Trim samples in the Mosby Building Arts selection center.

There may come a time when your home is perfectly tailored to the way you live, but it just seems to lack pizazz or that certain something that would make it pop.  When you’re looking for some interior design excitement, consider small changes that make a major impact.

The look and feel of any room can be transformed with molding and trims, which give you a way to add depth and character to doorways, windows and walls for a comparatively smaller price and effort.

For instance, a dining room or family room will evoke old-world distinction with a coffered ceiling.  The coffered look (as seen in the top right picture above) happens by constructing and installing plywood boxes, which is a fairly basic carpentry process that achieves rich results.  See more of this project.

Fireplace surround styles change almost as quickly as fashion styles, so can just as easily become outdated.  You can keep the original firebox in place while completely changing the look of the surround, hearth and mantle.  As shown in the above photos, designers gave a dated fireplace a fresh, contemporary look with Woodharbor trims and moldings and a granite hearth.  See more of this project.

A perfect example of updating what you already have in place is the project shown above.  Granite around the firebox adds elegance while new wood trim and a substantial mantle add weight and drama.  To match the new look of the fireplace, new built-in bookcases were created to deliver a more substantial and contemporary look.  See more of both fireplaces in this home.

A key opportunity for changing the look and feel of your home is entryways.  As you can see from the above examples, when you outline the shapes of your entries with molding, each room takes on a more formal and classic look that adds subtle impact.  Adding molding also provides an opportunity for contrast; crisp, white molding next to a fresh wall color provides instant pop and makes your rooms more visually appealing.

Another idea for upgrading a room is to encircle the room with chair rail molding a third of the way up the wall from the floor.  This presents an opportunity for a split color scheme: one paint color or wallpaper above the railing and a different choice below.  Wainscoting or panel molding is also another option below the chair rail.  These simple additions add depth and perspective to a room.

Crown molding installs at the intersection of your walls and the ceiling. This is the secret weapon for adding big impact to a room.  An example of a kitchen designed for a historical city home is shown above.  The goal for this project was to mimic the look of the hefty original molding throughout the rest of the home, so several small pieces of molding were used to replicate the richness and depth seen elsewhere in the home.  See more of this project.

Installing picture railing is an efficient way to approximate the Victorian or Art & Crafts style in a contemporary home.  Depending on the height of your ceiling, picture rail is installed either directly under crown molding or several inches below it.

One large area to consider updating is the staircase.  It serves a crucial function in your home and has a large visual impact, which means the look of it deeply influences the feel of your home.  In the example shown above, design and installation of a new banister system and stair treads instantly changed the look of this home from casual to elegant.  See more of this project.

Think about how many doors you have in your home and how much they contribute to the look of each room.  Interior doors can enhance the design theme of the room it serves, and installing new doors is relatively easy and brings immediate design results.  The Woodharbor line of doors and interior trims create a fully coordinated design theme for your interior design projects.  See more of this project.

Interior flourishes are small changes that have major impact.  Mosby Building Arts is skilled at creating a design master plan and installing the details that create instant changes in your home.  Mosby designers will take you through our selections center and guide you through your choices and options.  To explore the possibilities, call our office at 314.909.1800 or contact us here.

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Your home is much larger than you think.  We typically measure the square footage within the exterior walls of our house and consider only the interior as our livable space.  But when you look beyond the walls and consider the usable land your home sits on, the size of your home practically doubles in size.

A home is a place for your family, and the function of each room is determined by how the family uses the room.  For instance, the kitchen is for everyone of every age that lives in or visits your home, while your bedroom has specific functions for a limited number of people.  The family room is for varied levels of constant interaction, while a bathroom is for solitary retreat.  It is the number of people and how they use a space that creates the identity of a room.

Rethinking Your Backyard

Think of a typical backyard deck and how it is used.  Decks tend to be accessed by public spaces from inside the home and serve as an informal entertainment area for family and guests.  The deck has flexibility of use; yesterday it was a dining room for an intimate dinner for two, today it hosts a child’s birthday party and tomorrow it will let you relax and read a book on a lazy afternoon.  In essence, your deck is an outdoor extension of your family room, and a room addition without walls.

