Sometimes, your home just doesn’t work for you. Perhaps it’s started to feel a bit cramped with your growing family or changing lifestyle. Maybe it’s not as safe, private, or as healthy as you’d like it to be. Maybe it just doesn't have the storage or function to manage your day-to-day living. Or maybe it’s just so outdated or in need of repairs that you’re embarrassed to invite your friends over for dinner. 

From dysfunctional floor plans to 70s-style wallpapers, no matter what your reasoning may be — you need a change. And when a single-room remodeling project just doesn’t seem like enough, you might be considering if 2022 is the year you invest in and tackle a whole-home renovation.

Our team at Meadowlark can help provide some guidance. Let’s take a look at some of the main reasons we’ve seen homeowners choose a whole-home renovation, so you can decide whether or not it’s a good idea for you this coming year. 

5 Key Indicators that a Whole-Home Renovation Is Right for You 

There are a number of reasons why it may be beneficial to choose a whole-home renovation over your other options of remodeling individual spaces, moving, or just continuing to live in a space you don’t like. Here’s a list of the five main ones we regularly see. 

1. You Love Your Location, But Not Your Home

Is it hard to imagine living somewhere else, even if it’s just a few minutes down the road? That’s completely normal. Sometimes, your home’s location is perfect and you can’t imagine moving away or giving up all the amenities it provides. Plus, we all know the struggles that come with selling, buying, and moving into a new one — especially within the Ann Arbor market. 

But what to do with a home that doesn’t serve your needs, then? Remodel or move?

A whole-home renovation can completely revitalize your home and transform it into something that better reflects your vision. If you don’t want to move, this is a win-win. You get the space and updated design and functionality you want, without having to pack up and go. 

2. You Have a Vision for What You Want Your Home to Look Like

Have you looked around your home and racked up a bunch of wishlist items that you’d like to include? Wandered into your small, enclosed rooms and dreamed of opening them up to create a more spacious environment? A whole-home renovation can help you achieve those goals. 

The truth is, if you have the beginnings of a direction or plan for what you’d like to see in your home, you’re already on the right track to a successful whole-home remodel. Design is the first step of any home renovation timeline, after all! From open-concept floor plans to refreshed aesthetics and updated exterior components, make your list and find a contractor who can check all the boxes. 

3. You Want to Improve the Energy-Efficiency of Your Home

Homeowners are increasingly conscious about how our environment and health are affected by the materials and systems used in our homes. If you’re one of these homeowners, a whole-home renovation could help you rebuild your home to accommodate more energy-efficient, sustainable components. 

Green building can help you reduce maintenance requirements, save on utility bills, and improve the health and comfort of your home — all key aspects of what we like to call “building for the future.” 

4. You Have the Budget for a Whole-Home Renovation

No matter how you spin it, whole-home renovations are big projects with big price tags. Is your budget sufficient to take this big of a project on, or is it more geared towards a smaller, individual remodeling project? 

Before you start planning, you need to determine a budget and make sure you can stick to it, so you can avoid any financial surprises down the road. Check out this blog for more on How to Finance a Remodel, and if that seems like too much to ask all at once, consider working  with your whole-home renovation contractor to try a phased, master-planned remodeling approach, so you can tackle each project in different stages and space out your financial commitments. 

5. You Plan to Stay In Your Home for a Long Time

If you want to stay in your home for the long term, it’s going to need some updating after so many years. Your tastes will change, and if you're hoping to age in place — your home needs to allow you to stay safe and comfortable. A whole-home renovation that modernizes your design and incorporates some aging-in-place modifications will help with this. 

However, one important thing to also consider here is that a whole-home renovation can take a bit of time and get pretty loud and messy. Nobody likes to live in a home under construction. Depending on your renovation schedule, you probably will need to move out for a little while until the project is done. But that period of time will be well worth it when your newly revitalized home can serve you for years into the future. 

Start Your 2022 Whole-Home Renovation with Meadowlark 

At Meadowlark Design + Build, we’re experts in large-scale, whole-home renovation projects. We like to think of a home as a system of interrelated parts, and we’re happy to help renovate them all with our proven design-build approach. From planning the design of your home to helping you decide which parts of your home to remodel first, if you think 2022 might be the year that you rebuild your home for the future, reach out to our team to get started.