles to other people. They are provincial and backwards, blissfully unaware of the modern world. It should be a bland amalgamation of your idealized, unfounded impression of what a farmer is. Do not look to movies for inspiration. Movie farmers are always indebted and suffering. You don’t want to give that impression.
This is a modern style, so it should have little resemblance to the traditional styles that historic farmers actually built in. Instead, your furnishings and decorations should be simple and manufactured, as neither historical nor modern farmers had any trade skills that would allow them to craft their own furniture. And if they did, they would not have been smart enough to make anything nice. The closer it is to a few planks stapled together and painted, the more accurate it will be!
You can also lean into the rustic feel by placing decorations made of poorly-wrought or corroded metal. Wood in odd places also helps.
If you really want to sell it, you can put a few chickens in your back yard. Not too many, though, as then you might have to deal with such pesky responsibilities like waking-up early, sanitation, logistics, city ordinances, and federal regulations! That is not what you signed up for when you became a ‘farmer!’
Asylum Chic
The defining feature of Asylum chic is its complete lack of logic or curves. Ideally, everything will also be white, though black or gray are permissible if your budget is tight. Anything that resembles a natural material must be synthetic. Further, everything should be flat and plain.
One might be tempted to call this minimalism, but that would be a misnomer. Minimalism aims to have as little as one needs. Asylum chic aims to have less than one needs. This can be achieved in many ways. The most common ways I have seen are to have absolutely no storage space. Though a more creative idea is to make garbage drawers that cannot be opened.
Decoration should be minimal, though if you must, follow this rule: only buy decorations from Target or Ikea which you have seen in at least five other homes. This way, you’ll know it’s normal own these objects and the shrinks won’t up your meds again.
There is one exception to the rule regarding curves. You may have curves on the barely-polished cubic marble island. This should be absolutely flat with no edges. A sink or gas range stove may be placed in the island. It should not be shiny, as that could trigger a an epileptic fit if one of your fellow inmates were to visit.
Windows should be placed haphazardly and show your complete lack of reason or sense. In fact, the harder it is to see out of the window or the worse it lets light in, the more stylish your Asylum chic window will be! Remember, the principal rule of Asylum chic is everyone who walks through the house must ask themselves: “what sane person would do that?”
Topiary
The topiary style eschews all exterior walls. Glass must occupy every possible inch of the exterior surface. If you can afford it, you should invest significant sums of money in engineering odd and contrived ways to reduce the scant structural supports to allow for even greater window space.
This style is great for narcissists, as it allows them to display themselves in those excruciating seconds throughout the day when they aren’t posting on social media or fishing for compliments. This is also a great style for condominiums, apartments, and hotels, as everyone who has spent all day in a bustling city really wants to kick back at the end of the day and relax to the feeling of being constantly watched.
If you think your neighbors would benefit from a more exclusive show, consider opting for one-way mirrors. These will allow your neighbors to only watch the reality show that is your life after dark. It also is perfect for those who have always wanted to be stalked or murdered.
In the country, this style is great for environmentalists, as it often allows one to feel surrounded by nature. The greatly increased A/C bill can simply be ignored; utility companies are oppressive and capitalist.
If you absolutely must have privacy, then a ridiculously tall privacy fence is a practicable solution. This is also a great way to start a protracted dispute with your neighbors and/or HOA if your life is getting a bit bland.