Updated for 2021! In this webinar, Arana includes some of the most creative wallpaper and color trends. Aside from architectural nuances and major renovations, wallpaper is one of the best ways to personalize a room. Its sole purpose is to breathe life into a space and make it feel like your own.
Updated for 2021! In this webinar, Arana discusses how we go about doing your painting project utilizing an ECO Friendly process, environmentally friendly materials and the tools involved. We’re all about safety for everyone involved without sacrificing beauty or durability. Not to be missed!
As professional painters, we here at Arana Craftsman Painters understand that customers demand and expect the best. These days, customers want more than just high quality paint. In the modern era home and business owners also want to see their preferred painters utilizing eco-friendly paints and even tools.
Designers are moving in a new direction. It’s not just about how colors look in a space, but how they make you feel. Colors have the power to transform any room and project your own personality. But choosing the perfect color for your space can be quite tricky sometimes, so we’ve decided to create this complete guide to show you the latest color design trends for this year
What We’ll Be Covering
Latest Color Design Trends for 2020
PANTONE 2020 Color of the Year
PANTONE home + interiors 2020 Color Trends
What PANTONE home + interiors Color Trends reveal for 2020
Faithful readers of our blog may recognize the name of interior designer Carolyn Rebuffel Flannery. We have loved working with Carolyn to help realize her beautiful, pattern-driven design projects and have featured her twice in previous articles, once for her inventive self-created textiles and again when we wanted our designer colleagues to weigh in on their favorite shades of white paint.
While many of us have pivoted in different ways in 2020, Carolyn took a big leap. Closing her design business for one year, Carolyn dedicated herself to launching and running a charitable nonprofit, Make It Home. Combining her longtime advocacy for foster children with her knowledge of and networks in the design community, Carolyn’s new non-profit places donated new and gently-used furniture and fixtures (a longtime waste issue in the design industry) in homes of newly-adopted foster children and of previously homeless adults transitioning out of crisis and into permanent residences.
Thus, Make It Home provides quality furniture, including beds, lamps, tables, and dining sets to vulnerable populations who might otherwise not have access to these things that create home. With COVID-19 causing the need for support to surge, Carolyn decided to have Make It Home be her main priority.
And now, what started out as a one-year sabbatical has turned into a full-time career change. Carolyn reports, “I am not going back to residential interior design—this endeavor is too much fun and has the potential to help so many people. So I am going to do it full-time for the foreseeable future.”
“I might take on a design project here or there,” she adds, “if it looks as fun as what I am doing now, but…”
Click here to read more about Make It Home, as covered in Business of Home.
At Arana Craftsman Painters we care deeply about supporting community. We wanted to spotlight Carolyn for her courageous leap into full-time philanthropic work and are honored to count her among our creative, change-making colleagues, clients, and friends.
Are you working to make a difference in the world? Would you like to have your work featured in our newsletter? Contact us!
Continuing our conversation about Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), we asked Kevin Mond, head of design and sales for HDR Remodeling, as well as co-owner and vice president of the company, to describe in detail the process, costs, and range of options, to help our community make the best decisions for themselves. Arana has partnered with HDR on a number of projects, including the gorgeous custom-built ADU featured in this article.
Kevin writes:
Our company built our first ADU in 2015 and, from what we’ve seen, the rapid rise in requests for ADUs has been a fairly recent phenomenon. In the beginning, we were mostly working on garages, converting them into dwellings — this is a huge undertaking, especially when it comes to dealing with getting permits. Over the last five years, as the trend has continued upward, we’ve seen requests for ADUs vary quite a bit and we have found that there is simply not a one-size-fits-all reason or solution.
ADUs tend to fall into a few different categories. Some people simply want to generate rental income. They have space and want to invest in their property, but because it’s a rental, they prioritize doing the work as cost-effectively as possible, rather than focusing on quality. Those are not typically our clients since the high level of craftsmanship HDR Remodeling provides often comes at a higher price point.
