Voting Is Open for the 2017 Considered Design Awards

If your idea of a thrilling summer event involves comparing dreamy kitchens, swooning over clever garden paths, and forming surprisingly intense opinions about outdoor showers, congratulations: you are exactly the kind of person the 2017 Considered Design Awards were made for. Public voting is officially open, which means readers now get to do what design lovers do bestadmire beautiful spaces and politely, passionately, and maybe just a little obsessively decide which ones deserve the crown.

The 2017 Considered Design Awards stand out because they do not treat design like a private club with a velvet rope and a mysterious clipboard. Instead, the program blends expert curation with public participation. Remodelista and Gardenista first narrow the field with editors and guest judges, then hand the final decision in many categories to readers. In other words, the pros pick the shortlist, and the rest of us get to show up with strong feelings about marble, millwork, gravel, and whether that front gate is “timeless” or merely “trying too hard.”

What the 2017 Considered Design Awards Are Really About

At heart, the awards celebrate thoughtful residential designspaces that are practical, stylish, and memorable without slipping into empty showboating. The 2017 program spans both indoor and outdoor living, which is part of its charm. On the Remodelista side, the categories focus on interiors: kitchens, baths, and living or dining spaces, split between professional and amateur entries. On the Gardenista side, the categories widen the lens to landscapes, gardens, outdoor living spaces, curb appeal, edible gardens, and hardscape projects, along with UK-specific divisions.

That mix matters. It means the awards are not just rewarding glossy, big-budget projects designed by firms with five-part names and lighting plans that need their own zip code. They also welcome homeowner-driven work, DIY vision, and the kind of smart, livable design that comes from people solving real problems in real homes. The result is a contest that feels less like a museum pedestal and more like a beautifully curated neighborhood walkif your neighborhood happened to be unusually good at cabinetry and climbing roses.

The 2017 Format Was Smart, Clean, and Reader-Friendly

The awards unfolded in four clear phases. Submissions came first, followed by a judging period in which editors and guest judges selected up to five finalists per category. Public voting then opened on July 10 and ran through August 4, with winners announced on August 7. Readers could vote once per category per day, which is a clever system for two reasons: it encourages repeat visits, and it gives lesser-known finalists a fighting chance instead of turning the whole thing into a one-click popularity sprint.

There was also a practical wrinkle: UK categories were not part of the public vote and were judged separately because of contest rules. That sounds boring until you realize it actually highlights how carefully the awards were structured. Good design may feel romantic, but good competitions still need rules, timelines, and enough organization to keep the tile enthusiasts from staging a coup.

The Scale Was Bigger Than It First Looked

This was not some tiny, sleepy contest with six submissions and one extremely supportive aunt casting all the votes. The awards hubs showed 622 Remodelista submissions and 202 Gardenista submissions, for a visible combined total of 824 projects. That is a lot of kitchens, courtyards, baths, porches, plantings, and patios competing for reader attention. Even before the finalists were selected, the 2017 Considered Design Awards had already become a snapshot of what homeowners, designers, and garden obsessives cared about in that moment.

And that snapshot is revealing. It shows that “considered design” in 2017 was not one single look. It was not all white walls and one brave fig tree. It was a broad design conversation about how people actually wanted to live: better storage, better flow, better outdoor rooms, better use of small spaces, and more personality without chaos. The awards were not just celebrating taste; they were documenting it.

Why Public Voting Is the Secret Sauce

The phrase “public voting” can make some people nervous, especially if they imagine online contests as a race won by whoever has the most cousins on Facebook. But in design, reader voting can do something genuinely useful when it comes after professional shortlisting. It reveals what resonates once quality has already been filtered for. That is a very different exercise from random internet popularity.

By the time readers arrive, the finalists have already survived an expert review. In 2017, that review included Remodelista and Gardenista editors plus guest judges Rita Konig, Deborah Needleman, Sheila Bridges, and Sam Hamilton. That is not exactly a panel assembled from people who once bought a throw pillow and now feel qualified to judge a bath renovation. The shortlist had taste behind it. Public voting then added a second layer: emotional response.

That hybrid model works because design is both professional and personal. Experts can assess proportion, materials, detail, originality, and execution. Readers, meanwhile, bring instinct. They know which room feels welcoming, which porch looks actually usable, and which garden makes them want to cancel their weekend plans and start pricing pea gravel. The best awards understand that design lives in both worlds.

