Basnett Design-Build-Remodel

How well is your Kitchen serving the life you live in your home?

How perfectly does your Kitchen represent your style?

Does your Kitchen add to your home's graciousness?

In her book, Not So Big Remodeling, Sarah Susanka dedicates no fewer than six chapters to strategies for solving limitations you may be experiencing with your Kitchen. Is your Kitchen not presently meeting your demands for efficiency and elegance? Have you been holding your cards, waiting to make your play? Achieving Peace of Mind for your Kitchen may bring with it further benefits for total contentment with your home. Daily chores and meal preparation could take on a renewed sense of pleasure if we can help you Make Your Kitchen Work For You.

Pantries can accommodate not only food storage solutions, but they may also enhance design detailing and transition between spaces. Thick Walls are another Key Element from Not So Big Solutions to bring harmony to a home's layout. Integrating pantry storage into these thick walls may seamlessly blend service and style elements within a carefully crafted response to design development. "Never do anything for just one reason" is an architectural tenet worth remembering whenever and wherever possible. There may be some surprises in store if we work together to crack the puzzle of your home's design potential. A few deft flourishes may reveal some delight beyond increased storage solutions.

Architecture is the art of moving through space. While this may seem a lofty goal for grand civic spaces, there is no reason to cut yourself off from discovering that this same joy may be available to you daily ~ under your own roof. Arranging rooms and views while remaining mindful of some perceptive principles will yield inspiring results. Emphasizing connections rather than separations will bring forth a unity for the whole home. An eye toward creating these connections and views will breathe a sense of light and volume even into smaller spaces.

We may discover a previously hidden spirit of place waiting for you to live in! Introducing a design aesthetic - that can encompass a theme and variations that will be noticed while passing through the spaces of your home - engenders a harmony that can be FELT as well as seen. We are a spatially aware people, whether we give ourselves credit for this or not. As your travels allow, take note of spaces both large and small, grand and humble. Which spaces bring you peace? Which spaces cause you to cringe? Can you discern a procession of spaces within the larger structure; or are all of the ceilings of one height? Crafting a few simple modifications into an existing home can impart an impressive distinction and a sense of grace that many modern homes built for utility may be lacking.

Lynne and Lyle can work together to assess and design solutions for areas within your home to achieve this level of harmony. Jim brings to bear the alliances he has carefully tended over the years. Jim's capable crew interweaves the skills of the trusted sub-contractors with their own. Matching these results with proven vendors unites and solidifies the model. Our collective memory will draw from successful strategies with past clients to shed light on the vision of what your home can be.

Why did so many of us experience Ice Dams this past winter? Didn't we tend to this since we first learned about these issues back in the Nineties? Is there no solution?

There are literally dozens of ways for the warm air from the living spaces of your home to sneak into the attic and thereby warm the underside of your roof. It is this heat transfer that melts the blanket of snow from beneath and sends the runoff rolling down your roof surface till it encounters air cold enough to refreeze it along your eaves. Charming icicles are a lovely New England sight ... until they loom large enough to cause some other damage. Icicles with sufficient mass to do harm when they fall are an obvious threat, but there may be less obvious damage done if we follow the dammed water back into your home. This year's insurance claims have been significant. Depending on the measures taken to remedy the situation, interior damage may be more extensive and costly than the effects on the exterior.

Any home, no matter how recently occupied, may benefit from a rigorous home inspection and energy audit. Immediate savings may be realized from reduced heat loss. Even more unwanted expense might be relieved before it takes its toll if steps taken today keep water outside the envelope of your home. Claims adjusters for the home insurance companies are discovering interior damage to ceilings, walls, floors and finishes of more far-reaching replacement costs than the repair to the exterior shell. The last thing any of us wants to hear is that there is hidden damage and mold that grows when moisture accumulates in the cavities in our building frames. If this were not bad enough yet, ants and termites generally follow this moisture trail.

An educated inspection can reveal areas we can address and mitigate while the weather is pleasant, to shield you from harm and hazard when the weather turns unpleasant once more. A top-to-bottom addressing of concerns will ensure that your home can maintain a weather-tight shell against our climate's many fluctuations. While it may be counter-intuitive to perform your winter work now, you may be happier than ever when the heating season hits again.

Basnett Design-Build-Remodel takes pride in remaining abreast of the best and brightest educators in the building sciences. Together, we share what we learn, and we bring this collective experience to the job-site each day. When working on your home, all of the best practices we have learned are incorporated into everything we do. When we honestly engage the challenges your home will face, we can save you from exposure to the vulnerabilities that mere code-compliance may fall short of addressing. Where warranted, we will also guide you to hire the subject matter specialists that have the training and the tools to deal with specific areas of concern, which demand their mastery. Enlightened design and construction upholds the adage, "Know what you know; know what you don't; know the difference; and know when to ask for help."

For further reading, both anecdotal and remedial, we recommend these articles:

http://www.remodeling.hw.net/building-performance/snowballs-chance.aspx
http://www.remodeling.hw.net/building-performance/air-sealing-best-practices.aspx