Our favorite home from this year - a waterfront Ange Home in Hidden Lake
This
year we noticed a couple things right off the bat: there were
significantly more homes in the $1,000,000 + range than in previous
years and several of those homes would have been $650K-$750k three years
ago when we were building our house. To us, both of those things are
positive indicators that the local economy is recovering well from the
recession.
After
going through several of the $1,000,000+ homes, we also noticed a big
trend that we've seen in other states but never in NC: a wall of floor
to ceiling windows in the family room that fold up to open the entire
back wall of the room to the outdoors. We saw at least 4 houses with
that feature, so it must be the next big thing in that price point. Our
favorite was the one that's glass wall opened to a screened in patio of
the same size, whose screens went from floor to ceiling and could be
rolled up or down with a remote. With that feature you could
essentially double the size of your family room at a moment's notice and
still have it screened from the outdoors if you wish. Very cool.
Another
trend we noticed was SO MUCH GRAY. We love gray, we get gray is
trendy, we've recently added a lot of gray to our house in our latest
projects, but holy gray! Some of these houses had nothing but gray
paint throughout with gray tile, gray cabinets and gray backsplashes. I
don't care how great a color is, if you're not contrasting it or
enhancing it by pairing it with other colors, you're cheating yourself. I
think with some trends people just get too carried away. My step
mother-in-law said while in one of the grayest gray houses with us that
she would feel depressed if she lived there because the whole house gave
off such a rainy day vibe.
Possibly
working in tandem with the glass wall and gray trends, we also noticed a
subtle shift away from the more traditional style design and décor in
favor of more modern designs. This may because Wake County is
urbanizing at one of the fastest rates in the country, because
millennials are beginning to build homes or just because the market is
favoring something new. Regardless of the cause, it's worth noting.
Other
trends we noticed include bigger showers and bigger bathrooms (which
the market was painfully lacking when we built in 2012 - honestly, the
small closet factor was probably one of the biggest reasons we felt we
had to build). Also, there were several hidden pantries whose doors
looked like kitchen cabinets but opened into large pantries.
Take
a look at our photos from our time on the Parade and you can decide for
yourselves about these new homes and new trends! We tried to grab shots
of our favorite rooms and the most unique features. As you'll see,
there was a lot of beauty on the parade this year! Our favorites were
probably the Ange Homes in Hidden Lake in Youngsville. The floor plans
were pretty creative, the finishes nice and the lake views were amazing!
