ERTA in the News: Cape Cod Home, Winter 2022
Fulfilling our clients’ needs and wishes is always, unequivocally, our goal when designing a home. Seeing the looks on the faces of the families we work with as their dream house begins to take shape is an incredibly rewarding experience that reaches its crescendo when they move in. Having that home then featured in a …
On the Boards at ERTA: Strong Island
With the amount of available buildable lots on Cape Cod at an all-time low, the number of clients of our New England architecture firm approaching us with “raze-and-replace” projects is at an all-time high. This is especially true of waterfront and water properties. Because the Cape was much more of a summer destination when many …
Why Hire a Cape Cod Architect?
Note that title; it isn’t “Why Hire an Architect?” It’s “Why Hire a Cape Cod Architect?” If you have worked with an architect in designing your home in the Boston area, or perhaps New York or Philadelphia, it would be understandable to want to work with that same architect in designing a second home on …
Landscaping to Complement a Home
Why, one might ask, is a Cape Cod architecture firm writing about landscaping? Good question, and we’ll tell you why: because your home’s design can either be greatly enhanced or severely diminished by its landscape design. If you are considering building a new home, or a large-scale renovation, it might be tempting to take a …
New England Architecture Through the Centuries
With Plymouth a prominent town in Massachusetts, those of us who live in the commonwealth – and perhaps throughout New England – like to think “our” settlement was the first settlement in what is now the United States. It wasn’t. The first English settlement was at Jamestown, established in 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims …
Maximizing Natural Light in Home Design
If you’re a fan of HGTV home-flipping shows such as Good Bones or the recently departed Flip or Flop, you may have noticed the shows’ featured contractors and perspective homebuyers continually refer to the importance of natural light. While we might question the actual reality of these so-called “reality shows,” we wholeheartedly agree that maximizing …
Cape Cod Home Remodeling Is Booming
According to a recent article in the Cape Cod Times, there were 88 homes for sale on Cape Cod under $1M in January. In January of 2020, before the pandemic, there were nearly a thousand homes for sale with a price of less than a million dollars. Anecdotal evidence indicates that bidding wars on homes …
Add Privacy, Luxury and Value With a Primary Bath
Home design trends may come and go, but one thing that has remained constant for decades is the importance of kitchens and baths, in both our enjoyment and the value of our homes. With the kitchen now the focal point in many open-floor-plan homes, our expectations for them have changed. We want larger kitchens than …
Getting to Yes…In Home Design Decisions
April 30th, 1993: That’s the day the internet was made available to the public and the world as we knew it changed. It was also the day that the way in which we make decisions about how we want our homes to look began to shift. Prior to the World Wide Web being introduced, we …
Do I Need an Architect? Probably.
Second only to the “Do I need an architect?” question is probably “Is hiring an architect worth it?” As Cape Cod architects working throughout New England, we’d like to say that the answer to either question is a definitive “Yes!” But a more realistic, thoughtful reply is “Probably.” If you own a home that suits …