Make Room for Grandma With Help From a General Contractor

As a general contractor, we are experts at providing home remodeling solutions.  Whatever the needs of your family are, we can help.  We are solution oriented and it is important that your home suits your family’s needs so that you can enjoy your time there and feel comfortable, rather than stressed out due to a lack of functionality or space constraints.  One challenge that many families have is finding space for extended family, whether they are visiting for a month or needing to move in.  We can create a space for both.

As a general contractor, our home remodeling solutions can make space for extended family. To create a design for your home, we need to visit with you, take a tour and look at your property to determine what options might be available.  One thing to consider is who is going to stay at your home and how long they plan to be there.  This is important because if your guests will only be staying off and on, you may want to create a space that can be repurposed in their absence.  For example, Grandma may come to stay for a month around the holidays but if she only visits once a year, you won’t want an empty room the rest of the time.  

We will frequently build an addition that serves as a guest suite for short-term out of town guests.  To make the room dual purpose, we can make the bed a Murphy bed that pulls down from the wall. You can put it in place before they come so that the room is all set up, and when they leave, it folds back into the wall so that you can use the space differently.  This often works well as a combined at-home office/guest suite or as a craft room.  We can build in a reserved closet for your guests’ clothes with an entirely separate closet or storage center that can be used for the items that need to be stored on a daily basis.  This way the space can have designated zones rather than storing your craft supplies in the same closet that grandma needs to hang her winter sweaters.  Additionally, the benefit of using a Murphy bed is that if you do need a space like a home office for daily use, it can serve one purpose during the day and another at night while still giving your guests privacy.

Get creative with our home remodeling solutions.

If your visitors are planning on becoming permanent or semi-permanent house guests, you may want to consider a different type of solution.  If, for example, Grandma is moving in, we recommend giving her a separate entrance into her suite or unit.  That way she can maintain some level of autonomy.  You can easily do this with a ground level addition, and we can create a path leading to the door from your driveway area.  If you have a walkout basement or are building a garage apartment, this is also a possibility.  As a general contractor, we also recommend that you turn it into a one bedroom or a studio with a kitchenette.  While small, this can make life a little easier so that she can have her own snacks and things to prepare small meals if she, or you, would like some alone time. 

Here is Everything You Need to Know About the Types of Wood Cabinets

When you think about wood cabinets, more often than not, kitchen cabinets come to mind because kitchens tend to require the most storage space. However, cabinets are more than just storage units. With thousands of options to choose from, wood cabinets can reflect your personality, your taste, and your sense of style and, at the same time, fit into most budgets. Most wood cabinets can be fit into a few categories such as framed or frameless, stock or custom made, traditional, country, or modern. They can be made of hardwood, softwood, wood veneers or other materials.
Solid Wood
Because solid wood cabinets are not only extremely versatile but have a timeless appeal, they have become the most popular and sought after material used for cabinetry. Wood looks warm and inviting, comes in a vast array of enticing options that can work beautifully well with any décor.
Different woods are priced differently, depending on their availability, point of origin, durability and overall appearance. When choosing your wood option, it all comes down to three important details, type, color, and grain.
Wood is largely classified as hardwood or softwood. Hardwood comes from broad-leafed trees such as birch, oak, maple, cherry and hickory and are easy to saw. Softwood comes from needle bearing evergreen trees such as pine, spruce, and cedar and are harder to cut.
From the lighter touches of maple to the darker hues of birch, all woods have natural color variations, which can result in a number of attractive possibilities for the room you are decorating. Different wood finishes can either enhance or mask the natural grain patterns and color variations. When selecting wood options that will suit your home, it is important to understand the natural characteristics of the wood you will choose and which varnish or stain will work best.
Some Of The Popular Options in Solid Wood Cabinets

• Oak.  For years, oak was a favorite among cabinet builders because it is a very hard, durable, heavy wood with a coarse grain that varies from straight to distinctive sweeping arch patterns. Many consider oak to be timeless, blending with virtually any color scheme or style. Oak also stains well with standard finishes.
• Maple. Recently, maple has become more popular choice because of how adaptable it is to any cabinet style, how durable and shock resistant it is. Maple is a medium to hard wood with a straight, wavy or curly grain and has a uniform, light appearance that produces a smooth, clean look when stained. Its popularity can also be attributed to the fact that it can be finished to resemble other, more expensive woods such as cherry and cedar. Maple would be a great option if you were looking for a light, airy kitchen or a dramatic kitchen with darker finishes.
• Birch.  This is a smooth hardwood with a straight, curly or wavy grain. It is especially resistant to wear and tear and is susceptible to most stains and finishes. Birch is relatively light in color and can vary from cream to yellow tones unless it is taken from the core of the tree. If from the center of the tree, birch will have darker reddish to brown tones. It is extremely versatile and looks equally at home in a casual or more refined setting.
• Hickory.  This is a strong, hard and heavy wood. It is unique, in as much that it has an array of random, colored streaks that run through the wood.  These streaks can range from light cream, dark reddish browns to sometimes nearly black, all of which can be enhanced by light or natural stains.
• Cherry.  Recently cherry has become more popular.  It is well known for its smooth grain and unique pinkish color that deepens as it ages into the more reddish brown tones. Depending on the how much light exposure it receives, cherry wood will tend to darken several shades over time. The darker tones tend to add a warm elegance to any room.  Cherry is considered a luxury wood and is a little more costly.

Mahogany, ebony, walnut, and teak are considered more exotic woods and are, therefore, far more expensive.
With the never ending variety of wood cabinets to choose from, finding ones that match your personal style, decor, and budget, is not very difficult.  We can help you to select the perfect set of wood cabinets for your home.