Renovated House Tour | 55 Questions with Alice T Chan
Join me on a tour of this fully renovated property that I've worked on with the homeowners over the last 5 years. Throughout the tour, I answer questions about features in the home and provide valuable home renovation tips and best practices. Enjoy and please leave a comment on YouTube. Would love to hear your feedback.
Alice: Hey!
Question: Hi, I'm here to ask you 55 questions, are you game?
Alice: Sure, come on in.
Question: Wow, nice house. Has it been remodeled recently?
Alice: Actually it has. I've been working with the clients over the last five years completely renovating it inside and out.
Question: Those are cool floors.What kind of wood is it?
Alice: These are quarter-sawn Oak floors that were actually installed onsite and then stained onsite.
Question: Carpet or hardwood?
Alice: Hardwood in your main living spaces but I still love carpet in the bedrooms. If you have hardwood, you can always cozy it up with an area rug.
Question: What is the biggest change in this space?
Alice: It would have to be the lighting. So the homeowners were avid art collectors and they had the old school track lights that stuck out like tentacles all around the walls. So we pulled electrical to install these recessed lights and the gimbal lights, which are directional lights and it completely cleaned up and upgraded the look of the space.
Question: Where did you get those curtains
Alice: So these are actually custom ripple fold drapes that we had made to hit floor to ceiling. So anytime you have a bank of windows like this, address them as one versus individually. That's going to make it look a lot more elegant and less cluttered.
Question: How did you get started in home renovation
Alice: So I renovated my own homes and then I actually started a home staging business back in 2003. And as much as I love home staging, if you've got an ugly house, it's still going to be an ugly house when you strip away all of the props. I wanted to help people get a little more value out of their property and started with painting their homes, changing out the flooring, making sure that the appliances matched, and it just kind of grew from there.
Question: What window treatment advice do you have for folks who have vaulted ceilings?
Alice: So vaulted ceilings are great, but they do pose a bit of a challenge. So like in this particular room, we've got a taller wall here and a higher window on this side, and then we've got smaller windows on this side. So my advice is to cut it off where they all have the same ceiling height. And don't worry about the eyebrow window.
Question: Granite or quartz?
Alice: Quartz ecause it's much lower maintenance.
Question: What type of countertop is this?
Alice: So this is actually Silestone. This was existing in the property. The homeowners had upgraded to this a few years back. So rather than removing it, which would have ruined it, we kept it. And then opted to reface their cabinets instead.
Question: What's the benefit of refacing?
Alice: So refacing is a great option to fully demoing the entire kitchen, because then you don't have all that dust. But what you do get is new doors and new drawers and drawer fronts. And then what they do is they come in and they add the skins to match whatever finish you choose on your existing boxes. So as long as your boxes are in good condition, it is definitely an option.
Question: Stainless steel or colored appliances?
Alice: So for resale value, I recommend stainless steel. That's still the best choice. There are so many great finishes on the marketplace today that I absolutely love and they are fingerprint-resistant. And if you've ever seen graphite, that is beautiful.
Question: What was the biggest change in this room?
Alice: So the biggest change in this room was the lighting. This home was built in 1988 and they had those beautiful fluorescent light boxes, which were removed and installed the recessed lights and that modernized the space significantly
Question: Wall oven or built-in stove?
Alice: So most houses don't have room for a wall oven. It's usually built into your stove. This particular kitchen had a stovetop, and then they have a wall oven. So we kept it that way cause we were salvaging the countertop, but we did have to accommodate for a microwave instead of a double oven. So we just modified the existing cabinetry.
Question: Wow. That's a pretty big yard.
Alice: Yes, they do have a really nice yard. And it's really nice to be able to stand at your kitchen sink and be able to enjoy your view.
Question: What kind of window coverings are those?
Alice: These are solar shades. I recommend it to everyone. I love how clean they look. And the great thing about it is it gives you the light filtration that you need. It cuts the heat when it's really, really hot, but it allows you to enjoy your view. It's kind of like putting sunglasses on your window.
Question: Do they come in other colors?
Alice: They do. They come in a variety of colors, but I always recommend using the darker shades because they just look better. The white and the gray always tend to look cheap. To me, dark bronze, black or dark gray are the best options.
Question: What recommendations do you have to keep a good flow to a house?
Alice: Choosing a good color palette is really important. So not having multiple colors from room to room is really important. This particular house had a yellow family room. The kitchen was red and then the wall in between was this cobalt blue. And that's just a lot for your eye to take in. Having a cohesive color palette, and not having things that were too different is really nice. This room is a little bit darker than the other space, but not so much that it's super noticeable, but enough for it to be distinguished as its own space.
