Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1037573
88 1. Write down your needs and dreams. This becomes your "program." 2. Look at books and magazines and save pictures of things you like and spaces that appeal to you. 3. Be realistic; don't seek a Mercedes on a Toyota budget. Ask your team to give you an idea of what current costs are as a reality check. 4. Set aside the money you are willing to spend on your project, or arrange for financing. This becomes your budget. If you don't have enough for your dreams, consider prioritizing needs and complete your home over several years, setting a budget for each year. (Claire and Mark McCarthy budgeted for each year of their three- and-a-half-year project.) 5. Add a contingency figure (10 percent to 15 percent) to your budget to take care of surprises. There are always surprises. 6. Look for a team of talented, qualified professionals to help you through this process: interior designer, architect, and builder. Ask around and interview two or three. 7. Remember that interpersonal chemistry within your team should feel right to you. You will be working closely together. 8. Ask the professionals you have chosen to give you a written agreement stipulating what work they will do, how they will charge, and their projected completion dates. 9. Stay in close communication with your team. Remember that they are on your side. Value and cultivate honesty and openness. 10. Treat good workers like gold. You will get the best work out of your contractor, subcontractors, and professionals by treating them with respect. B E F O R E Y O U BU I L D O R R E N O VAT E : 1 0 T I P S Sally Wilson, ASID, and John Kelsey, principals of Wilson Kelsey Design in Salem, offer these suggestions. The rest of the house reflects the homeowners' love of classic interiors and Wilson's deft skill of combining warm antiques with contemporary furniture. "The com- bination creates a dynamic back-and-forth conversa- tion, which then adds energy to the room," Wilson says. "It helps clients have a more youthful, less staid house." The kitchen, dining room, living room, and family room—which flow gracefully from one to the next over a 60-foot span—each have at least one eye-drawing mod- ern piece. In the dining room, it is a marble sculpture that is an artistic representation of a cello. In the very classical family room is an edgy bronze link table by Formations. Near the end of the project, when Wilson returned to the house to tweak the foyer, she hung a white-on- white three-dimensional sculpture in a clear frame, above a bench in white leather. "It's pushing the en- velope," Wilson says. "By that time, they really trusted me; they enjoyed taking the risk." (A year ago, the designer returned to the family to design their summer home in Osterville on Cape Cod.) Wilson's painterly eye shines in the children's bedrooms, where colors were chosen with as much consideration as any other room. Wilson arranged a "big reveal," a day that the kids returned home from vacation to their new rooms. "They were so shocked," says Claire McCarthy. "It was a lot of fun." Wilson found furniture that is sturdy and stylish, pieces the children can grow into. "The rooms have a youthful touch, but they're spaces the kids can live with for a long time. It's taking the long view." For more information, see Resources on page 122.