Alpine, funk, gezellig - these words drove the design direction of this modern ski chalet. To emphasize the high ceilings and huge windows, a simple color palette of a custom black, white and whitewashed wood were incorporated, along with calculated hits of color and pattern. A reverse floor plan, with the kitchen and living room on the third floor, highlight the importance of the two spaces where the family spends most of their time together. Here, windows surround the space on all four sides providing ample natural light. A large, stoic fireplace is balanced with a not so basic Ikea sectional covered in a playful, funky, custom designed fabric based off of a 16th century Dutch painting. Function and durability reign supreme in the entrance and bedrooms, where rubber flooring was used for use with wet snow gear and bunks were installed for ultimate sleepover and mountain vibes. Through layered textures, a high contrast palette and unconventional design elements, this ski chalet is anything but ordinary. Interior Design: Casework General Contractor: Ethan Beck Homes Architect: Keystone Architecture Photography: Mikola Accuardi Press: Dwell, Sunset, Schoolhouse Best 9, Schoolhouse, Contemportist, Uncrate On the Blog: Custom Floral Fabric, Big Dreams of a Small Chalet

Transforming the blank canvas of a basic builder’s backyard into a captivating retreat, we turned a grass-dominated space into an effortlessly elegant low-maintenance haven with a distinct Asian flair. At the heart of this metamorphosis is the expanded patio and walkway, featuring offset architectural pavers that not only captivate the eye but also contribute to a dynamic sense of flow throughout the elongated backyard. A key focal point is the thoughtfully designed rain garden, adorned with strategically placed boulders that manages stormwater runoff in an aesthetically pleasing way. The carefully curated plant palette plays a pivotal role in achieving the desired aesthetic. The deliberate choice of low grasses and foliage-forward perennials, coupled with the inclusion of small evergreen plants and vibrant Japanese maples, creates a harmonious blend of colors, shapes, and sizes. This contrasting arrangement not only ensures visual interest year-round but also infuses the space with a timeless allure inspired by Asian design principles. The result is a backyard oasis that transcends the ordinary, offering a serene escape with minimal upkeep requirements. The strategic combination of hardscape elements, lush greenery, and carefully selected plants transforms this space into a sanctuary where the beauty of nature meets the sophistication of thoughtful design.

Adding a water feature brings a whole new sensory experience to your garden. A well-placed fountain can transform an ordinary garden into a relaxing outdoor retreat with the restorative sound and hypnotizing movement of trickling water. A fountain can also serve as a focal point in your outdoor space.

This Master Bathroom needed a completely new space plan. The clients wanted a a large walk-in shower with bench and were willing to give up the existing bathtub, especially since they had a private hot tub directly outside their bedroom. So, we reconfigured space to give them their spa-like shower, moved the toilet, installed a new window, and designed a custom extra-wide vanity with his & her sinks. I'm especially fond of the waterfall faucets and the feature lotus chandelier which elevates the bathroom from ordinary to extraordinary.

