How to Match Home Design with Your Lifestyle
Have you ever lived somewhere that just cramped your style and never really felt like home? When you’re designing a new house from the ground up, you don’t want to be left with something that doesn’t totally fulfil you.
At Regional Home Builders, we have a firm grasp on regional living and what that means to our valued customers. For some, it’s wide open spaces and family-friendly designs. For others, it’s quaint nooks and crannies where you can escape a busy life.
Whatever your values, there are ways to custom-design a new home to suit yourself and your family. Our expert consultants help you to make each room hit the mark in form and function, using your personal tastes as a reference.
The more input you give the professionals, the closer your final design will be to your dream home. So speak up! Your opinion matters throughout the design process — it’s your life after all. You could be living in this home for years and even decades, so you want to ensure you’ll be comfortable from day to day, with enough room to pivot its functionality as your lifestyle changes.
If this blog doesn’t quite fill in all the gaps, get in touch and our team will guide you on the path to perfection — or as close to that vision of yours as we can get!
Multifunctionality
Hobbies come and go, children move out, and seasons change, so it’s important that your new home can adapt to these truths.
As remote work becomes more popular, your spare room may soon become a study, while your garage could double as a home gym.
More subtle than this, storage space in the form of a hollow bench seat can double as a day bed and a toy box — the best of both worlds for busy parents!
Larger spaces are certainly more suited to multifunctionality, as you can always move furniture out of the way for a better entertaining space. This has inspired several of our designs with open floor plans, allowing your kitchen, living and dining rooms to function together or separately, depending on the occasion.
Always discuss your lifestyle with your builder and architect to see if they can incorporate them all into one space.
Play with Size
As we said, regional living can mean different things to different people. It can even mean different things to the same person, depending on the day.
If you want an open-plan living area for big parties or family gatherings, but don’t want a big house to feel empty during the week, there are ways around this.
While an open floor plan removes the walls between rooms, this doesn’t mean those areas have to be permanently seen as one space.
Your living and dining rooms can be made separate in a range of ways, to create intimacy and ambience in each. Furniture such as a sideboard or a couch can break up the room and reveal dedicated functions — both of which can be easily moved aside for those big parties.
More decorative additions such as a rug or different lighting can also define each space. This way, the dining room can lay dormant and undisturbed until it is truly needed, allowing the living room to feel cosy and intimate.
Colours and Ambience
While you’re adding these decorative features, and even while you’re designing the floor plan, you should envision the mood of each room and how you might bring this to life.
Do you want your home to inspire life and activity, or quiet relaxation? With a bigger house and more rooms, you may not have to choose, but it’s good to have a general purpose for each space.
Light and airy designs can encourage the former while the latter may lend itself to glowing and enclosed designs.
If neither of these descriptions sound quite like your lifestyle, it may be because they’re not. Keep tinkering with ideas in collaboration with professionals until you find something that fits.
The solution may be something as simple as a specific light fitting or a feature wall, or it may encompass the entire floor plan. Let yourself be excited by the journey to find the answer!
What Do You Value?
What we mean here is: what lights a fire in you? What gives you the greatest satisfaction when considering a new home?
Is it having everything in its place, regardless of colours and trends? Or is the perfect hue all you need to feel truly at home?
This is the balance between form (how something looks) and function (how useful something is). Every homeowner will fall somewhere on the spectrum between the two, despite traditional design lore stating that “form follows function.”
In the end, you’ll be living in this home, so it’s important that its design gives you the greatest satisfaction. Some people may love a chair simply because it’s in their favourite colour, despite not being very comfortable. While for others the best chairs are often the ugliest and most comfortable. Where you fall between these two is up to you.
Use Previous Homes as a Reference
If you feel unsure about any of the points above, consider places you have lived in previously and how they felt.
Were there any elements that irked you or made you wish for something different? Perhaps they’re the reason you’re planning the next move.
Have you previously enjoyed an open floor plan with a spare bedroom, or do you enjoy an intimate floor plan without the frills of extra space? There’s no judgement when you consult with RHB — as we said, you’ll be living in the new place, so it’s best that you come to terms with your own preferences.
Did your previous home not allow enough space for your painting hobby, or was there no way to keep things clean after returning from weekend sport? Your new home is your oyster! So have a good hard think about what design elements have made your life easier or harder and bring them to the table.
The experts at Regional Home Builders are ready and waiting to make your dream home a reality. Just help us to help you and we’ll soon have the plans in place to allow your new lifestyle to flourish!
For more tips to help you navigate the complexities of home building, download our Free Guide
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