Remodeling Ideas for Colonial Style Homes

Fireplace

• In a Colonial-era house, the fireplace hearth is the heart of the home. In 17th and 18th century Colonial homes, families gathered around fireplaces as their sole source of heat in freezing New England winters. Consider adding raised-panel walls around the fireplace. These walls create a strong, linear and vertical backboard for the brick or marble hearth. Add, or discover and revamp, china cabinets that may be beside the hearth for storing fireplace equipment or other odds and ends. Build a layered mantel shelf, like a set of scales, which project outward in stages. Decorate the mantle with urns, vases and gold or silver flower pots.

Dining Room

• Mix your Colonial dining room's Federal-style architecture with an assortment early-American furnishings. Strip the floors bare and let the hardwood floors receive the attention they deserve. If you crave a period rug, choose a traditional handwoven rug to go under the classic-era table. Consider drawing attention to the room's mantle and fireplace by adorning it with sconces and a period painting. Try warm colors--like roses, oranges, and yellows--to create a welcoming aura. Leave the windows curtain- and drape-free to let in optimum sunlight and evening sunset glows.

Modernize

• When remodeling your Colonial home, you can still keep the mood and texture of the era while using modern design elements. The spacious, rectangular floor plan of most Colonial-style homes allows for creativity when filling the space. Emulate an American Modernism motif by adding built-in cabinets in the kitchen and the living rooms. Keep the cabinet doors off, or unhinged, to create cubby-hole niches in the home. Construct an island in the kitchen which distracts attention from the counter tops and toward the center of the room where you can present a modern-art glass bowl, vase or floral arrangement. Considering adding glass doors to your cabinets to show off your plates and glassware. Also, if you want to be bold, add a pedestal in the living room to exhibit a unique piece of modern art.