Home Remodel Ideas
Home Improvement Contractors are Finding A New Trend in Housing: What's Old is
New Again
(ARA) - Home Improvement Contractors will tell you that with traditional home
remodel ideas people want all the modern conveniences they can possibly pack
into their homes. In the kitchen, we have appliances that make preparing meals
easier: microwaves, stoves with automatic shutoff, and refrigerators with icemakers.
In the living and/or family room, we have gadgets that encourage relaxation:
gas fireplaces that are on a switch, along with lights and stereos controlled
by remote control; and of course who could forget the automatic garage door
opener.
Glenda Lehman Ervin and her husband Scott have some different home remodel
ideas and will have all of these things in the new home they're building
in Northeast Ohio, but you wouldn't know it when you walk in the door. They're
designing their new home in such a way that it will have an old world
feel with all the modern conveniences. "We're a modern family with old world
values, and we're working hard to create a home that's all about us,"
says Glenda.
She and Scott are part of a growing trend of college-educated, modern, two-career
couples who are looking into the past to create a perfect present with new home
remodel ideas. From the moment you pull up in the driveway of their new home,
the Old World charm will shine through thanks to the Ervins" builder, Old World
Classics.
"We believe a home should be more about the people that live in it
than a structure alone. That's how we differ from most home builders,"
says Andrew Eggeman, grandson of the founder of Old World Classics. "We provide
each of our clients with a design consultant so that all the design elements
can be thought of in the beginning. Design and architecture cannot be an afterthought."
In the kitchen, the Ervins" home will have cabinets and furniture hand-made
by Schrock's of Walnut Creek, a family owned business in Amish country. Their
appliances will be modern, but look old. The Heartland Legacy range offers the
precise response of a gas cooktop with the convenience and flexibility of a
large electric convection oven; but it looks like it belongs in a French country
cottage. The Heartland refrigerator with energy saving features even hides the
ice maker to retain the old world style.
More Home Remodel Ideas
The gadget drawer will be filled with things she has brought home
from her father's store, Lehman's, over the years. The store, founded in 1955
by Jay Lehman, had the original purpose of serving the needs of the Amish people
who live without electricity. Today the business serves customers all over the
world, from second-home owners to doctors in developing countries to
the chronically nostalgic -- to modern families like the Ervins who want to
preserve the past for future generations.
'some day the simple way of life, whether it's making applesauce or baking
bread, might become extinct. We want our children to remember the old-time skills
and tools that our grandparents used every day," says Ervin.
The kitchen isn't the only place where the cozy, warm feeling will
come through. Ervin, her husband and their two young children will be able to
gather around a wood stove they picked up at Lehman's in the family room. 'some
of my happiest memories from childhood are of times spent playing board games
and reading books with my parents as we sat around the wood stove. I want the
same for my kids, who are now five and nine years old," she says.
Once they move into their new home this spring, the family will also
be able to enjoy walks together in the nearby woods, and gardening. "Best of
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