Fireplace 4 After
Fireplace 4 Before
If you’re willing to allocate more of your renovation budget towards the fireplace, try building a whole wall unit around the fireplace. If the fireplace sets inside the room, you will be left with some wonderful space on either side of it to work with. This space is a great place to add benches, bookcases and even cabinets for more storage. Using ready-made lower cabinets and building open shelving above will help to give any fireplace a custom feel. Adding a mantle to tie it all together will help complete the look! What if your next renovation has no fireplace? Consider adding one! If you’re not a contractor, you will have to hire one who is familiar with building codes. Adding a new fireplace to an existing home is not as hard as it may sound. It will just require a few more decisions for you to make. Your decisions start with choosing between a direct- vent gas, wood-burning masonry, or a zero-clearance fireplace. The deciding factor for any of these will start with where it will go in the house. If it’s up a flight of stairs,
a wood-burning fireplace may not be your choice; buyers may not like the idea of carrying wood upstairs. If it’s going on an outside wall you may decide to go with a direct-vent gas fireplace. Or if you’re just looking to create ambiance to a home that a fireplace adds, try adding a zero-clearance fireplace. These are the least expensive of the three and can be added to any part of the home. Paying attention to some of the details surrounding your next renovation, including what season you’ll be selling the home in, can help lead you to making better decisions during the renovation process. Bringing back to life that sad looking fireplace or even adding a new one altogether can only help to draw buyers in and help the home to have a warmer and more comfortable feel to it. All of this will encourage buyers to stay longer and to take a longer, harder look at the home. A fireplace truly is the “Heart of the Home!” Investing a little more of your time and money towards this part of your next renovation can only increase the appeal. •
About the Designer: Growing up assisting my father building and investing in strip malls, it was clear at an early age that real estate investing was a natural path for me to take. I received a formal education in design from the Interior Designers Institute of Newport Beach, California, and have more than 30 years of experience in commercial real estate development, custom home building, and flipping houses. Contact me at m.ihearthomescorp@gmail.com or ihearthomescorp.com.
72 | think realty magazine :: november 2021
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