Remodeling homes: Julz, Lilmrs and everyone else

How do you guys get the vision for what you want?

I look at a room and I see what's there but I can't see how that can be reformed into what it could be.

Do you sketch it out first? Then measure stuff? Did you work with a designer or contractor?

I'm a 'fraidy cat and would leave things as is b/c I have little vision for construction/remodelling. But as we look for a house I need to get 'vision' or we'll be living with things we don't love.

My DH is very handy but not imaginative.

Well, when we frist looked at the house we were planning on leaving the walls up as is, but the house isn't that big, so once we spent time in the house I said wouldn't this place be much less crowded if we took this kitchen wall down? So we had my uncle who is a contractor tell me if it was OK to take the wall down (not load bearing) and then we just took it down.
The dining area will probably have the same set up as the pevious homeowners. The way they had the living room was too cramped IMO so we are reversing where the couch and TV are positioned, and we had to build a wall for that.
For the kitchen we worked with a kitchen designer from home depot. I was VERY happy with him.. Chris from Setauket home depot. he gave us some great ideas to optimize the space.
As far as decor goes, i am actually very nervous myself about the way things will turn out. I don't have a plan for what each room will look like, instead I buy things as I see things I like. I am a little worried about everything coming together!

Mine will be kinda like Julz. My Dad is in construction so he also let us know what we can change and what we cannot.

Then, we sat and talked about how most people (at least in my family) always seem to hang out in the kitchen at parties. We then decided to make my eat in kichen even bigger by knocking thru a wall that lead into this tiny seating area. It is going to make a huge kitchen for us to entertain in.

The dining room, living room, and den are basically all staying the same size for now...we are just going to kinda match the decor in those 3 rooms to make it more like one flowing space without colors to cut one room off from the next.

Once we finish the downstairs we will go up and redo all the bedrooms.

Now, my dad is totally changing the location of the stairs going up which is oening up the top floor to some much much bigger bedrooms then are there now.

We also measure and graph everything out prior to making the decision to do it. I am not buying furniture until its done. I rather sit on a box seriously until my work is done and then I can bring in what I want.

We are also very lucky that like my dad and his and so many uncles are all in construction. I also have a great vision of what things can be. And I am not afraid of hard work at all. I am not prissy and have no probs getting in there to do the work to make my house amazing.

So, I gues I would suggest drawing and graphing things out big time first to see if it is even possible. Then you need to just face the fact that your house will be a disaster and stuff will be all over until you are done, but it will be soooooo worth it.

GOOD LUCK

just talking about this makes me so excited

We knew we wanted a bigger kitchen, our's was a galley and stunk when we had people over. We talked and thought it over for weeks before we started narrowing down what we wanted. Once we had a good idea of the layout we were looking for we went ahead and created some in-depth drawings for multiple angles.
I have to tell you I feel like we measured, mreasured again and remeasured a million and one times, AND I feel like we measured some of the most odd things. BUT they all helped so hubby was right and I was wrong on the amount of measurements we needed.
We then went down to home depot picked out the cabinets we wanted and sat down with their design person. We changed things up a little bit with her though because of different codes we were unaware of.
Back to your original question, we came up with our vision over time...which is hard when you are going to buy a house because you don't have the time to sit in it and learn what you love and you hate. Just know, that when we bought our house we hated our kitchen! We knew we wanted to change it, we knew it COULD be something great...but it took us a year and half to finally decide what exactly we wanted to do.

WOW thanks you guys! This is great info. I see now how you do have to spend some time in your home before you can 'see' what changes you want to make.

Julz thanks for the Home Depot info - I forgot they have designers!