Another category we see are couples whose parents will help them buy a house in the Bay Area, one on a big lot, with the condition or future goal of having the parents move into that ADU in retirement and be close to their children and grandchildren. We also see the case where parents own a large house and are willing to downsize and have the next generation take over the big house while the parents move into an ADU in the backyard.
A fourth reason is that people simply want to create additional space. Many of us in the Bay Area live in smaller homes; by adding more square footage in a separate part of the house or on the property, we can have that music studio, yoga studio, or home office (a huge Covid-19 need).
What excites me about ADUs is how creatively we have to think. It’s very different from designing a 2000-square-foot home.
For an ADU, you have to spend a lot of time analyzing every square foot, even every square inch — maximizing the layout so that the space feels larger than what it really is.
This challenge makes you rethink assumptions. You start asking questions like: Why does a bathroom need its own sink? If the kitchen sink can work just as well as your wash station, you can have one sink for the whole structure.
In one recent build, for a 250-square-foot ADU (click here to view photos in Arana’s portfolio) — which is very small — the clients didn’t have a specific need in mind, but they wanted flexibility. So, we installed a Murphy bed and a combined-use sink. This project also shows how the smallest details make a difference. For example, we took a mirror that they really liked, and instead of a simple surface-mount, we recessed it, just to avoid having it protrude from the wall. This helped make the space — which has a kitchen, bathroom, dining area, and bedroom — feel bigger. We vaulted the ceilings to make the interior feel larger than it really is.
There is a funny battle within ADU design. People love their backyards, but they also want the additional square footage of living space. Negotiating those competing desires is a dance we do so that we can provide enough square footage for each.
We also help clients decide if the trade-off is worth it. A backyard ADU may not always be the best choice; it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If it’s a home office, a ground-up backyard ADU may not be the best route to go. It is costly to bring in electrical and plumbing and all of the systems required in a dwelling. In cases like this, installing a prefab structure might make more sense. If the homeowner doesn’t have a large backyard, building an attached ADU inside the home is sometimes an option. We recently completed a project in a standard 2-bedroom, 1-bath, 1200-1500 square foot, Oakland home, where we were able to dig down to achieve the required 8-foot ceiling height.
ADUs, especially ones with full plumbing and electrical, are often more expensive than people expect. For construction costs only, the budget can be around $350-$450K, and beyond. Even if you self-manage the project, construction costs can still end up being around $300- $400K, plus time spent project managing. And then you have to add in the costs for engineering, permitting, interior design, and furniture and decor. If there is room in the budget, I advise clients to prioritize using higher quality materials.
If instead of an ADU, you want to build a studio or an office in your backyard, that is much less costly. It’s a completely different permitting process and simpler to build. You are not excavating, bringing in plumbing, electrical, etc., or even having to pour a deep foundation. Because these structures are considered sheds, the foundation requirements are much simpler; you can do something very straightforward for about a third of the cost.
Another cost-cutting option, and one that also speeds up the process, is installing a prefabricated structure. For prefabricated dwellings, HDR recommends Abodu (abodu.com). We completed three Abodu installs for clients so far in 2020 and are finishing up two more, right now. For prefab sheds, a company we like is YardPods (yardpods.com).
People think, “I have a garage here, it’s kind-of falling apart, I’m 80% there, I just need to put some drywall and heat…” But that unfortunately is far from reality.
A garage built in the 1920s was built to store things, not people. To convert to a space where people live, the safety considerations go way up. You typically have to do additional framing, pour in a foundation, upgrade the siding to ensure that it’s waterproof, and make sure that the roof is in good shape. Plus you have to excavate and bring in proper systems, like plumbing and electrical. It doesn’t matter if the space is 200 square feet or 800 square feet, systems are where the costs go up.
A clear, upfront explanation of the cost is helpful because most people I talk to say ‘I thought ADUs would cost around $150K.’ There is a preconceived notion that smaller dwellings should cost far less to build than a larger structure. That’s why it is so important for us to educate the general public in order to assist in better upfront decision making. We appreciate the opportunity to reach Arana’s audience on this topic!
