Thoughts for Thursday: Home Renovations- The Dream vs The Reality

About a week and a half ago I met with the builder for our kitchen and first floor renovation so that he could take some measurements.  He brought his interior designer with him which I was not expecting at all.  She was very nice but was throwing questions and ideas at me left and right that I wasn't prepared for.  While I wouldn't say I clicked with the interior designer right away she did bring up some really good points that have stuck with me ever since our meeting.

As I was describing my dream house and the way I want it to feel I was telling her and showing her pictures of houses that I loved.   The problem is that I love love love the craftsman style houses like this one below.  

House via 

 This is newly built house that just sold in Northern Virginia last year. First of all it's way bigger than my house and worth a whole lot more money, but it pretty much has everything that I'm looking for in a house.

The biggest problem though besides the fact that it's a $3 million house and not even close to where I live is that it's a craftsman style house.  I live in a colonial.  A very traditional colonial house.

 While I can have lots of features of my dream house the interior designer was explaining to me that I should respect the style of my house and modernize it from there.   It was something that I hadn't given much thought to honestly but now I really get it.   Maybe one day I will get to live in my craftsman style house but for now I live in a colonial and there are tons of way for me to update it without completely breaking the bank and trying to make it something it isn't.   So back to the drawing board I went.

If you follow Elements of Style, Erin and her husband bought a colonial in New England a few years ago and I think she's done an awesome job of updating it while respecting the fact that it's a colonial. I've been scouring her book and blog for inspiration and it's helped a lot.  

So I've been spending the last week on Pinterest looking for updated colonial ideas and I've found a lot of stuff that I really like, as far as floors and mouldings go.  My kitchen ideas don't really need to change it's more the design elements and details that I needed to tweak.   Once we hear back from the builder with the designs and plans I will share them with you all. I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

Happy Thursday Friends!

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