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What's hot--and not--for your home

By Julie Haley

9/10/2008

Lakehartwellrealestate blog

Quoted: NARI Second Vice President Paul J. Zuch, CR

Getting your house ready to list? Here's what you'll want to include to make your home feel up-to-the-minute. Plus: 5 trends to avoid.

Want to sell your home in 2008--or simply want to keep its decor fresh so that it dosen't begin to slow slide towards avocado-toilet and lava-lamp oblivion? You're in luck: We've asked several top experts who keep tabs on trends in home design, furnishings and remodeling to weigh in on what's hot--and what's decidedly not--in 2008.

Their opinion: The American house of 2008 will be smarter, greener and sleeker than before. But here's the trick: Homeowners want a home that will work now--and 10 years from now.

"I feel that buyers (and sellers) are growing tired of 'housing obsolescence,'” says Mark Nash, a Chicago-area Realtor who annually surveys nearly 900 real-estate agents across North America for his report, "What's In, What's Out with Homebuyers." "With the price of housing still at high levels versus a decade ago, buyers are looking hard and wide for a home that works for them in their time starved lifestyles. Savvy buyers have caught on that short-lived trends sell magazines (or cable TV shows), but not necessarily homes, because what was so 'in' can be so 'out' in increasingly smaller cycles." Nash says luxe outdoor living spaces and sophisticated home-monitoring systems are among the trends that will be hot in 2008 and beyond. On their way out: concrete countertops, whirlpool tubs, and stainless steel appliances, he says.

Here's a run down of what's hot -- and what's not -- for your home in 2008.

What's In

The destination bathroom

"I think the big shift is that people are really starting to nest in their bathrooms. It is kind of like this personal refuge within the home, Nash says.

The huge bathroom getaways tempt you to linger and are outfitted with everything from wine chillers and espresso machines to his-hers TVs, says Nash. "I asked one woman, 'Do you have that much time?' And she said "I make the time."

The smart house, operated by phone

"One tend that I think is pretty clear is that we are finally moving towards more tightly integrated systems in the home that do allow for greater automation of certain functions, whether that's controlling the temperature or lighting," says Kurt Schrf, vice president and principle analyst of Parks Associates, a market research and consulting company that studies emerging consumer technologies.

What can you do with these systems? Turn lights on and off remotely. Turn down the heat without stepping inside your home. Open the electronic cat door for Mittens. Raise your electronic blinds.

This technology used to be available only for the rich--think Bill Gates home--but now it's "as close to plug-and-play as you can get," says Scherf.

Already some electric utilities in the United States and abroad are toying with pilot programs in which they reach out and wirelessly adjust customers' heating and cooling by a degree or two, Scherf says, to maximize broader energy use in their area.

"It's very expensive to fully retrofit" a home with these monitoring systems, says Nash--about $20,000 to $25,000--"but we're seeing this included in a lot of new construction," where it adds only perhaps $10,000 or $15,000 to the cost of the home. (Analyst Scherf says a retrofitted system--adding different faceplates to wall outlets and software to a home computer--can range in cost from $100 to $10,000, depending on the complexity a homeowner wants.) "The boomers' kids are purchasing these retrofit products for their parents who are still living independently at home," so they can monitor them and help them perform some tasks, Nash says.

Turning the house inside out

The trend of bringing the indoors outdoors is accelerating dramatically, says Nash. "We're a long way away from the redwood picnic table," he says. For example, some homeowners are buying artwork that's been treated to withstand the elements, or has a covering, so that it can be hung indoors or outdoors. Weather-resistant fabrics are now available that look much like indoor fabric. People are often extending radiant-heat floors outside, under patio flagstones. "You're just heating it enough to take the edge off, but it's not enough to be a blast furnace," Nash says.

The goal is to extend those shoulder seasons in order to sit longer by the giant fireplaces that have become even more popular, or to cook in the extensive kitchens that anchor many of these outdoor spaces.

The return of glamour in furniture and decor

The whole idea of glamour is a little bit of a reaction to what is now still a very strong trend toward an appreciation of fabrics that have what you might call imperfections in them," says Davis Remignanti, lead design consultant at Furniture.com. Remignanti refers to rougher fabrics that have sprung from the green movement, and to wood finishes with knots and grain.

