Cool 3.0
A few blogs ago, I was mentioning how important today’s buyers value their homes having a very appealing attitude or style. I would call this the ” cool ” factor. I was explaining how I had designed what I felt would be a best seller because it had all the hot buttons you would look for in a home, yet it seemed to fall flat on it’s face when it came to getting folks to buy this home.
Instead of giving up and moving onto another new design as a few of my staffer’s suggested, I was determined to give this excellent, practical , quite inexpensive design an extreme Miracle makeover. The new version was, and is a fantastic success story which is on it’s way to becoming a run-away best seller. The reason, it’s all about building-in more”cool” .
The rear wall of the great room originally was nothing much to look at with a simple patio door. I took lumber and drywall and fashioned a wide decorative frame around the patio door which was located about a foot in front of the patio door. This was built into the ceiling and came all the way to the floor and had angles which look like a three-sided huge picture frame positioned in front of the patio door. I used hidden track lighting to create a glow around the inside of the picture frame. No one had seen anything like it before, so it was/is instantly unusual and appealingly modernly, …cool.
I repeated this effect on an adjacent wall and painted both these mock-frames in a chocolate brown to imitate the cabinetry. I then went on to use 6 different shapes of drywall corners in the home so the effect was scultpural . Most folks are familiar with the standard square drywall corners or the more popular 3/4 inch radius rounded drywall corners. I found a source from the International Builder’s Show who supplies me with 45 degree angled corners for around windows, mini-round corners, and unique square-round(you gotta see this shape to understand it) drywall corners of two sizes. Since folks who want cool, seem to want unusual and tasteful, the effect of seeing drywall corners that no other area builder has available to them, sets this home apart, and definitely on the coolness track.
I also found inexpensive plaster-like crown moldings for in the great room. I found big plaster-like chair railings and a new less costly way to make an entire room of inset wall panels with fancy edged moldings, all of drywall. I used high gloss paints on smooth drywall to give the illusion of the room being made of painted wood and contrasted these glossy wall areas directly against semi-gloss or satin sheen painted wall areas to play with the idea of using varying textures and finishes. Again, since the norm of our industry locally today is to spray the entire house full of knock-down drywall texture and then paint it all one solid color, my varying technique was unusual and grabbed attention.
I built the upstairs hallway’s normal 8 foot high ceiling up to an unusual 11 feet and hung a huge semi-modern chandelier in the center which you saw from the bottom of the stairs in the foyer(when looking upstairs)
I also put two plant shelves onto this tall hall area and a big transom window over one door which was leading into the master bedroom. This glass transom appeared old fashioned and classy and…UNUSUAL.
Instead of adding another one of the millions of common master bedroom tray ceilings(can you say” Ho -Hum” with me?)to this World, I did a single vaulted ceiling and made an angled drywall inset panel of only about an inchof depth to boarder the ceiling edge. Once I painted the ceiling inset panel area, it was unusual and very classy indeed.
I found a very different style of wood floor which was wider 7 inch planks, beveled edges, and they had markings of tooling’s which looked very much like older distressed floors. You might think this would not be appealing to a post-modern look, but the look was overwhelmingly enthusiastic! Again, folks had not seen this before. Even small details like putting a very tall(Expensive to do the whole house) 4.5 inch base molding in only selected areas and around the kitchen island was a huge impact item. I also raised the Master vanity and put in an elongated toilet in the master. All were details that spoke volumes to many who took note of such things.
I added a few other notable cool items such as angles, 2 panel solid wood doors with furniture grade finishes, and handles on the cabinets, and finally, a finished basement with a stylish and minimalistic wet bar AND uniquely drywall-framed theatre wall to make the basement exciting. I also wanted the colors of each level to vary so as to suggest style unique to each floor and change the visitor’s mood as they go through the home. I used richer dark maple on the main floor. I used a pure white upstairs to suggest refined slumber. And, in the basement, I used the newest cabinet and wood colors which is very dark brown, almost black. I call it StarBucks color since I se it in the new-age coffee lounges. It is currently the most popular color for homes on the coasts.
I then re-designed the exterior to give a coolness of mixed shaped gable vents and varying overhangs and differing roof pitches. Some windows were topped with different shapes. Since I used a traditional starting template, for traditional placed windows and a traditional porch, and and older color palette for the exterior, the varying differences of shapes and roof pitches are only noticed subliminally and are not in your face.
Combining common items in ways that are both appealing and unusual are the essence of “COOL”. One of my staffer’s was able to sell another home of this design tonight and last night too. We have two more such homes scheduled to sign this weekend. Not bad, for a home which is essentially, the same home that started ho-hum now is Wowing anyone who sees it. The power of coolness has even transformed a few couples who thought they wanted a ranch into buying this two-story. I had never seen that before.
I am about to go to Chicago tomorrow for the nation’s biggest Kitchen and bathshow. I am feeling great about our housing outlook as we begin our first weekend of the annual MBA Spring Tour Of Homes. We are rushing tomorrow to get our Jackson model entry as close to finished as possible. Tomorrow we have the carpenters, the electricians, the plumber, the counter top installers, the wood floor installers, and the cleaners all coming to try to get this Jackson home finished. This is the latest version design of which I was just explaining to you in this blog. If you want ot see a fully furnished one of these homes, come out to our Milwaukee location. We have another home right across the street from our Jackson 2-story which is a” re-cooled” version of our popular Dream series ranch. It too, is nearing completion.
HEY, IT’S STARTED! Today, we just dug the first of what wil be 4 new homes we are building in Richfield’s newest , truly exciting, subdivison, Reflection’s Village. I am thrilled to be building these homes and putting all the newest ideas we can think of into these showpieces. I am so excitied that I could write blog upon blog on these homes and… I will.
Thanks for blogging. Feel free to leave your questions and comments.
Blessings,
Tom Hignite
