Light Your Home Up With These Tips

The right interior lighting can make a well-designed home look even more stunning. Follow these lighting tips to ensure your home is perfectly lit.

  • Place mirrors cleverly throughout the room to reflect light that comes in the windows. Mirrored table tops are even more stunning.
  • A filter for natural light, placed over the windows, can make it appear even airier.
  • The color of a lampshade affects the color of the light that shines through it. Look for white lampshades made from organic material for the most vivid light.
  • Interior doors with glass panes can make interior rooms with few windows seem brighter and larger.
  • For rooms where you want dimmer, more ambient lighting, use 20 or 40-watt bulbs overhead. For rooms that must be brighter, 75-watt bulbs are the best choice.
  • A dimmer switch is perfect for the living room or dining room overhead light, but it also works well for table side lamps, since you can turn them down for ambiance or up for reading purposes.

If you’re working on your interior design and need more help choosing the right lighting scheme, contact the experts at TAB Associates today!

TAB Goes Green With These Beautiful Properties

Green building is more than just a trend, it’s the right way to build for the health of the planet. At TAB Associates, we’ve created many beautiful green properties, including:

The Bonidy Residence

This 3,000 square foot home has stunning views of the Sawatch Range. We used blown urethane insulation, an 80% effective air-to-air heat exchanger, and a passive solar system to keep energy use down. Radiant in-floor heating is supplemented by a wood-burning stove. Click here for further information and images.

Holzworth

Spanning more than 8,000 square feet, this timber home has 6 bedrooms, 7 1/2 bathrooms, a 3-car garage, a hearth room, a ski room, and more. It’s located on a ski-in, ski-out lot. The photovoltaic panels and evacuated solar panels green up the design. Click here for the further information and images.

Madison Partners P.U.D.

With 112 condominium-style homes, this resort is situated on 21 acres in Avon, CO. It is still being planned and developed, but we are focused on attaining a LEED certification through the use of green building products. The homes stretch across the base of a mountain. Click here to see project.

To learn more about our commitment to green building, contact TAB Associates today. We’d love to share our latest project and design ideas with you.

Our LEED Gold Residence is Beautiful & Eco-Friendly!

TAB Architects is proud to introduced the Navarro-Wear Residence, a 5.900 square foot home with a wood frame and wood accents. Earning its LEED Gold Certification, the home is energy-efficient and sustainably built.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design. It’s a green-building certification program through which building projects that meet environmental and energy-efficiency standards are given ratings. The Gold Certification is certainly one to be proud of.

This home is not just eco-friendly, it is also stunning. With 5 bedrooms and 5 1/2 bathrooms, it incorporates unique timber accents. Solar collectors provide heat supplemental heat, and all of the insulation is polyurethane spray foam. Air exchangers provide continuous circulation of fresh air. Set amongst the hills and surrounded by gorgeous landscaping, the exterior of the home stands out with its wooden and stone finish and unique, multi-level roofing design. There are even several balconies from which residents can enjoy the outdoors.

Learn more about this LEED Gold Certified home and our other projects by contacting TAB Associates. We’d love to help you design a beautiful, environmentally friendly residence, too.

The Genesis of Today’s Rustic Aesthetic

Log cabins, farmhouses, and country cottages — they’re coming back today with a more modern twist. Rustic designs are increasing in popularity, but where do their beginnings lie?

Cabin homes, made mostly from natural lumber, were originally built by stacking notched logs. The logs tended to warp and expand over time, so early settlers would seal them together with a mixture of mud or clay, mixed with straw.

Cottages can be traced back to several origins. Early cottages were built along beaches in America and in Victorian England. The features they shared were bright, airy interiors, small size, and clapboard siding. Often vacation homes, cottages were designed for seasonal use.

Farmhouses were usually constructed from a variety of natural materials — whatever was available at the time. Wide plank flooring, fieldstone fire places, and roughly hewn ceiling beams were elements still used in farmhouses today. Farmhouses had big porches as these originally served as places to kick boots off and enjoy a view of the fields.

Are you ready to adopt today’s rustic look as your own? Contact TAB Associates to learn more about the rustic cabins, cottages and farmhouses we have built for prior clients and can also build for you!

Tips to Updating Your Kitchen Countertops

The countertops take up a lot of visual space in your kitchen. Additionally, they take a decent amount of abuse considering the how often you probably use them. This means that if you’ve had your kitchen countertops for more than a few years and they are looking outdated or beginning to show signs of wear, you may want to update them. The following are a few ideas for updating your countertops:

  • Granite – Granite is a beautiful option that gives the kitchen a natural look. It’s also very durable and is resistant to both scratches and heat, not to mention easy to clean – both of which are an advantage for the kitchen space!
  • Stainless Steel – Stainless steel is a good option for a more contemporary or modern kitchen space, especially if you already have stainless steel appliances. It’s non-porous, which means it’s easy to keep clean and naturally antibacterial – perfect for food prep.
  • Wood – Wood is another excellent choice, one that comes in numerous types, from oak or maple to cherry.  This is particularly nice in an island.