But he sees the emergence of a "slightly more refined and glamorous assemblage of materials" that he calls post-Dec glamour. It's a sleek, not overly modern look that leans on fine-quality rosewoods and good fabrics: velvets, good boucles and interesting damasks. "It's all a little bit, 'I'm done with rough-hewn now, where do I want to go now? '" Remignanti says. "It can have good energy--it's not overly modern...But it is sleek and it is smooth and it is fine. And it is interesting design." 

Concealed appliances

Real-estate agent Nash says he's seeing more homeowners opting to hide kitchen appliances such as the dishwasher and refrigerator. "A lot of people think that appliances are ugly," he says. What's making it possible to hide a fridge behind cabinet doors is technology, which allows a big appliance today to be "broken apart" into separate, smaller pieces, he says. "A lot of people want beautiful kitchens, who never use them," Nash explains. The kitchen is evolving, he says. "A kitchen is becoming an aesthetic room."

Home elevators

Elevators are starting to appear--and will only proliferate--as baby boomers age, Nash says. "These aren't upscale boomers. These are boomers who are trying to plan ahead and stay in their homes as they get older."  The lift costs "upwards of about $50,000," depending on the number of floors, and how they're tricked out, he says.

Bold fabrics

Smaller-scale furniture is in, and as furniture gets smaller, "it can sustain a larger and lager pattern without looking ridiculous, says Furniture.com's Remignanti. So a hot trend for 2008 is using large-scale patterns on fabrics and floors and wall coverings. "If you're choosing a pattern over solid colors, make it big and bold," he says.

The colors of 2008

For 2008, Remignanti is excited about a "spice-inflected" palette of colors: Think carnelian (a deeper than pumpkin orange), flax, acid green, russett. Blue will also make a comeback, he says. These are, in a sense, more "mature" versions of the avocado greens and retro 1970s orange that resurfaced a few years ago, he says. Metallic acccessories in chrome, mirrors and mercury glass are important for room accents, he says.

Some stylish folks are looking to black and white, which can be a powerful way to accent the most important thing in a room-- the people, says Remignanti. But you've got to be careful using black. "It's a look that can be tricky to pull off successfully," he says. In other words, one black wall goes a long way. Look through a lot of magazines first, to see how professionals do it, he advises.

What's out

Living rooms

"I think they're officially dead," says Nash. "It's been a slow death, but I think people are finally saying, 'Enough.'" Replacing them has been a space that embraces the informality of today's lifestyle, with eating, cooking and living all in one large area, he says. So what people are doing with this once mandatory living room? "I see more pool tables."

Too big? Too bad

Oversized furniture is on the way out, declares Remignanti. Human-scaled proportion is making a much-deserved comeback. "There's been a real trend in interior decor for the last 10 years or better for enormous rooms," he explains. And to deal with that, decorators often made the furniture bigger. "Sofas became so deep that if you sat in them it was like you were in a hammock. Your feet didn't touch the floor," he says. "It was a loss of formality in the home.

"It's a return to a fairly normal relationship now between the scale of the human and the furniture," he says. Some examples:

Awkward bistro-height furniture is out, he says. And the scaling up of dining furniture resulted in very heavy dining-room chairs. That's out too. "What we're getting is a return to not-so-heavy chairs; it can be equally ornate, but actually practical and not ponderous set decoration." 

Dark and heavy

"Over the past few years, the majority of our projects, at least in the Dallas market, is people leaning more towards the Old World, European" style--exposed beams, heavier textures on the walls, deeper richer colors, lots of molding, a tendency toward darker stains, says Paul Zuch, owner and president of Capital Improvements, a high-end, full service design and remodeling company based in Dallas. While some clients still ask for that, "the trend is moving toward a little more modern, a little fresher, lighter, brighter, open, use of new materials,” says Zuch.

Mosaic tile

It's on the way out," says Nash--not because homeowners don't love it. People love to install them," Nash says of the decorative tiles. The problem is resale. The tile is such a personalized design statement that it scares off would-be home buyers who may not have the same taste. "The cost and waste to remove intricate mosaic is overwhelming to buyers, especially if it has been recently installed," he says. "Even the most expensive but not agreeable tile could kill an otherwise acceptable property."

The Taj Ma-ceiling

For years, tall ceilings imparted grandeur to a home and were a signal that the homeowners had really made it. Those soaring ceilings don't impress prospective home buyers the way they used to, says Nash. "Buyers have finally said ‘enough’; they prefer ceilings between 9 and 11 feet," he says. “Anything more, especially in a smallish (under 10 feet by 12 feet room) is waste. If you can't add a loft in a soaring room, downsize me height-wise, buyers say."

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