Are you looking for great ideas for your custom home? Do you want to learn valuable tips for building your dream house?
In the US, 68% of senior adults and 15.9% of millennials are free of house mortgage debts. If you’re one of these people who are mortgage-free, you can now put more focus on your ideal home design. Even if you’re not yet mortgage-free, these custom home ideas can help you.
Keep reading for our 10 tips on custom home design.
1. Start Small and Model It
If you have a design already in mind, draw it on a piece of paper. You don’t need to download any fancy software for designing your dream house.
If you plan to make a big project, try to focus on and finish one part first. Create a miniature 3D model or paper model of the house if you can. Doing this will help you figure out some vague bits of your design and put more detail into your design.
It’s easy to forget talking about the tiniest of details when you discuss it with your architect. Remember that your architect can’t read your mind. Thus, putting your model on paper or making a miniature can make your ideal house clearer to him or her.
2. Study the Flow and Function
When you create a floor plan, try to get a feel of the flow of the house. Try to create various designs where you play around with where various rooms go. How will the family function in the space?
Think of how the various members of the family will “flow” through the house in a day.
For example, you want to keep communal rooms like the dining room in the middle of the house. To keep sleeping areas noise-free, place them away from the communal areas. If you want to keep the kitchen or dining room easy to access, design various entrances from areas of the house.
3. Focus on Features
Once you have a rough draft of your dream house, start prioritizing its features. Don’t think about what kind of luxury furniture or appliances you need yet. Don’t think about expensive granite countertops.
Instead, focus on the basic yet vital parts of your dream home. For example, you want a mini herb garden by your kitchen window. Focus on these kinds of details first.
You want a pool but you’ll lose a parking space for you and your wife’s cars. Focus on the garage or parking space first. Always put functionality first before luxury when you make your custom home design.
4. Consider Future Scenarios
While having a pool table is a great add-on to your custom home ideas, think about how it’ll fare in the next 5-10 years. Unless you’re a professional billiards player, it’s going to be of great use. However, don’t you think it’s better to make that space into a general playroom or area for kids you’ll have in the future?
How will access certain rooms once you’re older? Is your dream home child-proof? Can you host family reunions here?
Remember, this is your dream house you’re creating. Think about how it’ll be for babies, pets, young children, and elderly later on.
5. Stay Within Your Budget
Don’t design a house that’s beyond your budget. If you want an expensive dream house, save for it until you can afford it. Knowing the costs of every little thing will help you keep within your budget limit.
For example, Double D Builders of Evansville can give you good quotes and lists of all possible expenses for building a house. That may include:
- Bing
- Cabinets
- Lot purchase
- Lot clearing and site servicing
- Frameworks
- Landscaping
- Windows
- Incidentals
That’s only a short and generalized list of all the things you’ll spend for. Remember, building a house is not a cheap project. If you’re creating a dream house, you don’t want to be cheap with your materials too.
6. Keep Basic Design Considerations in Mind
There are a ton of things you need to consider first before you make home design. That includes:
- View corridors
- Topography
- Weather
- The natural slope of the lot
- Zoning restrictions
- Site access
These are only some of the many things you need to consider when you’re designing a house. It’s smart to keep these in mind because one mistake can cost you everything. For example, you build your house on a fault line and an earthquake hits you two years later.
7. Decide on the House’s General Architectural Style
A good house design follows a general architectural style. For example, that can be a farmhouse design, colonial, traditional, ranch, or contemporary. If you want a European or Cape Cod design, you can go for it, too.
Note that these architectural styles are different from your style. Make sure you also add your twist to the design while you’re sketching the house. Don’t be afraid to mix and match to your liking.
8. Showcase the Lot
Take note of everything that you can feel and experience when you’re standing on the lot. In which direction are the sunrise and sunset? Is it possible to orient your house so the wind can ventilate it in the best possible way?
If your house can overlook a landscape, place the living room there so everyone can see it together. If there’s a stream nearby, place the bedrooms close so you can rest with nature. These are only some tips for optimizing the lot.
9. Have Realistic Expectations
Keep your timescale realistic, especially if your dream house has a complex design. You can’t expect a house built from scratch to be ready in a year. You also need to keep your custom home ideas realistic and imaginable.
It’s easy to create crazy designs from your imagination. However, executing them takes a lot of skill and expertise. When you finish a degree in architecture, you’ll know why some designs are impossible or very difficult to make a reality.
Some dream houses are best left in your dreams.
10. Be Open to Professional Help
It helps to take tips and constructive criticism from professionals in their fields. Even architects can forget about vital details of a building. If you’re designing a house, get in touch with an architect and some engineers.
Electrical engineers can discuss practical solutions to a power line problem. If you talk to a structural engineer, they can tell you where your design is lacking structural integrity. They can even offer new creative concepts or ideas to help you create a better design.
Trust experienced professionals. Learn from them. If you want, get a second opinion.
Start Designing and Building Your Dream Home
That’s our list of a few amazing custom home ideas. Try to implement some of these to increase your home’s value and make it last the ages!
We hope you found this guide on house design helpful and informative. If you want to learn more about creating your dream house, check our other guides.
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