Every year, the same thing happens. The first real snowfall arrives, demand for de-icing materials spikes overnight, and the businesses that waited too long find themselves scrambling for supply at the worst possible moment. Facility managers, property owners, contractors, and municipalities all depend on a steady supply of salt and ice melt to keep their properties safe and operational through winter. The ones who plan ahead sail through. The ones who don't pay more, wait longer, and take on real risk. Sourcing de-icing materials well is not complicated, but it does require thinking ahead and understanding the options. The choices you make about what to buy, how to buy it, and who to buy it from have a direct effect on your costs, your reliability, and your ability to keep people safe when conditions turn dangerous. This article lays out what matters. Why Your Choice of Supplier Matters More Than You Think It is easy to treat de-icing material as a commodity, something you grab whenever you need it without much thought about where it comes from. That works fine until the moment it doesn't, usually in the middle of a storm when everyone needs supply at once and the casual sources have run dry. At that point, the relationships you built before the season become the difference between staying stocked and being stuck. Reliable supply is the whole game in winter operations. A property that runs out of ice melt during a storm faces safety hazards, liability exposure, and disruption, none of which can wait for a back-ordered shipment. This is why establishing relationships with dependable rock salt suppliers before the season starts is one of the smartest moves a facility manager or contractor can make. It locks in supply, often locks in better pricing, and removes a major source of mid-winter stress. The lesson here is to treat sourcing as a planning decision rather than a last-minute errand. The businesses that come through winter smoothly are almost always the ones that secured their supply chain early, chose suppliers who could actually deliver when it counted, and never had to gamble on finding material during a shortage. Reliability bought in advance is far cheaper than scarcity paid for in a crisis. Bagged or Bulk: Matching the Material to the Job One of the first practical decisions is whether to buy de-icing material in bags or in bulk, and the right answer depends entirely on the operation. Each format has clear advantages, and many operations end up using both for different purposes. Bagged material offers convenience, control, and easy storage. It is simple to handle, easy to distribute to different locations or crews, straightforward to store without special equipment, and convenient for spot application by hand. It suits smaller properties, businesses without bulk storage, and situations where portion control and tidiness matter. Bulk material, on the other hand, tends to make sense for large operations that go through high volumes, where buying in quantity lowers the per-unit cost and the operation has the equipment and space to store and handle it. The tradeoff is between the convenience and flexibility of bags and the volume economics of bulk. For many operations, the right approach is a mix: bulk for the high-volume core of the work and bags for flexibility, spot treatment, and locations where bulk handling is impractical. The key is to match the format to how the material will actually be stored, moved, and applied, rather than defaulting to one or the other out of habit. Thinking this through in advance avoids both the waste of over-buying bulk you can't handle and the expense of relying entirely on bags for a large operation. Rock Salt Is Not Your Only Option Rock salt, or sodium chloride, is the workhorse of winter de-icing for good reason. It is effective, widely available, and cost-efficient, which makes it the default choice for most operations most of the time. But it has limits, and understanding the alternatives helps you choose the right material for the conditions you actually face. The most important limitation is temperature. Rock salt becomes less effective as temperatures drop, and in genuinely cold conditions it can struggle to do the job at all. This is where alternatives come in. Calcium chloride, for instance, works at much lower temperatures than rock salt and acts quickly, which makes it valuable when conditions are severe or when fast melting matters. Operations that face hard freezes or need dependable performance in extreme cold often keep calcium chloride for sale on hand for exactly those situations, using it alongside rock salt rather than instead of it. The practical approach is to understand the conditions your property faces and stock accordingly. For many operations, rock salt handles the bulk of the work while a faster, colder-rated material like calcium chloride covers the extreme days when ordinary salt falls short. Matching the material to the temperature and the urgency of the situation is what separates an operation that stays ahead of winter from one that is constantly reacting to it. Securing Your Supply Before the Season Knowing what to buy is only half the equation. The other half is making sure you can actually get it when you need it, which means securing your supply before winter arrives rather than after it has already started. Timing is one of the most underrated factors in winter operations. The logic is simple. Demand for de-icing materials is highly seasonal and spikes sharply during storms, when everyone needs supply simultaneously. Prices and availability both move against the buyer at exactly those moments. By contrast, planning ahead, estimating your needs and arranging supply before the season, puts you in a far stronger position. Working with established rock salt suppliers ahead of time means your material is accounted for before the rush, often at better pricing and with the confidence that it will be there when the first storm hits. This kind of planning also lets you think clearly rather than react under pressure. You can estimate your seasonal needs based on your property and past winters, decide on the right mix of materials and formats, and arrange storage in advance. Operations that do this consistently spend less, worry less, and never find themselves making frantic calls during a storm. The effort of planning ahead is modest, and the payoff in reliability and cost savings is substantial. Storing and Handling What You Buy Securing supply is not much use if the material degrades before you can use it, which makes proper storage and handling an important and often overlooked part of the equation. De-icing materials are sensitive to moisture, and poor storage can turn a good supply into a clumped, hardened mess that is difficult to apply. The fundamentals are straightforward. Keep material dry and protected from moisture, since salt and ice melt readily absorb water and can harden if exposed. Store it in a way that suits the format, whether that means a proper bulk storage area or a dry space for stacked bags. Keep it accessible, so crews can get to it quickly when a storm hits and time is short. And handle it with the right equipment for the format and volume, which protects both the material and the people working with it. None of this is complicated, but neglecting it can undermine even a well-planned supply. Good storage practices protect the investment you made in securing supply early. There is little point in arranging your materials ahead of the season only to have them degrade before use. Treating storage and handling as part of the overall plan, rather than an afterthought, ensures that the material you secured is actually usable when the moment comes. It is the final link in a supply chain built to perform under winter conditions. Estimating How Much You Actually Need One question trips up operations of every size: how much de-icing material to buy. Order too little and you risk running short during a storm. Order too much and you tie up money and storage space in material you may not use. Getting the estimate reasonably right is a meaningful part of sourcing well. Several factors shape the answer. The size and type of the areas you treat, sidewalks, lots, entrances, and drive lanes, set the baseline for how much material each application consumes. The local climate matters too, since colder regions and those with frequent snowfall go through far more material than milder ones. Application frequency depends on how often storms hit and how quickly surfaces need to be cleared, which varies with the kind of property and the expectations of the people who use it. And the type of material plays a role, since different products are applied at different rates. Past experience is often the best guide. Operations that track what they used in previous winters, adjusted for the size of the property and the severity of the season, can estimate their needs with reasonable confidence. For newer operations without that history, it helps to plan conservatively and to work with a supplier who can replenish stock reliably, so that a low estimate does not turn into a mid-storm shortage. The goal is not perfect precision but a sound, slightly cautious estimate paired with a dependable supply relationship. That combination lets an operation keep enough material on hand to handle the season without over-committing to volume it cannot store or use. Thinking this through before winter, rather than guessing during it, is one more way that planning ahead pays off when the snow starts to fall. The Bottom Line Sourcing de-icing materials well comes down to a few straightforward principles: plan ahead, choose reliable suppliers before the season, match your materials and formats to your actual needs and conditions, and store what you buy properly. The operations that follow these principles move through winter with confidence, while those that improvise pay more and take on needless risk. Winter is predictable in one respect: it arrives every year, and demand for de-icing material spikes the moment it does. The businesses that prepare for that reality, rather than being surprised by it, are the ones that keep their properties safe, their costs controlled, and their operations running no matter what the season throws at them. A little foresight before the first snowfall pays off through every storm that follows.

