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Pro Spotlight: Breathe New Life Into Your Old Space
A San Jose contractor shares how to maximize your home’s potential so you can fall in love with it all over again
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Who: Bret Gedryn of Top Shelf Construction
Where: San Jose, California
In his own words: “A lot of people know they want to remodel, but they don’t know what they want the end goal to be, or what the steps are to get there.”
In the ever-expensive, uber-competitive Bay Area real estate market, many homeowners are remodeling rather than paying more to move. General contractor Bret Gedryn, who owns Top Shelf Construction in San Jose, says he works with clients to help them “maximize their home’s potential so they can get the exact functionality that they want.”
Where: San Jose, California
In his own words: “A lot of people know they want to remodel, but they don’t know what they want the end goal to be, or what the steps are to get there.”
In the ever-expensive, uber-competitive Bay Area real estate market, many homeowners are remodeling rather than paying more to move. General contractor Bret Gedryn, who owns Top Shelf Construction in San Jose, says he works with clients to help them “maximize their home’s potential so they can get the exact functionality that they want.”
Transforming spaces. “I’ve always liked building,” Gedryn says. “I love transforming things and seeing them go from old to new. Even when I was young, I enjoyed building forts and treehouses. I’m driven by watching things get built, growing, changing and improving.”
A modern vision. “I’m inspired by having a vision and going through the steps to create a space that’s more livable and modern for a family,” Gedryn says. “I’m often asking myself what can make a house more usable or what can be done to a space to make it more aesthetically pleasing.”
Want to love your home again? Bring it up to date with the tips from Gedryn below.
Want to love your home again? Bring it up to date with the tips from Gedryn below.
1. Research Your Remodel
Do your homework before any work begins. “Don’t get overexcited about the process and say, ‘Let’s start,’” Gedryn says. “Do the planning and figure out the details so that when we start construction, we have everything we need to complete the project.”
The 1964 home seen here, in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood, still had its original fixtures before it was remodeled. “The goal was to create an open kitchen that fed into the living area for entertaining,” Gedryn says. “Originally we were just going to raise the ceiling to 8 feet, but we played around with the design with the homeowners and realized that a big kitchen would work best for their lifestyle. We created an open and light space by raising the ceilings and installing three skylights, and removed walls to create an open layout for the entire main floor.”
See more of this project
Do your homework before any work begins. “Don’t get overexcited about the process and say, ‘Let’s start,’” Gedryn says. “Do the planning and figure out the details so that when we start construction, we have everything we need to complete the project.”
The 1964 home seen here, in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood, still had its original fixtures before it was remodeled. “The goal was to create an open kitchen that fed into the living area for entertaining,” Gedryn says. “Originally we were just going to raise the ceiling to 8 feet, but we played around with the design with the homeowners and realized that a big kitchen would work best for their lifestyle. We created an open and light space by raising the ceilings and installing three skylights, and removed walls to create an open layout for the entire main floor.”
See more of this project
2. Use What You Have
Try to make your existing footprint work before adding square footage. “The worst thing you can do is bolt a box on the house to make space,” Gedryn says. “Don’t rule out the possibility of knocking down walls and maximizing the space you already have.”
The traditional home seen here, also in Willow Glen, was outdated when it was purchased by the current owners. “We didn’t have the time to push anything out to create more space — the homeowners wanted everything ready to go,” he says. “We gutted everything and shifted the spaces to create a huge, open kitchen-great room, and we reconfigured the three bedrooms.”
See more of this project
Try to make your existing footprint work before adding square footage. “The worst thing you can do is bolt a box on the house to make space,” Gedryn says. “Don’t rule out the possibility of knocking down walls and maximizing the space you already have.”
The traditional home seen here, also in Willow Glen, was outdated when it was purchased by the current owners. “We didn’t have the time to push anything out to create more space — the homeowners wanted everything ready to go,” he says. “We gutted everything and shifted the spaces to create a huge, open kitchen-great room, and we reconfigured the three bedrooms.”
See more of this project
3. Maintain Continuity
When someone walks into your house, it shouldn’t be obvious what has been remodeled. “It’s important to maintain flow between new and existing materials and spaces,” Gedryn says. “You need to put a lot of thought into how they work together; it’s very detail-oriented.”
The owners of the Willow Glen kitchen seen here wanted to keep their cherry cabinets but open up their kitchen to make it bigger. “We added an island and countertops, and shifted around the cabinets to create a spacious room that blended into the existing floor plan,” Gedryn says.
See more of this project
More: For more information on Bret Gedryn and examples of his work, visit Top Shelf Construction’s Houzz profile.
This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team.
When someone walks into your house, it shouldn’t be obvious what has been remodeled. “It’s important to maintain flow between new and existing materials and spaces,” Gedryn says. “You need to put a lot of thought into how they work together; it’s very detail-oriented.”
The owners of the Willow Glen kitchen seen here wanted to keep their cherry cabinets but open up their kitchen to make it bigger. “We added an island and countertops, and shifted around the cabinets to create a spacious room that blended into the existing floor plan,” Gedryn says.
See more of this project
More: For more information on Bret Gedryn and examples of his work, visit Top Shelf Construction’s Houzz profile.
This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team.
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Review by Pamela Montgomery:
After meeting with several contracting companies, we decided to work with Bret Gedryn of Top Shelf. His professionalism, communication skills, and technical knowledge excellent. Throughout our proje...More
We would rather move than remodel, but even the newer homes we are looking at have small refrigerator spaces. Why aren't builders/contractors allowing enough space for the new massive refrigerators? They block doorways and I find that a person has to stand to the side of a bottom freezer bin if there is an island. I will pass on a house if the fridge sticks out too far into a kitchen.