Submissions Are Now Open for the 2017 Considered Design Awards

Note: This article is written for web publication and is based on real 2017 information about the Remodelista and Gardenista Considered Design Awards, combined with practical design-submission insights for homeowners, garden lovers, architects, interior designers, and creative professionals.

Design Lovers, Start Your Cameras

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who finish a home project and immediately relax, and people who finish a home project and start photographing the sink from twelve different angles. The 2017 Considered Design Awards were made for the second groupand, honestly, for the first group too, once someone reminds them that their kitchen, bath, garden, or outdoor living space deserves a victory lap.

Submissions officially opened for the 2017 Considered Design Awards, inviting amateur design enthusiasts and professional designers to share their best home and garden projects. Hosted by Remodelista and Gardenista, the annual awards celebrated thoughtful interiors, clever renovations, landscape design, outdoor rooms, edible gardens, curb appeal, and the kind of practical beauty that makes people say, “Wait, you did this yourself?”

The submission window ran from June 1 through June 22, 2017, giving entrants a short but exciting three-week sprint to gather images, write project descriptions, and choose the right category. The contest included eight Remodelista categories and eight Gardenista categories, making room for polished professional work as well as deeply personal amateur projects. In other words, a serene kitchen by a design studio and a lovingly planted backyard by a weekend gardener could both have their moment in the sun.

What Were the 2017 Considered Design Awards?

The Considered Design Awards were not about flashy design for the sake of flash. The word “considered” did a lot of heavy lifting. It suggested spaces shaped by restraint, usefulness, material intelligence, and personal point of view. A considered room is not necessarily expensive. A considered garden does not need to be the size of a botanical estate. It simply needs to show care, intention, and a clear design idea.

That spirit made the awards especially appealing. Many design contests can feel intimidating, as though every entrant must arrive with a marble island, a celebrity architect, and a chair no one is allowed to sit on. The 2017 Considered Design Awards had a broader and warmer invitation. They welcomed readers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, except Quebec, and included categories for both amateurs and professionals.

The contest recognized that good design lives in many places: a renovated bathroom with smart storage, a kitchen that balances function and charm, a living room that finally solves an awkward layout, a landscape that works with local climate, or an edible garden that turns dinner into a short walk outside. The awards honored design prowess, remodeling ingenuity, and the everyday courage required to make a space better without losing your mindor at least without losing it permanently.

Key Submission Dates and Contest Structure

Submission Period

The 2017 submission period opened on June 1 and closed at midnight Pacific Time on June 22. That deadline mattered. Awards programs often live and die by calendars, and anyone who has ever uploaded a photo at 11:58 p.m. knows that “midnight” is not a suggestion. It is a tiny digital cliff.

Judging and Public Voting

After submissions closed, projects were reviewed by Remodelista and Gardenista editors along with guest judges. Finalists were selected in each category, and readers later helped determine winners through public voting. The awards drew significant participation, with hundreds of submissions and more than 300,000 reader votes reported during the 2017 contest cycle. That combination of editorial review and public enthusiasm gave the awards a lively community feeling rather than a sealed-room industry mood.

Remodelista Categories: Interiors With Purpose

The Remodelista side of the 2017 Considered Design Awards focused on interiors. Categories were divided between amateur and professional entrants, allowing homeowners, renters, architects, decorators, and design firms to compete in appropriate lanes.

Amateur Remodelista Categories

Amateur designers could submit projects in Best Kitchen, Best Bath, Best Living and/or Dining Room, and Best Interior in the United Kingdom. These categories were ideal for people who had transformed their own spaces through patience, taste, and possibly a few dramatic conversations with tile samples.

The amateur categories were especially important because they recognized real-life design problem solving. A homeowner working with a modest budget often faces constraints that produce the most inventive solutions. Maybe the kitchen footprint cannot change. Maybe the bathroom is roughly the size of a polite elevator. Maybe the living room has one window, three doorways, and a radiator placed by someone with a mysterious sense of humor. Good design under constraints deserves applause.

Professional Remodelista Categories

Professional designers could also enter Best Kitchen, Best Bath, Best Living and/or Dining Room, and Best Interior in the United Kingdom. These categories gave studios and design professionals a platform to show refined work, technical skill, and strong client-driven solutions.

Professional entries often shine when they tell a complete story: what the space was, what problem needed solving, what materials were selected, and how the final design improved daily life. Beautiful photography helps, but a strong narrative turns pretty pictures into a persuasive design case.

