Neal's Home Remodeling and Design Blog

To maximize the features of their urban lot in one of Cincinnati's most scenic and historic neighborhoods, the homeowners of this project were looking to convert a one-car garage into a new two-story, two-car garage in line with the carriage houses of old. This project was directed by several challenges, including retaining existing landscaping, figuring out how to get the most out of the structure, and working with both the local zoning authority and the neighborhood historical board for approval of the design. This project is a 2016 Local NARI Contractor of the Year Award Winner in the Detached Structure category.

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Outdoor living extends the function of our home's property by providing useful areas to hang out, grill out, and chill out, outside of the house. While some homes come with great outdoor areas already in place when you move in, often time these lawns, porches and patios don't account for the specific ways you and your family want to interact with the outside. In the six examples below, we've highlighted before and afters that show what a bit of personalization can do to improve the usefulness and quality of your home's outdoor living areas.

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Original Blog Post 10/09/2012 Updated 7/18/2016

If you are planning to remodel a kitchen, you will need a floor plan design. The design should address the basic functions of a kitchen including food prep, cooking, storage, appliance use and clean up. Other areas to consider in your kitchen plan may include space for informal dining, a beverage center, a message center, or a walk-in pantry. As long as people have been using kitchens, fitting these various areas in has been the key challenge. While there are many variations, most kitchen floor plans fall into one of 4 time-tested designs.

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In a previous fireplace design blog post, we reported that outdoor fireplaces and firepits were in hot demand in Greater Cincinnati, and we can state now that this shows no signs of stopping. Having a fire element in your home's outdoor spaces allows you to extend to their use earlier in the spring and further into the summer (and depending on the type of winter we're having, even during the holidays).  Whether you opt for a wood-burning or natural gas option will largely depend on how you wish to use it (and whether obtaining and storing wood is a possibility for you), but either of these choices can be designed in such a way to fit the character of your landscape and the needs surrounding it.

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