Now that “Sheltering in Place” has become the “new normal,” many of us are looking to our homes to support us more than ever before. Maintenance projects that we might have been putting off are suddenly in our faces 24/7 and getting long-needed attention. And with this new and constant attention to home, we recognize that we need our spaces to be multi-functioning, as everything from work, to school, to socializing is now being done on video-chat.
While video in some ways feels more distanced than the in-person world of before, it is also more intimate. We are peering into each other’s homes through these tiny boxes on our screens!
Speaking of tiny… another concept that has become even more popular in recent years is the multi-purpose and modular-functioning tiny home — as well as the idea of creatively carving out space in your existing full-sized home, whether within the structure, going underneath, adding onto, or installing an entirely new structure; whether built from scratch or pre-fabricated and placed in your yard.
All of these can be classified as an ADU. ADU stands for “Accessory Dwelling Unit.” Sometimes quaintly or antiquated-ly referred to as the “in-Law” or even “Mother-In-Law” unit. In legal terms, an ADU is a space that has its own entrance, a bedroom, its own bathroom, storage of some kind, and a kitchen.
While ADUs might have once been the place that gave you breathing room from your Mother-In-Law when she came to stay for extended periods (not for us, we love our MILs!), today the ADU serves many functions, from an income-generator via Airbnb, to a home-office or home-schoolroom, to a way to re-welcome-home adult children who previously left the nest, or shelter other relatives long-term, creating an accommodating extended family compound in uncertain (and even in better!) times.
There are two categories and four typical formats of an ADUs: Detached — either Constructed or Pre-built; or Attached — usually a garage conversion or underground excavation.
A general ballpark-estimate for a 200-square-foot interior ADU is about $150,000 and a 650-square-foot backyard-detached cottage may run you as much as $350,000. Prices will vary depending on size, as well as any unforeseen construction issues that come up, plus how fancy you want to go with materials, appliances, decoration, furnishings, etc.
In the Bay Area, some see the rise in ADUs as a solution to rising new-housing needs. And legislation has followed suit in recent years. We’ve experienced a welcome decrease in the regulations that were previously deal-breakers, or at least headache-makers, including reducing or eliminating parking requirements, and shortening distance from curb measurements for permitting, as cities like Oakland and Berkeley are searching for lower-impact ways to create more housing.
In comparison with countries across the world, it seems that the United States has started to catch on to the benefits of multi-generational family housing, seeing ADUs as a pathway to keeping families together; although economic factors are also a noted influence and now, the pandemic.
Currently, California holds the #2 spot in the U.S. for the highest percentage of multi-generational family homes.
More and more in the Bay Area, we are seeing scenarios like this one: a large backyard cottage might house an adult child in their 20s with the parents living in the front house, and as this next generation marries and starts to have kids, the new growing family and aging parents swap places, with parents moving to the backyard abode and aging-in-place.
Of course, the key to having an ADU install be a positive experience is hiring an experienced and knowledgeable team. We have worked with HDR Remodeling and other general contractors and architects whom we refer to and are referred by who can steer you through the process with, hopefully, as little grief and as much information to reasonably calibrate expectations of cost and duration, as possible.
We don’t want to brag, but you can show us any kitchen, and we can assume, in a few years or so, when it was designed or revamped (we know it’s a neat party trick)—because kitchen architecture, like fashion and another home decor, usually follows patterns that come and go.
One minute of avocado-green refrigerators are great, and the next, they’re painfully old. Ditto: flooring of linoleum. We could still say the same thing about cane furniture— only that it came and disappeared, gone, and coming back later.
Many reasons make a kitchen design unwanted and lose the appeal it had on people. One of the reasons is that many modern designs are coming up, thus phasing out traditional kitchen trends that have been there before.
However, some of the old kitchen trends like the use of wood counter tops are slowly coming back and are replacing modern kitchen trends. With the onset of 2020, we figured we’d take a look at a couple of past-their-prime types that are ready to retire, at least until the pattern inevitably comes back.