A patio may just be a slab of concrete in your backyard, but when you add a table and chairs, lighting and a grill it becomes the second kitchen of your home.  And just like your indoor kitchen, the patio is where everyone will gather, so furnish it the way you would a kitchen and you’ve just added another room to your house.

Endless Summer?

Outdoor living in, say, Southern California makes sense because of its year-round temperate weather, but why would you invest in creating outdoor rooms that can’t be used during Midwest winters?

Let’s observe that we in Metro St. Louis have a solid 4 months of cold weather that can preclude using a deck or sunporch, which leaves 8 months when our outdoor living spaces can be a part of daily life.

But even when the temperature is chillier than you’d like, patio designs can include fireplace accessories like a fire pit or fire ring to create warmth and cozy light for cold-weather get-togethers.  Another deck design option is various sizes of heaters powered by the same type of natural gas or propane tanks used for outdoor grills.

A 4-season room is essentially a screened porch with storm windows, insulation and a heat source for colder months, and when the weather changes, it converts back to an open-air room for enjoying nature in your outdoor room.  So, for those who thrive in the great outdoors, there are endless options for an endless summer all year long.

The designers and architects at Mosby Building Arts excel at creating unique outdoor living spaces perfectly tailored to your personality and lifestyle.  We work with you to craft a master plan of desires, needs and practical solutions that will transform your yard into an extension of your home, all year long.  To explore the possibilities of outdoor living, call our office at 314.909.1800 or contact us here.

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The dog days of summer can make you more sensitive to the effectiveness of your air conditioning unit.   You may notice that some rooms are warmer than others, while others feel too humid, and shouldn’t the house feel more comfortable in comparison to the cost of the cooling bill?

This is also the traditional time of year to take a vacation and leave behind an empty house. What temperature should you set your thermostat while you’re away?  Set the temperature too high and you risk growing mold and mildew and possible damage to wood furniture. Set it too low and you’re needlessly cooling an empty house. What’s the best solution?

A common assumption is that a new air conditioning unit will solve comfort issues, and the Mosby experts do offer experienced recommendations on new models that will perform at the greatest value and energy efficiency.  But before jumping into the purchase of a new AC, it is best to get an overview of the conditions in your home and develop a master plan of what the most effective cooling solutions would be.

Start With an Energy Audit

A home energy audit is the best way to uncover inefficiencies like why your house does not cool evenly as well as determine where you could reduce your home’s energy costs.  The Mosby Building Arts energy auditor is certified with both the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Building Performance Institute to test your home with tools that expose the issues that affect your comfort and your health.  Once the weaknesses are identified, we give you a list of improvement priorities, and work with you on the master plan that will achieve the best results.

Simple Solutions

Sealing the air leaks in your home is the quickest and most reliable way to keep the cool air inside where it belongs.  An energy audit will identify where these weak spots are.

Upgrading to a programmable thermostat will help reduce your energy bills and free you from monitoring indoor temperature.  These digital setback thermostats are programmed to automatically adjust temperature settings according to time of day and are indispensable for those times when you are away from home for long periods of time.

Moisture is the biggest battle in every home, and in the heart of the summer moisture comes in the form of indoor humidity.  If the humidity is too high it will promote mold and mildew growth which can adversely affect your health.  Properly balanced cooling temperatures and a dehumidifier attached to your AC will keep this problem in check.

Old-Fashioned Know-How

How did your grandparents survive summer in the days before central air conditioning?  Their tried-and-true methods for keeping the house cool will work just as well for you today, and include:

● Ceiling fans rotating clockwise
● Shades or blinds drawn down against direct sunlight
● Awnings or deep roof eaves atop windows facing south and west
● Trees and tall shrubs to provide shade on south and west sides
● Roof vents remove accumulated heat from the attic

Mosby Building Arts is the one company with the wisdom, experience and service to take care of all your energy efficiency and comfort needs. We work with you to create a master plan that will take your home into the next 15 years of enhancing the way you live.  Call our office at 314.909.1800 or contact us here.

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Creating a master plan will make your home fit the way you live now.