Readers Do Not Vote Like Judges, and That Is a Good Thing

A judge might admire a beautifully disciplined kitchen for its millwork rhythm, subtle palette, and clever circulation. A reader might vote for the kitchen that feels like a place where breakfast would taste better. Both reactions matter. One is analytical; the other is human. When those two approaches overlap, you usually get a deserving winner. When they diverge, you learn something interesting about how design is received outside the trade.

That is one reason the Considered Design Awards feel lively instead of sterile. The competition is not only asking, “What is the most technically polished space?” It is also asking, “What space do people respond to?” That second question is often the more revealing one. Design is not just meant to be admired from six feet away while holding a tiny glass of sparkling water. It is meant to be lived in.

The Categories Tell the Whole Story

The interior categories on Remodelista are especially smart because they focus on rooms where design choices are both intimate and visible. Kitchens are where form meets friction: traffic patterns, storage, lighting, mess, rituals, and all the daily choreography of actual life. Bath spaces may be smaller, but they demand disciplinematerials, layout, privacy, and mood all have to work hard. Living and dining rooms carry a different burden: they need to look good, feel good, and survive guests, children, pets, and the occasional regrettable side table.

Gardenista broadens the conversation by treating exterior design with the seriousness it deserves. Best Landscape and Best Garden honor overall vision. Best Outdoor Living Space recognizes the blurred line between house and yard. Best Curb Appeal rewards the first impression. Best Edible Garden nods to usefulness. Best Hardscape Project celebrates the bones of outdoor designthe paths, decks, stairs, patios, fences, and structures that make a garden function. In other words, the awards understand that a home does not stop at the back door.

That range also helps explain why the awards are so binge-able. You can arrive intending to vote for one favorite bath and suddenly find yourself deeply invested in a screened porch in Texas, a hardscape project with suspiciously perfect gravel geometry, or a curb-appeal makeover that makes your own front steps feel like they owe you an apology.

What Made the 2017 Edition Especially Interesting

The 2017 awards landed at a moment when design media was increasingly embracing participation without abandoning expertise. Across the broader U.S. design landscape, award programs were experimenting with some version of the same formula: expert juries, editorial curation, and selective reader input. That gave the 2017 Considered Design Awards a timely, modern feeling. They were not old-school top-down pronouncements, but they were not chaotic free-for-alls either.

That balance matters for SEO-minded readers too, because it reflects the exact themes people search for: best kitchen design, living room inspiration, bath remodel ideas, outdoor living space, curb appeal ideas, edible garden inspiration, and public voting design awards. The awards naturally connect high-interest home and garden keywords with the authority of editorial review. That is the sweet spot for search visibility and reader engagement alike.

There was also something refreshingly democratic about the amateur-versus-professional structure. A lot of design coverage can unintentionally imply that beautiful spaces only happen when there is a massive budget, a celebrity architect, and a fabric library with its own passport. These awards push back on that idea. They make room for the homeowner with excellent instincts, the renter with resourcefulness, and the garden enthusiast who knows exactly where the path should go even if the budget says, “maybe next spring.”

The Prizes Were Not Just Trophies and Bragging Rights

Winning in 2017 meant more than a nice headline and a temporary inability to act humble. Winning projects were slated for full editorial coverage on Remodelista or Gardenista, and winners also received books tied to the brands and judges. Professional winners got an additional career boost through automatic entry into the Remodelista + Gardenista Architect/Designer Directory. That is important because it turns the awards into more than a popularity moment; it turns them into visibility, credibility, and future opportunity.

How to Vote Without Losing Your Entire Afternoon

In theory, voting is simple. In practice, it is very easy to fall into a design rabbit hole and emerge two hours later comparing faucet silhouettes. The best strategy is to vote with both your head and your gut.

1. Start With Livability

Ask yourself whether the space looks like it would improve daily life. Not just whether it photographs well, but whether it seems thoughtful, comfortable, and genuinely useful.

2. Look for Restraint

Great design often knows when to stop. If a room is shouting every idea at once, maybe back away slowly. The most memorable finalists are often the ones with confidence, not clutter.

3. Reward Problem-Solving

Especially in smaller homes, gardens, and tricky renovations, good design is not about excess. It is about clarity. Vote for the project that solved something elegantly.