Let’s clarify — we’re thinking about the real stone, not the feel of marble. With its distinctive striations and shading, it will always look good in the kitchen or the bathroom. Correct marble counter tops, however, come up with a lot of things.
These need to be resealed every few years; these will scrape, rub, or stain; and they are brittle, so that heat and even some chemicals become troublesome if misused. What is the explanation for the exit? There are more robust options available— such as marble, butcher- stone, or even granite.
Marble is expensive to purchase and also will take a toll on your pocket, installing it on your kitchen wall, counter top, or even on the floor. That alone may make a homeowner opt for cheap alternatives to use in their kitchen.
All-White Kitchens
You can’t really go wrong with a white kitchen, but it’s bland, and the design world is over. Where’s the personality? The all-white kitchen has become synonymous in many homes and hotels. It is good to show class in your kitchen and even at the entire house.
However, this trend should not be with us in 2020, moving forward. The main reason is that it does not incorporate any creativity in it. Most all white kitchen are monotonous and do not have any sense of style in them.
With the onset of modern kitchen interior designs, many people opt to use warm colors in their kitchen. This is because warm colors are suitable for appetite and also have an artistic look.
Subway Tiles
There’s nothing objectionable about the subway tiles— it’s just that they’ve been so overdone that they’ve refurbished the bathroom, and they just look like overkill.
There are many other fun ways to make a back splash. Why not try a different form, a handmade tile, or even a stone slab instead?
Industrial-Style Statement Lighting
Heavy, bulky pendant lighting had a moment, but the industrial style had come and gone in favor of something a little lighter and more understated. The new method lets the rest of the kitchen shine and doesn’t block the view in the open concept room.
Tip: Make sure you always pay attention to the height of your lighting as applied to your floors, cabinets, or kitchen- island.
Plaster Walls
They’ve been all over our Instagram for the last few years. Don’t give in, man. It’s hard to imagine, but the wall plaster would look incredibly old quite early. Oh, it’s a hassle to keep clean, and it can smear quickly. Not perfect for a room where stuff will sometimes spill or splatter.
Barn Doors
They were probably on their way out a couple of years ago — and now they’re legal. They’re just too overdone, and only really make sense in a minimal type of home.
Open Shelving
In this day and age, using open shelving as a style in your kitchen may seem outdated. As the days progress, many people are adopting the use of closed shelving in their kitchens.
Open shelving is being phased out with modern home designs. The main reason for this is the open shelving design looks ugly and may create an eyesore to anyone looking at the content on the shelves.
Open- space kitchen
We used to design a kitchen with open space and no doors to increase the space around and also enhance movement in the kitchen. Today, we see the folly in our ways, and we want our walls back.
People were tired of staring at mountains of dirty dishes while they were sitting on the couch, or putting their heads on tossing pillows that feel like dinner last night.
Granite Themed Counter Tops
For many years, granite has been used as the most preferred material for counter tops. Most modern-day designers discourage the use of granite counter tops. As time progress, the trend is slowly fading away, and most people are adopting other styles of designing their counter tops.
Most people are opting to use stone, timber, and concrete as the preferred material for counter tops. White quartz will have a fantastic look if it is used as the primary material for your counter top.
Closed-off kitchens
Just like the rest of the house, Quirk notes, the floor plans are available, and they’re here to live.
You may not always want to see the chaos that can build up in the kitchen, but it doesn’t suit modern tastes anyway. Most people refer to open floor kitchens as “Kitchens without Borders.”
Conclusion The architecture of your kitchen is one of the most important choices you need to make while decorating your house. The reason is simple: you can’t change the look of your kitchen as quickly as the equipment needs installation and plumbing. Right now, the usual thing is to create a modern kitchen that’s specially built.
If you haven’t yet settled on the most suitable type of decoration for your kitchen, this article will be helpful for you to know kitchen- designs to avoid. We encourage you to apply multiple models for you to have a kitchen that has been modernized and has your personal touch.
