Buying and Renovating a House in Denver, Colorado

Renovating a House in Denver, Colorado

Earlier this year went through the process of buying and renovating a new house. We know we want to put our touches on the house without taking on a large project that would take time away from getting our business established in Denver, Colorado.

Our Realtor, Karl Sells Denver, knows the neighborhoods of Denver very well. Specifically, he knows the food scene near all these neighborhoods so we know we were in good hands. However, we wanted to pick a house quickly so we only looked at houses for 1 day before we picked this one.

The interior is immaculately maintained by the previous owners and we know we could do minimal aesthetic upgrades. However, even though we know that there's potential I always want to visualize the potential and so we put together this quick photoshop rendering and mood-board of how we can update the exterior to be a little more mid-century modern.

Design Concept Boards

Kitchen Design

The only *slightly* outdated part of the house was the kitchen. And honestly, it wasn't that bad. It looks like it was updated in a very 1980's double-galley style, but the cabinets are in great shape. The kitchen is a closed kitchen. Side-note, I'm a huge fan of closed kitchens and I don't understand the open kitchen trend. I love that we can be messy in the kitchen but it's not visible from every part of the room. A few contractors actually tried to talk us into tearing down some walls to get to the open concept and we had to push back hard.

Anyway - when we eventually do the kitchen it's going to be again bright and airy with Scandinavian and mid-century modern tones. I'm obsessed with this Walnut wood veneer or a clear, matte stained white oak would be awesome too. A few lessons learned from designing our own kitchen as part of renovating a house in Denver:

1. Every Cabinet maker has different offerings, cabinet styles, and details. They will basically redesign your whole kitchen.
2. Kitchen renovations will cost at least 200% more than you expect.
3. Swapping out the appliances is the easiest fix.
4. The amount of gorgeous tile out there is overwhelming, and the tile always gets cut from the budget. Fight for it! Some of my favorites are Fireclay, Clè Tile, and Heath Ceramics.
5. Contractors barely looked at our drawings.
6. Asbestos - could be a major problem in houses built between 1945-1990.

The Bathrooms

Now moving on to the bathrooms.