Gardenista Categories: Outdoor Spaces That Earn Their Dirt

The Gardenista categories brought the outdoors into focus. In 2017, Gardenista recognized gardens, landscapes, hardscape projects, curb appeal, edible gardens, and outdoor living spaces. These categories reminded entrants that exterior design is not just about plants behaving nicely for photographs. It is about structure, seasonality, climate, use, and the relationship between people and place.

Amateur Gardenista Categories

Amateur gardeners could enter Best Garden and Best UK Garden. These categories were perfect for passionate home gardeners who knew the triumph of coaxing a stubborn plant back to life or turning a neglected patch of yard into a living, breathing retreat.

Professional Gardenista Categories

Professional landscape designers could submit to Best Landscape and Best UK Landscape. These projects typically required strong planning, site knowledge, plant expertise, and the ability to create outdoor spaces that age gracefully rather than collapsing into botanical chaos by September.

Open-to-All Gardenista Categories

Several Gardenista categories were open to everyone: Best Outdoor Living Space, Best Hardscape Project, Best Curb Appeal, and Best Edible Garden. These open categories captured some of the most relatable design ambitions. Who does not want a better front entry, a smarter patio, a productive vegetable garden, or an outdoor room that makes dinner feel like a vacation?

Why the Awards Mattered in 2017

In 2017, design culture was already deeply visual, but it had not yet become quite as relentlessly scroll-driven as it is today. Instagram, Pinterest, and design blogs had changed how people discovered ideas, but the best design still needed more than a good thumbnail. The Considered Design Awards offered a curated environment where projects could be seen, compared, appreciated, and discussed.

The awards mattered because they gave visibility to projects with soul. A design award can validate a professional portfolio, but it can also encourage a homeowner who spent months sanding floors, researching fixtures, or learning that “easy weekend project” is a phrase invented by mischievous people. Recognition turns private effort into public inspiration.

For brands like Remodelista and Gardenista, the awards also strengthened community. Readers were not merely consuming design ideas; they were contributing them. The contest became a living archive of how real people interpreted good design across different homes, climates, budgets, and styles.

How to Create a Strong Design Awards Submission

1. Choose the Right Category

A strong submission begins with category fit. If your project is a kitchen, do not try to wedge it into a living room category because the breakfast nook has a chair. If your garden’s greatest strength is a productive vegetable layout, the edible garden category may be more strategic than a general garden category. Judges and editors review projects through the lens of category expectations, so make their job easier.

2. Use High-Quality Photography

Photography is the handshake of a design submission. It forms the first impression before anyone reads a single word. Good images should be clear, well lit, and honest. Show the whole space, then include details that explain the design: materials, transitions, storage solutions, planting combinations, built-ins, hardware, paths, seating zones, and views.

Professional photography is helpful, but thoughtful amateur photography can still work. Clean the space, shoot in natural light, avoid visual clutter, and do not let a laundry basket become the unofficial mascot of your entry. For gardens, photograph at the right season and time of day. A garden at noon can look harsh; a garden in soft morning or late-afternoon light can look like it has been quietly practicing poetry.

3. Tell the Before-and-After Story

Judges appreciate transformation. Before photos, sketches, plans, and concise explanations help show the distance traveled. A project is more compelling when readers understand the original challenge. Was the kitchen dark? Was the garden overgrown? Did the bath lack storage? Did the living room feel disconnected from the rest of the house?

The best project descriptions do not simply say, “We made it beautiful.” They explain how design solved a problem. Beauty is wonderful, but beauty plus function is the design equivalent of finding extra fries at the bottom of the bag.

4. Keep the Writing Clear and Specific

Avoid vague design language. Words like “timeless,” “curated,” and “elevated” are not illegal, but they need support. Instead of writing, “The space was elevated with thoughtful details,” explain the actual details: unlacquered brass hardware, locally made tile, reclaimed oak shelving, drought-tolerant planting, integrated compost storage, or a built-in bench that hides children’s toys and adult denial.

Strong writing answers three questions: What was the challenge? What did you do? Why does it matter? Keep the tone confident but not inflated. A design submission is not a novel, a manifesto, or a ransom note. It should be readable, focused, and persuasive.

5. Highlight Sustainability and Long-Term Value

Considered design often overlaps with responsible design. If your project reused materials, improved energy efficiency, reduced water use, supported pollinators, restored an older structure, or made a small space work harder, say so. Sustainability does not have to be dramatic to be meaningful. Sometimes the greenest choice is preserving what already exists and making it useful again.