Is your home providing all that your family needs or wants?  Is your family expanding or contracting with family members living with you or visiting. . . . young and old?  Are the accessibilities or hobbies of the occupants changing?  Are there some rooms in your home that you do not even enter?  There are times when your home could use an update, so how do you make it work for you once again?

A master plan will help you transform your home to fit the way you live.  Our Mosby designers and architects begin re-designing your home by listening to your dreams, exploring how your lifestyle has changed, and asking important questions about your future that will help achieve your goals for lasting value and enjoyment.

REPURPOSED ROOMS

Some areas of your home may no longer get used as much as they once did, like a bedroom that now is vacant because your son or daughter moved out on their own.  This type of available space is an opportunity for you to consider your current daily life.  Finding a new use for a room is also known as repurposing.  Based on the current needs and desires of those living in the house, it could now become an art studio, an exercise room or entertainment space.  Or multi purpose a room by combining a home office and guest room.  Consider the space as an opportunity to create an improved flow of life throughout your home.

Convert your dining room into a library.

How often do you really use your formal dining room? If the answer is “not very often,” then consider converting it into a space you’ve been longing to have.  Repurpose it as a library by installing floor-to-ceiling shelves along one wall, bring in comfy reading chairs and turn the dining table into a desk.  Or throw a protective cloth over that table to make a work bench for your arts and crafts room decked out with file drawers and shelves. In both cases, a few quick changes can put the room back into service as a dining room for the few times that you do need it.

Some homes have both a family room and a living room, with the family room usually being the space everyone uses while the living room (usually in the front of the house) languishes. For those who work from home, turn that front room into a full-blown office, which also makes it convenient for when clients come to call because they can stay in the front office without having to access the rest of the personal spaces.

Remove the wall between your kitchen and dining room to expand your space.

Depending on the placement of a seldom-used room, it could be co-opted to enlarge a space that is used regularly.  By removing a wall, a dining room can become part of an expanded kitchen, or a spare bedroom can become a generous walk-in closet for your master bedroom.

MULTI-PURPOSE SPACES

Embracing the art of living conjures clever ideas for allowing one room to serve many purposes or creating more square footage within your existing floor plan.

Create extra kitchen storage in an adjacent hallway.

It may not be in the budget right now to remodel your kitchen, but you do need more pantry space.  Realize that many items we store in our kitchen do not need to be immediately accessible for cooking, so think outside the box and use spaces nearby as the new pantry. Our paper products, bulk food purchases and serveware for entertaining could be moved outside the kitchen to new pantry areas created in hallways, under stairs or in the mudroom.

A media center in a mudroom gives it multi-purpose function.

Speaking of mudrooms, many families have had us install a corner cabinet with countertop space to be used as the family media center, which is a place for all the battery chargers for cell phones, laptops and digital cameras.  Some also include room in this cabinet configuration for a spot to put all the family mail plus a paper shredder to handle all the mail you can recycle.

OUTDOOR ROOMS GO INDOORS

Turn a screened-porch into an all-seasons room.

Spaces you may currently use as a sheltered outdoor room can become an official part of the floor plan. For instance, a screened porch can be converted to an all-seasons room by trading the screens for insulated glass, adding insulation and a heating/cooling system. All of this can be done while preserving - or even enlarging - the outdoor views.

Some homes have a breezeway, which is essentially an enclosed hall that connects the house to the garage. As with a screened porch, it can be turned into an insulated, temperature-conditioned space ideal for use as a children’s playroom, mudroom or computer room.

If your home has a large front porch that is seldom used, this can be “walled in” to become a screen porch, green house or a home office.

We, at Mosby Building Arts, think differently and invite you to look at your home from a new point of view.  Create fresh and useful ways along with our design team to repurpose rooms in a master plan that will give you more space and better reflect the way you actually live.

With over 60 years of experience in improving the lives of St. Louis area families, we know that remodeling is really about the art of living.  Our deep bench of professionals will help you have a tremendous sense of satisfaction and pride in the finished results by creating wonderful new uses for your existing spaces.  Call us at 314.909.1800 or contact us here.

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