Now that the summer months have arrived, homeowners may be looking to spruce up one of their rooms or are considering a renovation. As part of the annual edition of Real Estate, Community impact journal spoke to Yésely Love, Houston design expert from Canaima Design, who provided homeowner advice and market insight.

Usually when an owner has an idea of ​​what they want it helps a lot. As if they wanted to build a new house for example. If they’re starting to line up the elements of what’s important to them, like a three-car garage, pool, or gym, or if they want a party patio for their dog. Simple line items really help us a lot to prepare when we go to meet them for the first time. When we contract, we actually do something very interesting: we interview our clients. We have a format where we basically get to know a client, whether they like a white house or whether they want a Greek house.

We also ask them questions like if they have allergies, if they have elderly people living with them in their house, if they have children and how many children they have. We have very specific questions that we ask because this influences us a lot on what we are going to offer and design because what we do is make the daily life of our customers the most comfortable, the most livable and the healthiest for them. .

We had a lot more projects last year than after Harvey, for example, which is a surprise. We have so much work that sometimes we work until midnight, then sometimes we get up at 4 in the morning. Everyone realized that they had to stay with the children. They have to work at home, exercise at home. As a result, we had a lot of requests for playrooms, offices, children’s rooms, but also modular spaces.

This means that homeowners are wondering if they have enough square footage in their house or apartment to have all of these different rooms. Or they can convert. It can be a playroom, but during office hours or in the morning it can be an office or also a theater, or a playroom as we have a lot of models or spaces to ask for.

The washing of the brick as well as the vinyl gets bigger and bigger. Vinyl flooring is getting more and more affordable, it’s easy to clean and fix too, like you have a crack you don’t need to change the whole space. Dekton is a great worktop that I highly recommend.

Air purifiers are also becoming very trendy, especially after last year. Cork is also really very good for sound, and you can put cork in the wall, cork in the ground, you would be surprised.

The use of lichen for accent walls is also becoming more and more popular, although you have to know exactly which supplier to get it from. Lichen lasts for many, many years, especially in Houston, where high humidity is better for the lake.