Constant Change

I often hear clients say to me or their significant other, “I will be happy if we just do this one thing to the house.” I don’t know of too many homeowners who buy a house and leave it just they way they bought it. No matter what we tell ourselves or others, it is never just one thing. It always becomes multiple things that eventually make things better. What people should tell themselves and their significant others is, “that is all that I want to do for now.” Life is much easier when we all embrace the idea that the only thing in life that is constant is change. You may love your living room or dining room for seven years and for seven years it is amazing and you would never change a thing. Then at some point in the eight year you become inspired and an idea pops into your head. Suddenly, the room that was so perfect for all those years must now be changed and you can’t get it out of your mind until you change the room. Let’s take a peek into the dining room of a Gardenia model whose time for change had come somewhere in the heart of The Villages.

• First time that we changed the room
The first time that the homeowner changed the dining room was seven years ago. The room needed to be painted, new flooring had to be installed and the furniture needed to be re-arranged.

• Paint
The room was re-painted from a light green color into Ivoire 6127. This color has warmth and golden undertones to keep the space bright but neutral. The paint finish is Satin so the light bounces around the space nicely.
• Mirror
The model is a Gardenia and there is a big window in the kitchenette area. We like to place a large mirror on the back wall of the dining room to reflect all the light coming into the home from the large kitchenette window. The mirror is 48 inches wide by 72 inches high. The mirror tricks the eye into expanding the dining room and it looks like a window.

• Flooring
The homeowner had engineered hardwood installed seven years ago. The hardwood was abutted to the tile with no threshold so that the transition was smooth. The dining room had a column as most Gardenias have that were built at the time this home was built. The flooring was installed around the column.

• Remove the column
The new update to the space was removing the arch and columns. This is easy to have done but there are two key times to consider this process. The first time you should consider removing the column is when you have flooring installed. The footprint of the column out in the space requires flooring to cover it so when the new flooring is being installed is the best time. If you missed that opportunity the next best thing is to have extra flooring from years ago when you had your flooring installed. The homeowners had plenty of extra flooring and we were able to patch the floor up so that you cannot tell there was ever a column hanging out in the middle of the room.

• Why remove the column
I like the columns in the dining room and I have worked around them for many years. However, once I realized how much larger the space looks without the column, and how easy it is to remove; I became a big supporter of taking out the column.

• Extra flooring is key to many things
Always get extra flooring because you never know when you may need it. There
are homeowners who chose to elongate the kitchen island of their house or make the kitchen island straight. If you think you may at any time do a few of these things keep the extra flooring! You will never regret it.

• Rug
We added a rug to the space. The rug grounds the space and adds a bit of definition without disconnection. The idea of an open floor plan is to have one large space with different activities being performed in the space. The spaces should be defined and connected.

• Re-arrange furniture
With the column out of the way, the table looked great utilizing the width of the space. We turned the table to run parallel with the sliding glass door. This allowed us to place a small server beneath the mirror. The space feels open and ready to be used.
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Before and After Pics Below