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Hord Home Renovation: Best Smart Home Technology Recommendations

November 9, 2020 | Hord Home Renovation |
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Technology is an inevitable discussion when renovating your home nowadays. We didn’t want a super modern smart home, but we still wanted to keep up with the times and use technology to our advantage. 

From light fixtures to switches and hidden outlets, we upgraded our house from its origin in the 1930s to the tech age of the 2030s. I’m going to take you through a few rooms where the fixtures are most prevalent, but please do leave your recommendations in the comments below as well!

Build.com

We used Build.com as our one-stop-shop to streamline ordering, delivery, and coordination for our kitchen renovation. Our account manager was so accommodating and made it super easy for us! 

We decided to use Build.com for basically everything in our kitchen including all of our appliances which you can see here, our sink, sink strainer and basin, knobs/handles and all of our lighting. 

Lighting is crucial to think about when renovating your home – especially in an older home like ours that doesn’t get much natural light! We ended up putting these recessed lights in throughout most of the main floor and it really made a difference in our home. 

Additionally, I knew for sure I wanted two pendants hanging above our island and a sconce above our sink. It took me a while to decide on the color I wanted to go with for each of these but I’m thrilled I ended up choosing brass for the pendants and matte black for the sconce

We don’t have many upper cabinets but we really liked the idea of having lighting under them, so we learned about this tape light and I’m so glad we went with it – especially in our coffee station since it gets a little darker in that corner. It’s such a nice effect having only the under cabinet lights on at night. 

We also ended up changing the light outside the kitchen door to this which made a simple, inexpensive upgrade.

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Legrand

Fillip had his eye on these Legrand light switches and outlets. I wasn’t sure how I felt about them at first, but they really are a great touch to each of our rooms. If you’re looking to give your electric fixtures a facelift, definitely go with Legrand. 

We used their touch light switches with dimmers, plus it hooks up to your phone via WiFi so you can use it as a remote no matter where you are – and utilize your smart home for access. There’s nothing better than saying, “Hey Google, turn on the kitchen lights!” when your hands are full walking into a dark room. I’ve never seen anything like it! Their outlets click in and out from the wall so that you don’t see the plugs, giving them more of a modern look. We ended up going with the graphite for the office (continuing with the bold look in this room) and white for the rest of the house.

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Nest

Have you taken a good look at your thermostat and/or smoke alarm recently? These are simple changes that you can make to not only upgrade your home but make it safer and more efficient! 

We changed our smoke alarms to the Nest brand which also detects carbon monoxide. You can turn the alarm off by an app on your phone instead of waving a towel over it every time you burn a piece of toast! Overall, it’s thoughtful and not annoying! 

If smoke or CO2 is detected when you aren’t home, you’ll even get notified. We travel a lot so these alerts mixed with our auto-timed lighting and cameras throughout the home make sleeping much easier while we’re out of town. 

Our Nest thermostat blends in with our newly-renovated home much more than the older thermostat we had before. You can also run it by an app on your phone which can save you money or have a warm welcome home by the time you arrive home. 

Some of these tech devices can be pricey but in the long run they simply work better and look better, plus, what is the cost of peace of mind?

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Kwikset

Our house was built in the 1930s and everything was still original, including the door handles. Although some of the door handles at the house were pretty vintage and cool, they just weren’t easy to use. We weren’t ready to get all new doors for the house so we decided to at least change the door handles to give them the facelift they needed. 

We knew off the bat that we wanted to use Kwikset. We ended up going with this handle in matte black for the outside of our doors, this knob in matte black for the inside of our doors, and what we are most excited about is this WiFi-enabled smart door lock with fingerprint access for the outside locks for fast and efficient access – perfect for not taking keys with you when you go on runs or a jaunt around the neighborhood and even cooler to give your housekeeper or family member access so you don’t have to hand out a dozen keys and expect them not to lose them.

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Docking Drawer

Docking Drawer is another smart home technology recommendation that we suggest to make your home more efficient plus clutter-free from cables.

We used it for our office desk, but if you struggle with cords anywhere else (like a kitchen tech drawer or bathroom drawer for your hair tools) use Docking Drawer to hide those cords and make getting ready quick and easy. Say goodbye to plugging things in and out – with Docking Drawer it’s been super nice to always have items plugged in and ready to go! You can see more on how we used Docking Drawer here!

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Technology helps us all make a more efficient and organized home. Don’t let it disrupt your style or let it overbear the essentials needed. Tech can also impress guests and make everyone’s life easier. 

Please let us know your thoughts and suggestions below!

This content is independently curated by Horderly and may earn us a commission. 

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