Examples of Projects That Fit the Spirit

A small kitchen remodel with open shelving, durable counters, efficient storage, and a better work triangle could be a strong Best Kitchen entry. A bathroom that turns an awkward layout into a calm, functional room with natural materials could fit Best Bath. A living and dining room that uses lighting, furniture placement, and restrained color to create flow could stand out in the interiors categories.

Outdoors, a front yard redesigned with layered planting and a welcoming path could work beautifully for Best Curb Appeal. A vegetable garden that combines productivity, composting, raised beds, and an inviting layout could compete in Best Edible Garden. A patio with smart hardscape, shade, seating, and plantings could be right for Best Outdoor Living Space.

The common thread is not price. It is intention. A $5,000 project with intelligence can be more memorable than a $500,000 project with no personality. The judges are not looking for spaces that shout. They are looking for spaces that speak clearly.

Experience Section: What Submitting to the Considered Design Awards Can Teach You

Submitting to an awards program like the 2017 Considered Design Awards is not only about winning. It is also a useful exercise in understanding your own project. When you prepare an entry, you are forced to look at the work from a distance. You stop seeing only the exhausting partsthe delayed cabinet delivery, the mystery invoice, the plant that gave up emotionallyand start seeing the whole achievement.

The first lesson is documentation. Many people finish a renovation or garden project and realize they have only three before photos, all blurry, all taken at night, and one accidentally featuring a thumb. Awards submissions teach you to document progress properly. Take photos before demolition, during construction, after installation, and once the space has settled. These images become valuable not only for contests but also for portfolios, social media, client presentations, resale records, and personal satisfaction.

The second lesson is narrative. A good project has a story, but that story may not be obvious until you write it down. Maybe your kitchen renovation was really about making a small home work for a growing family. Maybe your garden was about replacing thirsty lawn with climate-appropriate planting. Maybe your bath remodel was about accessibility, storage, and creating calm in a house otherwise ruled by backpacks and snack crumbs. Writing the submission helps reveal the deeper purpose of the design.

The third lesson is editing. Design awards reward clarity. You cannot include every photograph, every decision, or every emotional subplot involving grout color. You must choose what matters most. That discipline is healthy. It helps designers and homeowners identify the strongest features of a project. It also prevents the classic submission mistake: trying to show everything and accidentally showing nothing.

The fourth lesson is courage. Sharing a personal space can feel surprisingly vulnerable. Homes and gardens are intimate. They reveal taste, habits, budgets, priorities, and occasionally a fierce commitment to open shelving. But entering a contest creates a bridge between private effort and public conversation. Even if the project does not win, it may inspire someone else to rethink a cramped kitchen, plant herbs by the back door, or finally replace a sad concrete path with something welcoming.

The fifth lesson is community. The Considered Design Awards worked because they invited participation from professionals and amateurs alike. That mix is powerful. Professionals bring polish, technical knowledge, and refined execution. Amateurs bring personal experimentation, lived-in practicality, and the charming stubbornness required to finish a project after discovering that “standard size” is a myth. Together, they create a richer design conversation.

From experience, the most successful submissions are rarely the loudest. They are the clearest. They show a real problem, a thoughtful solution, and a finished space that feels usable. The best entries also respect the reader’s intelligence. They do not pretend every decision was effortless. They explain constraints honestly and show how creativity worked within them.

For anyone considering a design award submission, the practical advice is simple: start early, clean thoroughly, photograph carefully, write plainly, and choose your category wisely. Then submit before the deadline, preferably before the final hour, because no beautiful garden deserves to be defeated by a slow internet connection.

Conclusion

The 2017 Considered Design Awards opened the door for homeowners, gardeners, architects, landscape designers, decorators, and design enthusiasts to share spaces shaped by intelligence and care. With categories spanning interiors and gardens, amateur and professional work, U.S. and U.K. projects, the awards celebrated a broad vision of design excellence.

What made the contest special was its belief that great design is not limited to grand budgets or famous names. A carefully planned bath, a soulful kitchen, a productive edible garden, or a welcoming front entry can all tell a meaningful design story. The awards invited entrants to show not just what they made, but why it mattered.

For anyone preparing a submission, the formula remains useful today: photograph well, write clearly, explain the transformation, highlight function, and let the personality of the space come through. Considered design is not about perfection. It is about purpose. And if your project has purpose, charm, and maybe one very photogenic corner, it deserves its chance.