Transforming Your Builder-Grade Home: Easy Upgrades for a Big Impact
So, you found your dream home* in a new neighborhood! Congratulations are most definitely in order, but wait! As it turns out, that developer who designed your new house didn’t give much thought to the aesthetic, and now you’re wondering how you can make this house feel more like home. We’ve got you!
We recently finished the design for a high-end, East End condo here in the Portland, Maine area, and tackled just this issue! So, what did we do to transform this builder-grade condo into our client’s dream home!?
Never underestimate the power of paint and wallpaper! One of our favorite tricks is to paint a window casing black for major impact. This trick works wonders to bring the outside in, and in a condo with views like this one, this simple hack made a huge difference! We also installed wallpaper in the entry to take away from the bleh of the builder-grade light fixtures our client wasn’t interested in replacing.
Images by Melissa Gabriel
2. Swap out light fixtures - Although we didn’t tackle ALL of the lighting in this condo, we did install our own island pendants, dining room light fixture, bedroom ceiling light and living room fixture. Your builder-grade light fixtures likely came from Home Depot or Lowes, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, these simple swaps made a huge difference and totally transformed the vibe of this condo.
3. Spending a little money to replace the traditional, builder-grade backsplash with this gorgeous dark blue glass subway tile helps tie in the furnishings and made the kitchen feel so much more beautiful and custom.
4. While you’re in the kitchen, and perhaps the easiest swap you can make, is to upgrade the cabinet hardware. The hardware really sets the tone for the kitchen and the rest of the fixtures, and is something that can easily be swapped out as often as trends/your aesthetic changes.
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