Remodeling a home offers a unique opportunity to blend your personal style with thoughtful, high-end architectural choices that make the space feel like a custom build. Whether you’re refreshing an older home or updating a builder-grade house, strategic design decisions can transform a standard renovation into a bespoke living experience. From architectural design choices to door and window hardware, material selection, and the importance of hiring an architect, this guide will walk you through key elements to ensure your remodel exudes a luxurious, tailor-made aesthetic.
Glen Oaks Residence Exterior. See this entire project here.
One of the biggest distinctions between a standard remodel and a high-end custom home is intentional space planning. Work with your architect to open up floor plans, adjust ceiling heights, and create a purposeful flow between rooms so you can significantly enhance your home’s overall design.
If you have the opportunity to raise your ceilings, do it. You will never regret this investment. Vaulting ceilings make your entire home feel grander and more custom. This also allows you to consider adding in additional custom design elements like exposed beams, wood paneling or additional lighting elevating your space in more ways than one. If you can’t vault your ceilings, look for the opportunity to widen your hallways or doorways, this is a similar design choice that gives you the same feeling of a more grand and expansive space. Here are some examples of vaulted ceilings from some of our recent residential projects across Southern California.
Something else that architects can incorporate into a home are built-in features and custom casings. A bespoke bookshelf, recessed shelves or niches, and thoughtfully placed bench or window seating can affordably take a space from standard to custom. A timeless and simple way to add a personal touch to your home is to customize the casings of your windows and doorways. Whether your adding depth but popping out the exterior casing, or wrapping your interior doorways with a modern wooden finish, it is these small design elements that have a big impact. Below are examples of custom built in bookshelves, closets, bars and transitional spaces from recently completed Ballentine Architects projects. Last but not least, an easy way to upgrade an exiting home is to arch the doorways and entry points of the home, you’ll want this to sync with the rest of your homes design aesthetic, but if arched doorways are an option for you they are an easy way to take something that is existing and make it yours.
A true custom build is defined by the small details that add dimension and richness to a space. We always recommend taking a second look at the baseboards, crown molding, and wainscoting to elevate the aesthetic. Increasing the height or changing the corner to your baseboards can lend the illusion of a bigger more modern space. Crown molding is no longer just for the border of your living spaces, add a recessed or textured molding to the center of your dining space, or create a textured border over your kitchen island, there are endless ways to play with ceiling and molding texture, materials and details, all which leave you with a more custom home. Recently we’ve bee incorporating hidden lighting elements into our recessed crown molding features giving the space dimension and a uniqueness without breaking the bank.
Architects are also well versed in using light to make a space feel warmer, larger and more custom. Emphasizing indoor-outdoor connections and natural light make any home feel luxurious. When playing with windows, a simple fix is replacing older windows that may have grids or fogginess to them from age, with new clean larger paned windows, this will add more bright light but also hopefully improve your views as well. Skylights are also making a comeback, with new technology and automation, these once inconvenient design elements are now a remarkable way to bring light into a space. In the residential projects below we’ve replaced traditional wall areas with clever window openings, bringing light and energy to our client’s homes. Southern California is known for its great weather, so incorporating a full wall sliding door, or pass-through space for entertaining is a fun and affordable way to give the illusion of a larger space.
Now that your space has been widened and brightened let’s talk finishes. You don’t always have to invest in the most expensive materials, but there are a few places where we always recommend you level up. Think about the places and things that you touch and engage with every day in your home; flooring, hardware and doors, put your money where you spend your time. Invest in a heavier solid door, and select heavy hardware with a different shape or finish, this will make your house feel like a home.
With that said, there are ways to take middle-of-the-road flooring and transition it into a wow element of your home. Sometimes bigger is better. Increase the width of your wood floor planks, or use large-scale tile, this gives the timeless illusion of a larger space. Use your food flooring like tile, design a pattern or incorporate parquet flooring elements in key spaces to bring custom high-end luxury to your everyday spaces.
If your remodel includes cabinetry, this is another great opportunity to bring character and customization to your home without breaking the bank. Look into inset cabinetry and hidden appliances so that your kitchen has clean seamless finishes. Combine materials or colors to add depth to a space, whether this means wood and glass, open shelving, or a counter to ceiling backsplash there are easy ways to make a sometimes overlooked space your highlight. Same goes for picking your tile. Architects are great at helping you play with patterns, textures and finishes to get custom results with your tile. There are so many design choices you can work with as well that, depending on your space, can help elevate it to the next level. Waterfall edges, full height backsplashes and book matched veining all make for stunning statement pieces. We’ve leveraged some of these techniques in our recent remodels, click here to see more residential work from Benjamin Ballentine of Ballentine Architects.
After you’ve installed your larger, clearer, windows and skylights, you can now put your own flare on those with custom window treatments. This investment can get expensive depending no the materials of functionality you’d like to see with your window treatments, but whatever you choose know that this layer of texture and color can really enhance a space, setting the mood and elevating the character of the room.
A skilled architect will be able to take all of these elements we’ve highlighted here and create a true custom vision for your home, making your design feel bespoke rather than just renovated. Architects specialize in functionality and design, they cohesively design a home considering everything from the roof line to the light switches and everything in between. Architects understand local building codes and can foresee potential structural challenges, avoiding costly mistakes down the line.
A home remodel doesn’t have to feel like just an upgrade—it can look and function as if it were a completely custom-built residence. By incorporating intentional architectural details, high-end materials, and carefully chosen hardware, you can achieve a one-of-a-kind aesthetic. Most importantly, working with an architect rather than solely relying on a contractor will ensure that every element of your remodel contributes to a seamless, luxurious, and personalized design. Investing in these aspects will not only elevate your home’s beauty but also enhance its long-term value and livability.