Interior Design

Living rooms and kitchens aren’t the only places where new trends are forming: from the entryway to the most intimate rooms of your home, a central theme is trending. What is that trend? It’s really not new at all. It’s wood. From cabinetry to walling and flooring, the most sustainable, green building material out there is trending all over the house!

Farmhouse Entryways

What’s being called the farmhouse entryway is focused on function, not frills. We’re not talking about anything fancy here: smart storage and durable materials and finishes are important in this room that takes a beating every day. If you’re in a cold climate, heated floors are growing in popularity, melting snow and drying boots like it’s 2016. Of course, not all flooring types are ideal with such heating, but wide plank wood floors in a variety of species can combine with the right storage and room design to provide the perfect farmhouse entryway that offers the beauty found in practical simplicity.

Rustic Bedroom Features

Today’s accent walls aren’t just painted a different color than the other walls of a room — the accent walls of today include real texture by the use of rustic wood.

With its variegated color and the naturally warm ambiance that wood evokes, this kind of wall can provide a unique pairing with an otherwise Modern décor scheme; however, it’s perfect for Eclectic design as well.

You could continue the time-worn look with hand-scraped, character-grade Legacy Collection flooring, or you could offer a contrast with clear-grade Prestige Collection flooring. Another popular option for those with larger remodeling/construction budgets is to go completely nontraditional and create your own Extreme Custom wood floor.

Hardwood Flooring

Among the many flooring options out there, hardwood flooring is one that you can count on to both coordinate with all the 2016 design trends and increase your home’s value and salability. Its appeal is not going to disappear with next year’s trends. Home buyers everywhere request hardwood floors, and if your floors have a different finish than your home’s next owners prefer, they can always have them refinished.

While hardwood floors may be more costly initially than other flooring types, they definitely outlast most other options and earn their keep. If you’re afraid your hardwood floors won’t help you retain the warm, cozy environment you’re after or that they’re becoming too common, Rehmeyer offers specialty options like accent colors that will truly make your floors one-of-a-kind works of art. And since our floors are made individually just for you, you can be sure that you’ll have a unique floor that you helped design! Made in York County, Pennsylvania since 1995, our flooring will stand the test of time – and the trends.

Rehmeyer Wood Floors

Rehmeyer Wood Floors offers a full range of custom milled and stock wide plank hardwood flooring. Rehmeyer’s flooring is all 3/4″ solid hardwood and sold unfinished, prefinished or completely custom finished to suit your project. Call Rehmeyer Wood Floors today toll free at (888) 474-4047 or visit their website at RehmeyerFloors.com to learn more about their custom flooring services. Rehmeyer Wood Floors ships nationwide.

Like the increasing trend toward fireplaces as living room focal points, many 2016 design trends revolve around a functional home where people do more than just sleep. Perhaps nothing makes this statement as clearly as the carefully designed, multi-functional kitchen, where people spend time preparing everyday meals as well as entertaining guests. We might consider why moderns are making the kitchen so significant.

Relational Connection

In an article entitled “The Psychological Significance of the Kitchen Table,” the significance of the kitchen table is explained: “Far more than a flat surface upon which to dine, the kitchen table can be the heartbeat of a family. It’s a place to gather, to talk and to reconnect. Parents look back on the times spent around the kitchen table when they were growing up and long to recreate those memories with their children.”

Instead of losing its place of value in modern life, it’s actually gaining in appreciation. “For many people, the kitchen table is synonymous with family time and real conversations. It’s hard to find time to do things in today’s busy world. But everyone has to eat.”

As important as the kitchen table may be, the kitchen island is gaining in popularity. Instead of being limited to more counter space, many islands also include prep sinks, additional seating, and vast amounts of storage space. They’re also the focal point of many of today’s kitchens.

Physical Health

Our increasingly health-conscious society continues to wage war on obesity and other health problems; for many, that means a whole foods diet. And that requires us to actually cook. In 2016, convenience meals may be no-no’s, but conveniently designed kitchens are definitely yeses!

To accommodate the preparation of nutritious meals, today’s busy cooks are treating themselves to luxury appliances like steam ovens, warming drawers, and induction cooktops. And all those specialty and family-sized pots and pans need places to live, and it’s so much easier to get them in and out of deep drawers than those bottom cabinets! Even deep corner drawers and drawers under kitchen sinks and range tops are becoming popular.

