How to Custom Design and Build a Timeless Home
Undoubtedly your custom-designed home will be one of your biggest and most important investments. Whether it’s your home for just the next few years (therefore resell value will be a priority) or your forever home, ensuring it remains fresh, relevant and comfortable should always be top of mind. Below are some tips we’ve put together to ensure that when you’re at the design stage of your custom-build, you’re making smart taste (and thus intelligent financial) decisions.
1. Re: the aspect of the land – you’re seeking North-East to attract the natural sea breezes. This is the most sought-after orientation by Brisbane buyers.
2. Positioning of the home on the block – you want to attract as much natural light as possible, and good design will see you consider and be guided by the summer and winter solstices.
3. It’s all in the floorplan:
a) Ensure cross-ventilation – make nature work for your home
b) A design that will age with families is always a clever custom-design approach and one of the many advantages over project homes. This means a guestroom with ensuite (for two-storey homes – for when the master-suite is no longer physically accessible); at least one bath for the littlies, and wide hallways for everyone’s Given changes in affordability/family dynamics, you might also cater for multi-generational living – a self-contained area for grandparents/older children studying
c) Open planning for the easy supervision of little ones. This most importantly includes the positioning and accessibility of the pool
d) Similarly – not every bedroom needs a private balcony – parents are unlikely to buy if they have to worry (for resell)
e) The kitchen is the heart of the home and needs to be designed for function, in addition to aesthetics. Consider drop-off zones for keys and charging stations, study/homework nooks, a place for a family notice board, future proofing for NBN, data point, and wi-fi accessibility. Your building designer will advise you on many more timeless practical considerations when it comes to the floorplan, specific to your family.
Pool visibility is incredibly important when custom designing your home – River Park Place.
4. Who hates a garden? No one. It doesn’t have to be massive; it doesn’t have to be colourful; it just has to be landscaped. Fill it with native plants, water every few days and you’re done. Gardens offer so much – exploration opportunities for children, and serenity and a hobby for everyone else – you will not go wrong with a landscaped and low-maintenance garden.
5. Grand (but proportionate) entry – this is something that everyone unconsciously seeks – both from the aesthetic viewpoint and from a ‘welcome-home, you can now relax’ perspective. Put simply; you don’t want your front door to look or feel like a hotel room’s – you want that door to announce and represent that you’re safe and home, and then envelop you in when closed. The exterior, if you’re a more subtle person, can be softened with furnishings such as pot-plants, light dimmers, sconces, and a homely welcome mat, and then light-fittings, rugs, lamps and hallway tables with photo frames etc, can subdue the bold interior. So, when it comes to timelessness and your entrance – go grand or go home (pardon the pun!)
6. Invest in the most natural materials you can afford – timber and natural stone. If you look after these correctly, they will gift you timeless and incredible style. Engineered versions of these will also make a home look classic and polished – whilst being simpler to look after, and in most cases more affordable.
7. Whatever interior trends M-Kart (see what we did there?) is focused on – choose the opposite. They’re not called Fast Moving Consumer Goods for nothing. The same applies for ‘colours of the year’ and clashing prints – the former will start to annoy you after a few months (ironically), and the latter, whilst sometimes in-vogue, can give quite an aggressive (not welcoming) feel to the home. Classics and neutral colours will always see you through and can always be added to (temporarily) if you’re feeling creative.
To end; a high-quality custom home builder will consult with you continuously to understand your needs; will provide a structured format for the process and will and guide you through all of the steps to ensure you don’t feel like you’ve missed anything. This, in addition to the tips above, will ensure you cover everything, with the final outcome being a timeless home, and perfectly suited to your family.