Question: What was the biggest difference in this room?
Alice: I have to say the fireplace. If you saw what this fireplace looked like before, it was hideous. It had red brick and these two columns that went up. So obviously we demoed that and now we have this really clean, modern look with these large-scale gray tiles and then this Walnut mantle and hearth. It just is such an elegant, clean look. I love it. It's one of my favorite fireplace make-overs of all time.
Question: Is that a real fireplace?
Alice: It is. So it used to be a wood-burning fireplace and we replaced it with a gas fireplace and literally with the click of a button, you can create the ambiance, which is so nice. And it warms up the room so easily.
Question: Wet bars or bar carts?
Alice: So if you have a wet bar and actually use a wet bar and you can update it, wet bars are really nice. Now there used to be a wet bar here because again, this home was built in the 80s and wet bars were all the rage. There was one here. They never used it. It was just a catchall for all their junk. So we removed it and because it's right next to the pantry here, we were able to extend the pantry space, which is much more practical for their everyday lifestyle.
Let's go upstairs.
Question: The stairs look great. Are they new?
Alice: They are. So we upgraded the staircase when we redid the floors. And so the risers and the treads are all new and these are the same wood as the rest of the house. We custom stained the banister to coordinate and then painted the spindles.
Question: Wood or carpeted stairs?
Alice: Have you ever tried Vacuuming stairs, wood all the way.
Question: What rooms should you spend the most money in?
Alice: The popular answer is kitchens and baths, which is definitely true, but it's really important to keep a cohesive look throughout the entire house.
Question: What are some of the easiest ways to upgrade bedrooms?
Alice: Definitely closet organizers. Having the right closet organizer can also eliminate having extra pieces of furniture in your bedroom, which then frees up a lot more floor space.
Question: Is it important to keep a tub in the house?
Alice: For resale value, yes it's definitely important to keep a bathtub in the house. In this particular house, we have one in the hall bathroom. There used to be a bathtub in the master bathroom here, but they never used it. So we removed that and opted for a much larger shower.
Question: That's a fancy shower system. Did it require special plumbing?
Alice: So this particular one is a less expensive retrofit option, which is really nice because it gives you a rain shower head as well as a handheld shower, without the expense of plumbing. So if you were to install a rain shower, head into the ceiling, you would have to run plumbing to your ceiling in order to have that option. But this gives you the best of both worlds at a fraction of the cost.
Question: What was the biggest change in this space?
Alice: Again, 80s house, the lighting was hideous. There was a huge fluorescent lightbox that occupied a big part of this wall. And as soon as we removed it, we were able to take advantage of the entire height of this room. And it feels so much better.
Question: Were there any surprises in this room?
Alice: It was the best surprise ever We were so excited when we found this. We knew when we were creating this area that we were going to extend the shower and then to the side of it, since there was some space behind it, we were going to do a built-in storage area. And it turned out after we did the demo, there was more space than we could even imagine. There were five feet of depth and six feet of height so we were able to create this really cool walk-in closet, which the husband immediately claimed for himself.
Question: How can you create a luxe bathroom experience?
Alice: So adding little things like we did here, pulling electrical for a heated towel bar is a really nice feature. We've already talked about the shower system. What we did here that really took this space to another level were these custom sliding doors. So we have three closets in this master bathroom, which is a really nice master bedroom suite actually. And having these custom aluminum doors with the opaque glass gives it that hotel vibe. And it's very modern.
Question: Vanity bath lights or wall sconces?
Alice: So I actually love a combination of recessed lights that shine over your sink and then having wall sconces at eye-level. So for women who are doing makeup, you want lighting right at your face level, not from overhead. So wall sconces are really a very nice feature.
Question: What is this extra shelf piece?
Alice: Isn't this cool. This was actually my client's idea. They wanted to have extra storage for things without cluttering up the countertop. So we installed this unit in the same material as the countertop, and it is very efficient.
Question: Is it me or is the tile cold underneath.
Alice: It's not you. Tile is great, especially in the summertime when it's hot, it keeps everything nice and cool, but tile does tend to get really cold in the winter. So when we're actually installing it, I recommended to the client that we install radiant heat flooring, but they opted out and that was their biggest regret.
Let's head to the hall bathroom.
So this was actually the first room that we renovated in this house and they loved it so much, we ended up doing the rest of the house.
Question: This is a huge vanity. Where did you get something large enough to fit This is space?
Alice: Really large unit. It's not available off the shelf. So we actually had it custom made.