Entertaining Potential

Many of today’s kitchen trends reach beyond the everyday family life to larger gatherings and the kind of informal entertaining people like to do in their homes. Special features include dining tables on casters, allowing easy re-arranging for larger groups. “Barely there” kitchens flow seamlessly with open-concept designs, eliminating full-size appliances and upper cabinetry and creating a truly multi-functional space.

Some homeowners are also re-discovering the benefits of having a formal dining room, allowing an alternative to the kitchen for special celebrations. Other kitchen trends include mixing modern materials (such as butcher block counter tops, soapstone, and marble along the same wall) and installing two-tone kitchen cabinets.

With kitchen design continually in flux, one mainstay you can count on is your hardwood floor. Rehmeyer offers several Collections, ranging from Authentic Hand Scraped Collection flooring to a clear-grade Prestige Collection flooring, with several options in between.

Rehmeyer Wood Floors

Rehmeyer Wood Floors offers a full range of custom milled and stock wide plank hardwood flooring. Rehmeyer’s flooring is all 3/4″ solid hardwood and sold unfinished, prefinished or completely custom finished to suit your project. Call Rehmeyer Wood Floors today toll free at (888) 474-4047 or visit their website at RehmeyerFloors.com to learn more about their custom flooring services. Rehmeyer Wood Floors ships nationwide.

With so many design trends promising to explode in 2016, a few seem to have a common thread running through them. True to recent Contemporary Design priorities, this year’s trends promise to continue to borrow from nature yet reflect values of modern life — including environmental awareness and upscale appearances. The first trend we’d like to explore is Fireplaces replacing TVs as the focal point of living rooms.

A longtime favorite focal point of living rooms in Traditional homes, fireplaces are making a comeback! While the lighter, flat screen models of recent years have definitely made the TV-over-fireplace arrangement possible, many moderns are eliminating the “one-eyed monster” altogether. Especially with mobile screen time so pervasive, an increasing number of people are on a kill-the-TV kick these days. Interior designers and lovers of beauty everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief.

From a design perspective, the problematic thing about TVs is “the tendency, if you have one, to arrange your living room like a place for entertainment, and not a place for people. All too often, the placement of the television comes first, and then all the seating gets ranged in an awkward semicircle around it. Which is fine for well, TV watching, but not as fine for enjoying your space and each other.”

And if we’ve discovered anything important in the digital age, it’s that such face-to-face connecting really is important, more so than any of us thought. As the Atlantic explains, technology in general and social media, in particular, have created a world in which most of our connections are “broader but shallower,” creating a social isolation that previous generations could not have imagined. But at least we’re getting it. With Generation Z watching less TV than any other demographic, we expect this TV-free look for living rooms to continue to climb.

While alternative focal points do exist — especially if your home features views like these — the most popular, by far, is the fireplace. Whether it re-awakens a primitive, spiritual connection or is simply a matter of ambiance, the physical or merely visual warmth of a fireplace seems to draw people into relationship-building conversations.

While most homes no longer rely on wood-burning fireplaces for warmth, today’s gas models provide the same emotional and aesthetic benefits as their more functional predecessors. Lacking the pollution potential, dirt, and responsibility that came with the old-fashioned fireplace, today’s fire features include vent-free electric models or even table-top designs. Fireplaces that double as heat sources aren’t entirely passé and are definitely favored in some regions.

Of course, the perfect complement to any fireplace or fire feature is a hardwood floor. Rehmeyer Custom Milled Wide Plank Flooring will add warmth and beauty to your already inviting living room while offsetting the dancing flames of your fiery focal point.

Rehmeyer Wood Floors

Rehmeyer Wood Floors offers a full range of custom milled and stock wide plank hardwood flooring. Rehmeyer’s flooring is all 3/4″ solid hardwood and sold unfinished, prefinished or completely custom finished to suit your project. Call Rehmeyer Wood Floors today toll free at (888) 474-4047 or visit their website at RehmeyerFloors.com to learn more about their custom flooring services. Rehmeyer Wood Floors ships nationwide.