A chic floor to ceiling tiled bathroom in relaxing gray and white palette transformed an ordinary bathroom into a luxuriant calming experience preparing for aging in place. Easy to clean large format 24 x 24 tile in a statuario marble design, 12x24 porcelain floor tile with radiant heat, and a custom shower fitted with Universal Design features of low threshold shower pan, handspray shower in addition to shower head and grab bar make this easy living. Sleek hardware by Top Knobs, Emtek and Smedbo, combined with the clean lines of square lights and contemporary bathroom fixtures are keyed into the spa theme. New doors and window are dressed in crisp custom molding and Emtek's pocket door hardware and closet door lever complete the modern look.

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Chevron shapes are one of the most popular patterns in interior home design. The decorative zig-zag pattern creates the illusion of depth and dimension so the room appear lively and playful but also maintains its sophisticated and timeless appearance. Our chevron floor takes an ordinary room and makes it expansive and extraordinary. Floor: 3-1/2” x 27” Chevron plank with 7” border | Vintage French Oak Manoir | Victorian Collection | hand scraped | 4-side nano edge | color Scholl | Matte UV Hardwax Oil

Sunset Construction and Design specializes in creating residential patio retreats, outdoor kitchens with fireplaces and luxurious outdoor living rooms. Our design-build service can turn an ordinary back yard into a natural extension of your home giving you a whole new dimension for entertaining or simply unwinding at the end of the day. If you’re interested in converting a boring back yard or starting from scratch in a new home, give us a call today! A great patio and outdoor living area can easily be yours. Greg, Sunset Construction & Design in Fresno, CA.

This cozy landing space showcases the beauty of wide plank light luxury vinyl plank (LVP) flooring, chosen for its durability and soft natural tone. It provides the perfect foundation for a curated moment: a hand-carved accent table, greenery for texture, and natural light pouring in from the window to create an inviting, transitional space. The minimalist wood handrail blends seamlessly with the flooring, giving the stairwell a cohesive and elevated feel. This small corner proves that even transitional spaces deserve intentional design—turning an ordinary pass-through into a warm, welcoming feature of the home.

Remodeling your master bathroom in Calabasas offers the perfect opportunity to optimize both functionality and style. Custom features, such as built-in cabinetry and spacious shower designs, can transform an ordinary bathroom into a highly organized, luxurious retreat. I recently worked with a homeowner in Calabasas who struggled with limited storage and a dated design. By integrating custom storage cabinets and a sleek walk-in shower, we were able to create a space that not only looked great but solved their storage woes. The built-in cabinetry, combined with the shower’s marble finishes, added much-needed storage for linens, toiletries, and more, all while maintaining a clean, open layout. The result was a bathroom that was both practical for daily use and aesthetically aligned with the homeowner’s vision.