Carolyn Rebuffel Flannery, Workroom C (https://workroomc.com/): Benjamin Moore: Super White, Linen White, White Dove, Decorator’s White
How would you describe your design aesthetic? Home as a haven; peace, simplicity and beauty that resonates with each client’s lifestyle. We strive to craft designs that are inspired, savvy, and practical, and that promote a sense of calm and comfort. We specialize in designing homes for busy families looking for a soothing retreat to call their own.
What advice would you give to homeowners about choosing whites? My top four faves and why: Super White — when there is tons of light; Linen White — super-complimentary in traditional settings and works well with antiques; White Dove — softer than Super White and friendly to other colors; and Decorator’s White — works almost all of the time, in all different lighting conditions.
We put together a blog post listing our top 10 favorite whites, along with a short description of each one’s color undertones, with links to each on the Benjamin Moore website.
Do you have a project/story that demonstrates an unexpected or particularly spectacular use of white? I did have one project where we tried about 15 different whites and ended up using two of the fifteen. That was a crazy project…!
Recently, I moved into a new house, and I realized that this is the third time that I’ve moved into a new house and painted the whole entire interior white! For me, personally, painting the entire house white gives me the perfect jumping off point for art and pattern play, and layering all of that together. My first two homes were very traditional. One house had been built in 1912, the other was a Spanish Mediterranean.
In both of those, Linen White worked all the way through. Linen white is a softer, more traditional white. The house I just moved into is darker, so I’m using White Dove, which brightens it up.
For clients, if I can talk them into being bolder with fabrics and cabinet color choices, then I like white because it’s a great backdrop. But, if I specify a sofa in a very snazzy fabric, that tends to make people more nervous than if I paint their wall a bold color.
Still, I’d rather do a snazzy sofa, patterned pillows, patterned drapes — big, little, and medium patterns and pillow sizes, and paint the walls white. As a designer, you always make your boldest suggestion first, and then you adjust. In theory, white doesn’t really seem like it would be a bold suggestion, but it is.
We recently interviewed a number of prominent Bay Area interior designers on their favorite shades of white for painting interiors. In this post, Laura Martin Bovard weighs in.
Laura Martin Bovard, LMB Interiors (www.lmbinteriors.com): Benjamin Moore White Dove
How would you describe your design aesthetic? Curated chic; a warm approach to modern; with an emphasis on layers, textures, handmade, and authentic.
We believe having a beautiful home supports us in living a beautiful life. We take our clients’ vision, who they are and who they are becoming, and channel that into an environment that is welcoming, inspiring, and restorative.
What advice would you give to homeowners about choosing whites? Benjamin Moore’s White Dove is our absolute favorite go-to white. You almost can’t go wrong with White Dove no matter what environment it’s in. It’s warm, clean, and pairs well in modern, traditional, and transitional interiors. That said, sometimes people like a warmer white. Recently we specified a warmer white for a client, Feather Down.
Whites can be very interesting! Layering whites can be a really breathy, beautiful, cloudlike way of creating richness and depth, especially if you want to do an all-white house. There is one architectural genre where all white is traditionally acceptable, and expected, and that would be a Spanish Mediterranean — which is often all white with a darker accent color on the trim.
Do you have a project/story that demonstrates an unexpected or particularly spectacular use of white? Whites can be very tricky because a lot of people will think white is just white, and then they’ll pick any old white, and then when you put it up it’s very cold and jarring, you discover it’s got way too much blue in it, or too much yellow.
I wouldn’t paint any interior all-white unless it was Modern. I wouldn’t paint a traditional home all white, with the exception of when we are highlighting art collections. The austerity of a modern place asks for an all-white palette, and even then, I’d rather use Edgecomb Gray with a white trim — which is what I did in my own house.
And then I went back through and painted all the trim Edgecomb Gray to match — a detail my husband wanted because matching trim is a more traditional translation of Modern. Then again, I’m really loving Pale Oak these days as an alternative to Edgecomb Gray.
