When it comes to designing your dream home, many factors are going to influence you and your ideas. These may distract you from adopting a carefully considered design approach and may limit the scope of your thinking. We countdown five considerations to help you get started:
1. The heart of the home
Creating the heart of the home usually involves the kitchen becoming part of an entertainment area where family and guests gravitate for not only meals, but also for company, conversation and friendship with a comfy area set aside for sitting and relaxing. Getting this new family room right allows everyone, including the cook, to enjoy both preparing and eating family meals.
Careful re-thinking is required to create this ‘heart’ as this concept ideally requires a generous allocation of space to produce the hospitable room you’re looking for, replacing the kitchen fittings alone is rarely enough. Cramming too much into too smaller a space will inevitably compromise your dream room. This new family room often also ‘flows’ through to the garden, providing a linked inside-outside living experience.
This is perhaps why pursuit of a dream kitchen and family room seems at the very heart of a successful home.
2. Don’t start with bling
A contractor we work with was recently asked by a client what he thought of a new shower head. Without pausing, the proud owner then went on to say he’d paid £15,000 for it!
Clearly some people have the budget to meet their ambitions but for the rest of us it can be difficult to determine where you should spend your money in your creative home design.
Inevitably focussing on the final touches – the ‘bling’ including kitchen fittings, tiling, oak flooring, light fittings – will consumed the design budget yet do contribute to the overall impression you aim to create. However, don’t forget, these can all be replaced when fashions change or installed later when funds allow.
What needs to be considered first is the quality of space and the volume of the area allocated to your home design or extension. This space is the canvas that the ‘bling’ will hang from and is the most difficult (and expensive) part of any home design to change later.
3. Discover the space
The quality of space separates architecture from just building. Whilst not everyone has seven years to qualify as an architect, there are some simple tips that can help you be more creative with the design of your space:
- Consider the proportion of the room, possibly by raising the ceiling height.
- Introduce an axis to focus a view or about which spaces can be arranged.
- Utilise symmetry to organise space and forms.
- Introduce a rhythm with regular or harmonious repetition of lines, shapes and form.
- Alter elevation to create rooms that interlock.
4. Think outside the box
The garden can be considered as an extra room in your design. Establishing and maximising the potential connection between the indoors and the outdoors as part of your creative home design can also improve usage of space and light. Large windows and openings can provide appetising views into the garden maintaining a valuable link with outdoors.
The connection between a house and its setting is of great importance. Whether it’s a new build or small extension, the creative design of a property should always include its garden and setting.
5. Have a lasting relationship with nature
Creating a sustainable home will not only save you money in the long run but helps to reduce your impact on the environment. Being thoughtful to the environment in your design will ensure you feel satisfied that not only is your home built to last but was designed with a sympathetic consideration of the environment.
Here are some areas to reflect on:
- Consider location; size, layout and orientation of your home.
- Decide carefully your planting and garden design.
- Choose materials locally sources, use recycled and/or sustainable materials
- Careful selection of insulation, choice of windows and doors.
- Use LED lighting and low energy fixtures and fittings.
- Include water conservation and rain water collection.
- Utilise renewable energy sources and recycle energy.
When you are ready to see your creative home design ideas become reality, contact Stanton Andrews and we will help make it happen.