Texas Style in Transition

When Southlake was developed twenty years ago, the builders of our homes gave the people what they wanted: lots of texture and visual interest.  They used stone, brick, rough hewn wood, hand scraped floors and textured walls and ceilings.  The original owners bought these homes with glee, layering on the Tuscan colors in vogue: gold, red and sage green. 

Cut to 2016 and the mood in home interiors is quote different.  Beginning in California, then spreading to the East coast, the Midwest and finally Texas, the trend has turned to lighter walls, cooler hues, and smooth, glassy textures.  So where does that leave us?  How do we take the chunky Texas look we loved and update it if we don’t want to do a full scale remodel? Here are four areas to focus on:

1)    Lighter walls.

Pale, cool colors have replaced the saturated tones of the past decade.  Consider a cool gray-blue for a bathroom, a warm gray for your living space, or a grayed green for your living room.  All these colors play well with the stonework in most local homes.

2)    Blue accents

One quick way to refresh your home is to remove all your red accents.  Replacing them with a few blue ones really perks up a space and helps it look current.

3)    Painted woodwork.

The fact is that 85% of people prefer white trim over wood trim.  To some this is sacrilegious.  But too much dark woodwork can really close down a space and make the home feel dated.

4)    Unified flooring

No longer is “a flooring mosaic” a positive.  If you have carpet, wood, and tile all on the same floor, you may have a mosaic of your own. Bite the bullet and make all your living areas hardwood.

We should love our homes and feel comfortable in them.  But it is also important to realize that some day you will need to sell your home, and the buyers will want a move-in ready home that looks like the one they see on HGTV and in magazines. Local real estate agent Susan Gilchrest says, “We have so many people moving here from outside Texas. With so many corporate relocations and companies expanding their operations in Texas, Southlake continues to see a huge inflow of people, especially from California and the east Coast.”  If you are going to have to do those updates before selling, why not do them now so YOU get to enjoy them?