These are just a few kitchen countertop ideas that you should consider using. Be sure to contact us at TAB Associates today for more kitchen updating advice.

Create a Cozy Dining and Living Room

Would you like your home to have a comfortable, welcoming appeal? These decorating ideas for cozy living spaces will allow you to create a living room and dining room that show off your sense of style.

  • Pillars in the entryway leading from the dining room to the living room can give both spaces traditional appeal. A matching fireplace, in the same color and material as the pillars, complete the look.
  • To make a large living room cozier, place an area rug on one portion of the floor. Center a coffee table on top of the rug, and arrange a few recliners around it. This makes the space feel smaller and more intimate.
  • Natural wood adds plenty of coziness to a dining room. Focus on choosing a natural wood table that matches your hardwood floor and woodwork. Crown molding makes for a traditional space.

Are you thinking of remodeling your living room or dining room? Let the experts at TAB Associates help! Contact us to discuss your project and design ideas today!

How to Make Your Master Bathroom Into a Retreat

It’s okay for the bathroom in your downstairs hallway to be designed mostly with basic function in mind, but you should want something more out of your master bathroom. This is your bathroom after all! It should be relaxing and comfortable and maybe even a little bit luxurious. You should get pleasure out of using your master bathroom. So how exactly do you do this? By turning it into a retreat!

First of all, if the bathroom is decorated with old wallpaper, get rid of this and give the space a fresh coat of paint. Then work on the floor. Consider adding heated flooring in order to make your bathroom as comfortable as possible – especially during those cooler winter months.

Install windows if possible that allow more natural light to flow in. If it’s not possible, think about installing a skylight. Go with a frameless glass shower enclosure in order to keep the bathroom spacious and to add a bit of elegance. When it comes to the color schemes, we recommend calm and refreshing colors, such as watery greens.

Use these tips to turn your master bathroom into a retreat. Contact us at TAB Associates for more bathroom design advice.

How to Design and Elegant and Transitional Living Room

Transitional design combined classic and modern design elements to create spaces that are both relaxing and sophisticated. If you love transitional style, consider implementing some of these living room designs into your home.

  • Try pairing a more traditional color, such as beige, with a more modern pattern, such as thick stripes or criss-cross patterns. For example, an area rug in beige and cream offers perfect transitional appeal.
  • Lamps add a warm, special touch to a living room. Give your space a transitional, modern look by choosing artistic lamps in bold colors like red or cobalt blue.
  • Large windows allow light to shine into the room. For transitional designs, choose wide windows that extend almost, but not all of the way, to the floor.
  • Built-in shelves and bookcases are a theme in more traditional styles. You can make them more modern or traditional by keeping them simple with geometric designs. Natural wood is a classic choice that coordinates with most any décor.

When you’re ready to update your living room in a more transitional style, contact TAB Associates. We’ll be happy to create a space that accentuates your own unique style.

Everything You Should Know About Budgeting for Your Home Remodel

One of the first steps in remodeling your home is setting a budget, but even that can be a daunting task if you don’t know where to start. Here are a few tips for setting a home remodeling budget that will allow you to create a suitable space, and also avoid being blindsided by unexpected costs.

  • Establish your budget before you begin working with contractors and designers. This way, you can let the people you’re working with know your budget up front, so you don’t end up falling in love with designs you can’t afford.
  • Talk to others in your area who have had home remodels, and check with a few companies to make sure your budget is realistic. You might find that you have to settle for remodeling one room rather than two in order to stick with your budget, or that you can make more changes than you originally planned.
  • Always understand what you’re paying for when hiring designers or contractors. Does your contract include materials and labor? Does it cover the plan sketch?

If you’re looking for responsible, reasonable architects to orchestrate your next remodel, contact TAB Associates today.

Planning a Bathroom Remodel? Don’t Forget These Important Design Tips!

Bathroom remodeling can be very satisfying. You’ll love getting ready for the day in your new space! Before you jump into this project, however, you have a little planning to do. Here are some tips to ensure this stage goes smoothly, so you can move on to the actual remodeling.

  • Make sure you leave adequate space around your fixtures. Too many bathrooms have cramped toilet spaces or sinks too close to the toilets because of poor planning.
  • If your bathroom size allows for it, try not to make the toilet the first thing you see when you step inside the bathroom. The sink or a lovely vanity make for a much more pleasant greeting.
  • Consider keeping some of the current bathroom in place. Perhaps you still like the floor, the shower stall or the vanity. Remember you don’t necessarily have to replace everything.
  • Set a budget, so you can give this to contractors and designers up-front and protect yourself from surprise costs.
  • Pick a few high-end materials to splurge on, whether it be tile or a fancy sink. It only takes a few to give your bathroom high-end appeal.
  • Consider replacing cabinet drawer faces and doors instead of removing the entire vanity.  This will save both time and money.
  • Consider adding roll-out shelves in the bottom of sink bases and cabinets to reach the stuff in the back of the cabinet.

Contact TAB Associates to discuss your bathroom remodeling plans today.