Question: Would did it have been bigger to not have the middle cabinet?
Alice: Well, it's such a large space that the tower actually doesn't make a difference in making the space feel smaller. This was very strategic. This bathroom was actually used by two grown children, a boy and a girl, brother, and sister. So, self-explanatory.
Question: Chrome or brushed nickel.
Alice: I actually really love the look of Chrome because it's nice and shiny when it's clean, but I would have to say brushed nickel is a little more dirt friendly. You won't see the spots as much. You don't see fingerprints as much.
Question: What is a mistake that homeowners make when renovating their bathroom?
Alice: So my biggest pet peeve is when people put the smallest bathtub in their bathroom. Do not cheap out and go with the big box store bathtub. They're only 13 inches high. It's like a gloried shower pan. You want a nice deep tub so that your average grown person can actually soak in there. Go for something that's 18 to 20 inches.
Question: What is something that people forget to add when renovating their bathrooms?
Alice: Shampoo niches. These are so important when you have the opportunity to build in your shampoo niche. The top one is perfect for all your bottles and the bottom one is great for your soaps or your razors. It just keeps everything clear off the tub deck.
Question: Towel bars or towel hooks?
Alice: Definitely towel hooks. I always install robe hooks to hang your towels on because towel bars are very inefficient. This way you can actually hang your towel and they're allowed to drive without smelling funky.
Question: What was the most interesting space in this house?
Alice: That would be the son's room. So he actually had a sign on his door that said, do not clean. The minute he moved out, his parents were ready to get this room renovated. And it is literally like night and day.
Question: What do people struggle with the most when renovating?
Alice: making decisions
Question: How can they overcome that?
Alice: My recommendation is to hire a Designer. They can help you make those decisions to help you move your project forward. Even if you can't afford to have them help you with the entire project, getting those questions answered is super helpful.
Question: How long do renovations generally take?
Alice: Well, that obviously depends on many factors, but for the most part, a bathroom would take you about 6-8 weeks and a kitchen 8-12 weeks.
Question: Why do you hear about renovations that take months and even years?
Alice: Well, that's usually because a couple of things didn't happen. You either didn't make your decisions and order your products and have them on site and ready for installation when your crew is ready to, or you're having issues with your Trades. So it's really important to hire the right folks because having contractors not show up when they're supposed to is a chronic problem,
Question: How can people ensure their trades are reliable?
Alice: Okay. So there's a couple of things that you can do. If you can get referrals from people, who've had good experiences with a particular company, I would definitely start there. If you're hiring off of a referral site, it's really important to read the reviews, but also to interview them and ask them if they have experience with the type of project that you're working on. And then another thing is communication. Do not hire someone and just stop talking to them. It's really important to communicate with them regularly. I would say at the very least on a weekly basis, but I wouldn't even say on a daily basis.
Question: What is renovating really like?
Alice: dusty
Question: What is the worst design trend of all time?
Alice: Oh my gosh, that would have to be tiled countertops. Have you ever tried cleaning the grount on a tile countertop? It's horrible.
Let's go to the garage.
Question: How you see people living differently since the COVID pandemic?
Alice: I definitely think people are re-evaluating how they use their homes. Since all of a sudden, the entire household is doing everything - from working to distance learning, to exercising, all under the same roof.
Question: This is a nice garage. What's on the floor?
Alice: So we actually had these floors epoxied. As we all know, garage floors, which are concrete, tend to be really ugly. They're stained and they're cracked. They just are not very attractive at all. So epoxying them actually gives it a really nice flow and it looks cleaner and it's easier to maintain.
Question: What is a must-have for your garage?
Alice: So this is something that I just did for myself in my own home. I absolutely 100% recommend that if you don't have a finished garage, you should defnitely finish your garage walls. So add drywall, tape it, texture it, and paint it. If you don't have good lighting add some good lights, and we've already talked about the epoxy flooring.
Let's go out to the garden here.
I'm so proud of how this garden has grown in. I don't have a green thumb, but this yard is amazing for growth because these Palm trees were so small when we first installed them. Look at them. They're just huge. It's like a rainforest. And I’ve got to tell you the one thing in this whole house that made me the most nervous was here in the backyard. So it had been previously painted, but it was chipping and it wasn't looking good. I'd never done this before. So luckily the client were pretty chill and wasn't going to freak out. I was the one that was freaking out. We did a little test patch there and it turned out so nice. And actually, in the spring and summer, this garden is beautiful.
Thank you guys so much for coming on tour with me. I hope you guys learned a little something about renovation and if you'd like to learn more, stay tuned for our next video.
See you then.
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