The holiday season has passed, and the new year has started with heavy hand of winter for many across the country. With that, I am once again revisiting my past blog posts by updating them with new photos, new insight and our new HALFREY HOME branding. Now, freshly updated, this original post was from Aug. 6, 2016.
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With a quick internet search, it can be discovered that the average American home has grown to over 2,500 square feet, costs over $400,000, has 3-4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, dining room and eat-in kitchen. In our minds however, we all have our “one day” dream house. It has all the rooms we need, in the layout and style we want. Whether its open floor plan or closed, two story colonial, California modern ranch or contemporary split, we want it and dream that one day we’ll have it. The house might have a finished basement, media room, study, playroom, craft corner, upstairs laundry, primary suite, four season porch, finished attic, teen den, in-law apartment, mud room, man cave, wine room, heated garage, yoga room, greenhouse and so on. The list goes on and the dreams get bigger. Heck, after all of that, a simple separate guest room doesn’t sound unobtainable.
Taking these points and adding all of those rooms mentioned above, the dream house would quickly grow to +5,000 square feet and cost easily $800,000 and move upwards. That is a lofty ambition! In addition, if you live in a highly sought after metro area, double that $800,000 to $1.6M. In 2024 prices, owning a house with all of these functions as separate spaces becomes unfathomable for many people. I’m here to discuss all of these enjoyable rooms and figure out how to get those functions into a manageable sized house and mortgage.
First, before anything, de-junk your house. Purge all unused items out of your space, it’s too expensive to fill with stuff you don’t use. Sell, donate, pass along, throw out, just make it leave. Clothes that don’t fit, rusty baking pans, old books, uncomfortable shoes, anything that doesn’t bring you joy or used daily is taking up expensive real estate in your home. Let it continue its journey and set yourself free! I recommend before every season change to get the stuff under control and from then on once a year to maintain the balance. (I will address storage in general in the next month’s blog named “Making room in your rooms“).
Now you’ve carved out some empty corners in your house, let’s figure out how to better utilize them. If you analyze the list of dream rooms, they can usually fall into three categories: noisy activity, quiet hobby, or function/service. Ignore the names of your house’s rooms and label them with one of the three categories instead. Next, make the room multi task. Take your dining room for example. With a kitchen table and a counter top with bar stools, do you really need a third place to eat occasionally or seasonally? “But it’s pretty and elegant to have a formal dining room for holiday family dinners” you say. Meanwhile your lack of home office is taking over your bedroom, living room, and kitchen counter. Your papers are everywhere, you’ve lost your phone charger for the nth time and you can’t find your child’s permission slip for tomorrow’s field trip.
It’s not the formality that makes the meal, it’s the food you share with the company you keep and the conversation you have.
Turn your dining room into a work room. Throw a good padded tablecloth over your formal table, slide some pretty file boxes into your china hutch, slip you laptop into a drawer. Do whatever you need to do to make this unused space into working for you on a daily basis. This room can be your office, homework station, craft corner, and library, then it can get all tucked away at the holidays if you still want your formal dining room fix.
Some rooms do require a remodel such as adding an additional bathroom or moving the laundry upstairs. Those are a separate issue for another day. Let’s keep adding functions to existing rooms. Want a mud room? Add hooks, shelves, and a bench to a back hallway or in the garage. Make your family room the noisy, teen, game, media, man cave, home theater, music room. Your living room becomes the quiet, sewing, study, and den. For upstairs, can your children share a room? Why not, you and your spouse do. BAM! Now you have a vacant room to become a guest space, gym, and rec room. Don’t have a linen closet? Store towels in baskets hung on the wall and bedding in each bedroom’s closet or with underbed storage totes. No basement? Go vertical in the garage. Use double beds instead of twins to increase room occupancy when family comes to stay making sure to tuck storage bins under all of them. Get rid of all the old books, DVDs, and CDs. Wait- what did I say? These things take up tremendous space, most get used just a few times, waste floor space and spend your money. Keep your beloved, worn favorite books, then use the library for new ones. Develop a swap system with friends/family, buy an e-reader, download songs, use Netflix or Roku for movies.
You have purged the clutter, reassigned rooms, and have started multi-tasking some spaces. Niches and alcoves are carved out and hooks have been hung. Now let’s tackle the big dreams. We don’t need man caves, primary suites, teen dens, and in-law apartments if we figure out why we’re trying to escape and separate in the first place.
You didn’t start a family so you will all spend time in different rooms, doing your own activities. Bring back the ideas of sharing and family togetherness.
Alternate what’s playing on the tv, work together at the dining table, and bathe the kids while dad is shaving. The point is to share space and enjoy your home.
If and only if you have uncluttered your house, used every corner and are still bursting at the seams and tripping over one another should you start to consider construction. Its expensive, time consuming and most of the time a little flexibility can be used instead. However, there are always exceptions. For example, if screening in your porch is a lifelong dream, then do it, but let it then blossom to a summer sleeping porch, playroom, hobby space and garden shed. The point is to allow your spaces to multi-task. Let the rooms evolve to multiple functions. Flexibility is simplicity. Formal decorated, one function rooms are for glossy magazines, yours are to live in and love.
Sincerely,
Sarah Halfrey, NCIDQ
interior design & showroom manager
