Inspiration

By Ed Roskowinski, CR

I love touring homes;  walking up the driveway, taking in the exterior architecture and curb appeal, touring the interior spaces, making comments on what really works and what doesn’t, exploring the back yard, trying to visualize living there.  It’s fun, it’s free and it’s inspiring.

This time of year, we have many options for touring builders’ homes as well as privately owned remodeled homes.  As much as I enjoy touring speculative new homes, I often find them lacking creativity; they all seem to use the same products in similar ways.  The interiors, although modern and trendy, tend to lack personality. Don’t get me wrong, these new homes are often well constructed and beautiful, I’m just saying for me to be inspired, I really like to tour homes that have been created for an individual homeowner, rather than designed to appeal to the masses.

Remodeled homes all start with their own very different set of circumstances. Distinctive architectural styles and a variety of neighborhoods creates a plethora of unique opportunities. I get excited to see how challenges were solved and how the homeowners’ lifestyle changed due to the remodeled spaces. Do the newly remodeled spaces match the existing architecture or did they go in a completely different direction?

It’s especially fun to see the choices people make. With newly constructed speculative homes decisions are made solely by a professional designer or architect.  Their focus is typically on following the latest trends and what will appeal to the majority of potential homebuyers. With remodeled homes, decisions are made by the individual homeowner, typically with the help from a designer or architect, but ultimately it’s the homeowner’s call. This creates an exclusive pallet in every home, as unique as the individuals who live there.

This fall we all have another opportunity to tour some of the Twin Cities most recently remodeled homes during the Parade of Homes, Remodelers Showcase, September 27-29. www.paradeofhomes.org/homes/remodeled.

I hope you will take the time to tour some of these homes, enjoy the diversity and uniqueness of each of them, and become inspired by the creativity of it all.

Ed Roskowinski is General Manger and VP of Vujovich Design Build, Inc., a 35-year design build firm specializing in building and remodeling unique Twin Cities homes for unique homeowners.