Quintessential Texas blue and white exudes modern luxury in this backyard transformation from ordinary to extraordinary by Weisz Selection! Every angle excites the viewer and beckons them to enjoy what this project has to offer. From gathering around the fire pit, jumping in the pool, soaking in the infinity edge spa framed by mesmerizing twin fire bowls, lounging on the tanning ledge, relaxing pool side on the platinum marble deck, sipping on your favorite beverage while sitting at the swim-up bar stools, savoring some delicious fare prepared in the outdoor kitchen, to watching a favorite event or show on the tv, all while listening to the Zen like trickling of water down the glass tile water feature, this project has it ALL!! One would think they need an expansive space to encompass all those wonderful features; however, our designers accomplished this in a backyard that is less than 90’ X 30’. Showcasing the expertise of our design team, we created a concept for our lucky clients that is an excellent utilization of space and encompasses all the items on their wish list! This gorgeous custom pool, spa, outdoor fire pit, and outdoor kitchen looks more like something you’d find at a luxury hotel instead of in your neighbor’s backyard. Maybe you’d like something similar in your backyard. Don’t let our next project be in your other neighbor’s yard. What is on your wish list? Contact Weisz Selection today to get started building your own dream staycation worthy backyard!

A teenage girl's room thats a departure from the ordinary. This space was meticulously crafted to capture her love for music, museums, literature, and moments of quiet contemplation. Our design journey took us on a quest to create a space that not only exudes a moody atmosphere but also serves as a haven for relaxation, study, and cherished gatherings with friends.

This is no ordinary lower level! Wet bar, three additional bedrooms and baths, as well as a golf simulator make this the place to be!
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Today, almost any activity you enjoy inside your home you can bring to the outside. Depending on your budget, your outdoor room can be simple, with a stamped concrete patio, a grill and a table for dining, or more elaborate with a fully functional outdoor kitchen complete with concrete countertops for preparing and serving food, a sink and a refrigerator. You can take the concept even further by adding such amenities as a concrete pizza oven, a fireplace or fire-pit, a concrete bar-top for serving cocktails, an architectural concrete fountain, landscape lighting and concrete statuary. Sunset Construction and Design specializes in creating residential patio retreats, outdoor kitchens with fireplaces and luxurious outdoor living rooms. Our design-build service can turn an ordinary back yard into a natural extension of your home giving you a whole new dimension for entertaining or simply unwinding at the end of the day. If you’re interested in converting a boring back yard or starting from scratch in a new home, look us up! A great patio and outdoor living area can easily be yours. Greg, Sunset Construction & Design in Fresno, CA.

This Master Bathroom needed a completely new space plan. The clients wanted a a large walk-in shower with bench and were willing to give up the existing bathtub, especially since they had a private hot tub directly outside their bedroom. So, we reconfigured space to give them their spa-like shower, moved the toilet, installed a new window, and designed a custom extra-wide vanity with his & her sinks. I'm especially fond of the waterfall faucets and the feature lotus chandelier which elevates the bathroom from ordinary to extraordinary.

Nothing here happened by accident. A walnut-wrapped island anchors the room, its warmth carried up into the slatted wood ceiling above — a detail that gives the open layout a sense of intimacy. White cabinetry brightens the space, with matte black hardware and fixtures adding just the right edge. Daylight streams through clerestory windows onto wide oak floors, while integrated appliances disappear into the design, keeping every sightline clean. A kitchen made for everyday cooking that looks anything but ordinary. Built by White Wolf Homes, Vancouver Island.

Step into a sanctuary where bold personality meets timeless elegance in this expertly curated bathroom remodel. The walls are transformed by a stunning, deep navy peacock wallpaper that provides a luxurious, high-contrast backdrop for the gleaming gold hardware and pristine white vanity. Every detail has been meticulously considered, from the seamless integration of modern fixtures to the way the rich textures play against the soft, warm lighting. In the shower, a spa-like retreat awaits, featuring a sophisticated river stone floor and a striking vertical accent tile that draws the eye upward. The addition of a built-in stone bench and a recessed niche ensures that functionality is never sacrificed for style. This space isn't just a bathroom; it’s a design statement that balances daring patterns with clean, refreshing lines. We pride ourselves on turning ordinary layouts into extraordinary experiences tailored to your unique taste. Let us bring this level of craftsmanship and vision to your next home project.

Step into a sanctuary where bold personality meets timeless elegance in this expertly curated bathroom remodel. The walls are transformed by a stunning, deep navy peacock wallpaper that provides a luxurious, high-contrast backdrop for the gleaming gold hardware and pristine white vanity. Every detail has been meticulously considered, from the seamless integration of modern fixtures to the way the rich textures play against the soft, warm lighting. In the shower, a spa-like retreat awaits, featuring a sophisticated river stone floor and a striking vertical accent tile that draws the eye upward. The addition of a built-in stone bench and a recessed niche ensures that functionality is never sacrificed for style. This space isn't just a bathroom; it’s a design statement that balances daring patterns with clean, refreshing lines. We pride ourselves on turning ordinary layouts into extraordinary experiences tailored to your unique taste. Let us bring this level of craftsmanship and vision to your next home project.