By Morgan Peters, Greater Houston Builders Association
In today’s housing market, home renovations offer a practical, more cost-effective path to live in your dream home without the expense and hassle of buying and moving into a new house. Plus, if you love where you live, a home renovation may just be the most sensible way to be happier where you live. If you’re considering a remodeling project this year, here are the tops trends local custom remodelers are predicting for 2025:
1. Big, bright spaces that bring the outdoors in: Open concept is nothing new, but homebuyers are increasingly remodeling their homes to create brighter and bigger spaces that give the feeling of bringing the outside in. Today, with spaces that are next to an outdoor patio or backyard, contractors are installing patio doors with much larger panes of glass that look like large format windows, allowing even more light to flood into your home and enhance your view. These aren’t the sliding glass doors from the 90s that were either impossible to open or didn’t close properly.
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“Sliding glass doors look a lot sleeker today and no longer require super strength to open– you can open and close them very smoothly. You can install folding doors that can disappear inside the walls or turn 90 degrees and stack,” Nick Spector, president of the GHBA Remodelers Council and owner/partner of Alair Homes, said.
Modern sliding glass doors also allow homeowners to have their outside space and indoor space merge as one large room when the weather permits.
2. Large kitchen islands with seating or multiple kitchen islands: Today, homeowners are able to get their hands on bigger slabs than ever before, allowing for larger-than-life kitchen islands. Previously, kitchen islands used to be additional working spaces for food preparation. Now, homeowners are opting to have shelving and storage space underneath their kitchen islands or a seating area while still maintaining their workspace.
“We’re starting to see more multi-unit island kitchens where you have your workstation island that’s typically near your sink and a second island that’s used for your seating area,” Spector said.
To accommodate these multi-unit kitchen islands, contractors are either knocking out walls to open the space into another room, such the living area or dining area, or they are renovating the existing island to be smaller to accommodate a second island.
3. Multi-sport courts: Houston-area remodelers predict multi-sport courts will be one of the hottest home projects trending in 2025. The hyper social sport, Pickleball, which reignited with popularity in 2020, remains one of the fastest growing sports, and many homeowners want a court in their backyard.
“We have several multi-sport court projects slated in 2025 that include a basketball court and a pickleball court in one,” Spector said.
Another option is homeowners incorporating pickleball courts within a newly designed or existing tennis court. In such cases, contractors design multi-sport courts with distinct colored lines to clearly delineate the boundaries for each sport.
“It’s all about getting the best bang for your dollar, right? If you’re already pouring the concrete for one court sport, it’s relatively inexpensive to then make that court multi-use,” Spector said.
4. Creative second office spaces: With many couples working from home today, multi-purpose rooms are becoming increasingly popular. Many homes may already have a designated office space, but for homeowners who require a second office space, Houston-area contractors are incorporating office spaces in rooms such as living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms.
“A lot of homeowners with smaller homes are coming to us saying they need an area to be functional as an office, but they also want to be able to use it as a sitting area or serve another purpose,” Spector said.
Some examples, Spector said, are an offset of a primary bedroom that also serves as a sitting area or an offset of a pantry in a kitchen.
“It all depends on how people live, their design preferences and what they’re trying to accomplish. So, sky’s the limit on what you can make work,” Spector said.
5. Generators: While it doesn’t require an entire remodel to install a generator, many Houston homeowners are deciding to install generators during their remodeling projects. Whole-house generators require a large server and a very large budget, but you don’t necessarily have to go that route. If, for example, you want to keep your refrigerator running so that you aren’t throwing out potentially hundreds of dollars of food, there are more affordable options for you. Installing a portable generator is an even more affordable option for homeowners to power their homes during power outages. A good contractor will assist you and walk you through what type of generator would be a good fit for you based on your needs.