Some things I learned about remodeling

1. Think about why you bought the house in the first place and what you liked about it. Then retain or enhance those ideas during hte remodel.

2. Space is not the same thing as square footage. Adding square footage will not automatically make a space feel bigger and can actually make thing worse. Some people actually need more square footage but some people just need a better designed space.

3. The two most common (and worst) cheap additions: room outside a room and room on the end of a room. Room outside a room--makes the inner room dark and dreary and it always looks like an add on. Room on the end of a room--means you have to go through someone's room to get to the new room. Bad idea.

4. You cannot just impose a 'style' on a house. It's better to understand what kind of house you have and work with that.

5. When you're remodeling just one room like a kitchen, you have to think about it relation to everything else.

6. The worst way to think about aesthetics is in terms of things/entities. Like, thinking about a kitchen primarily in terms of countertops and pendants. Aesthetics is based on the relationship of parts. A lot of good looking people don't have particularly noticeable features, it's the way their face is put together that makes them attractive. Most of the time, what we respond to when seeing things is NOT the thing/entity/pendant light, but an overall effect. Generally speaking, people put WAY too much money into materials/features/appliances and WAY too little money on design. The design is way more important.

7. Design is the act of falling in love with something and then killing it off. This happens both in terms of features and design ideas. You may love the "high bar countertops" but if the feature starts to become too prominent or forces too many design compromises, it may be time to kill it off. 

8. Qualities are different than colors. In other words, the green of a ceramic tile and the green of house paint may be exactly the same, but they might feel very different because the materials possess different qualities and different associations. For example, a dark green that looks nice as paint might not look good as tile because it might remind you of public bathrooms. So don't think of colors in isolation from the material. 

9. Rather than picking out everything at once, it's better to make one materials/detailing statement and then work from there. For example, it sounds reasonable to just pick a floor and paint and everything at the same time and assume it will work. However, things seen in context are always different, especially when it comes to houses because of the different lighting, seasons, etc. So, if possible, it's better to choose one thing and install it. Then look at it and pick the next thing. And the next. This gives you a much more integrated look because you're constantly engaged with the actual space. It actually gives you a more lively, improvisational appearance.

10. Home design TV shows tend to be uniformly awful because of their emphasis on the a) visual,  b) identity

11. a)visual---houses are meant to be lived in, not only seen. The dynamic reveal at the end of TV shows is a moment of visual impact. But good design manifests itself in everyday tasks. It is not purely visual.

12. b)identity--a lot of homes are designed to support a client's view of him or herself. So the home becomes about your aspirations, who you hope to be and how you want others to regard you. A home should be a reflection of yourself and your values. It should express and support a lifestyle, not attempt to create it.

13. If in doubt, prototype When I was thinking about reducing the number of windows on the E side of the house, I covered the existing windows in the appropriate places with paper to see if I'd like the effect. After a few days, I knew this wasn't a good solution. On the other hand, when thinking of walling-in the breakfast nook, I put in paper to see if I'd mind losing the view. I didn't mind, and it ended up being a good design. Would adding a wall next to the fireplace really make a difference? I put one in there with paper and a C-stand for a couple of months and liked the effect. Sure enough, the wall has worked out great. 

14. Few people are really good previsualizing a space and it almost doesn't matter if you can do it or not. The important thing is to know how to improvise and listen to the space as you complete it. Two of the best features of the house--the fireplace wall and the kitchen beams--were either an accident or a necessity based on existing structure.