4. Notice Emotion

If a finalist makes you instantly imagine cooking there, reading there, eating outside there, or stealing every single planting idea for your own yard, that response counts. Design is allowed to be practical and delightful at the same time.

The Bigger Meaning of the 2017 Considered Design Awards

What makes these awards memorable is not just that they are open for voting. It is that they remind us what design media can do when it invites readers into the process. A good award program does not merely hand down taste from on high. It creates a conversation about what people value in their homes and gardens right now.

In 2017, that conversation felt especially rich. Readers were not just choosing the prettiest room or the lushest yard. They were weighing craftsmanship against warmth, polish against personality, fantasy against function. They were deciding whether the best design is the one that impresses, the one that comforts, or the rare project that manages to do both. That is a much more interesting question than “Which room has the fanciest pendant light?” Though, to be fair, the pendant light still helps.

So yes, voting is open for the 2017 Considered Design Awards. But the bigger story is that the public gets to participate in defining what thoughtful residential design looks like. And that is not trivial. It is a reminder that design culture is strongest when expertise and audience instinct meet somewhere in the middlepreferably on a very good patio.

What the Voting Experience Feels Like: A 500-Word Reflection on Why This Kind of Design Contest Hooks People

There is a very specific pleasure in voting for a design award, and it is not quite the same as browsing inspiration or admiring a finished project. Voting asks you to commit. It nudges you out of passive scrolling and into preference, which is where things get interesting. Suddenly, you are not just looking at a kitchen. You are deciding whether that kitchen deserves to beat another kitchen. You are not just admiring a garden path. You are evaluating whether it is more graceful, more inventive, or more emotionally convincing than the one three tabs ago. It turns taste into action.

That is part of why the 2017 Considered Design Awards feel so sticky. They invite readers to become temporary editors of their own design values. You begin to notice what you consistently reward. Maybe you keep choosing spaces with natural light and simple materials. Maybe you are unexpectedly loyal to bold tile. Maybe you discover that you always vote for projects that feel calm rather than dramatic. Or maybe you learn something mildly embarrassing, like the fact that you will forgive almost anything if the banquette is good enough.

The experience also creates a strange intimacy with strangers’ homes and gardens. You start imagining the lives behind the submissions. Who cooks in that kitchen? Who drinks coffee on that porch? Who finally figured out how to make a narrow bath feel generous? Who spent three seasons getting that edible garden to behave? Even when the judging criteria are unspoken, readers naturally respond to evidence of care. A room or landscape that looks truly lived inbut also thoughtfully shapedhas a magnetic pull. It feels human.

And then there is the amateur-versus-professional dynamic, which adds another layer of emotion. Professional work can be thrilling because it shows what experienced designers can do when every line is resolved and every finish speaks the same language. Amateur work can be thrilling for the opposite reason: it carries effort, personality, constraint, and nerve. The best amateur entries feel like little acts of confidence. They say, “Here is what I thought my home could become, and I went for it.” Readers respond to that. It is aspirational, but it is also relatable.

Voting also sharpens your eye faster than you expect. After comparing a handful of finalists, you begin to spot proportion problems, overworked styling, weak lighting, or layouts that seem beautiful right up until you imagine walking through them with groceries. You become more attentive to what makes a space persuasive. Good design starts to reveal itself not as a collection of trends, but as a set of decisions that feel inevitable once you see them. That is a satisfying kind of education because it sneaks up on you while you are busy having opinions.

Most of all, this kind of contest is fun because it validates something many readers already know: design is not a niche interest. It is daily life, upgraded. It is how a room welcomes you, how a path guides you, how a garden invites you outside, how a kitchen makes work feel easier, and how a home begins to reflect a person rather than a catalog. Voting in the 2017 Considered Design Awards is enjoyable not just because the finalists are impressive, but because the act of choosing reminds you that taste is not abstract. It is personal, practical, emotional, and occasionally very intense about drawer pulls.

Conclusion

The 2017 Considered Design Awards deserve attention because they capture the best kind of design culture: curated but not cold, informed but not intimidating, stylish without forgetting how people actually live. With public voting open, readers are not just consuming inspiration; they are helping shape the conversation around what the best home and garden design looks like in real life. That makes the awards more than a seasonal contest. It makes them a referendum on thoughtful living, one beautiful room and one persuasive garden at a time.