There is no one size fits all formula for designing a ‘perfect home’. Depending on the individual needs of your family, a perfect home could mean any number of things to you but completely different things to someone else .
The first step when designing your new family home is creating a floor plan. All home builders will have a vast array of floor plan options you can choose from that are easily accessible online or through display homes.
Before you go out exploring display homes or hunting the internet for floor plan ideas, you really need to put pen to paper and consider a number of items that will help you decide on the floor plan right for you and your family.
The first two considerations you need to make is budget and block of land (if you have it).
• Your budget will dictate what you can build, how big, what will be included and how far you may be able to upgrade.
• Your block of land, if you have it, will also be a big contributing factor to what your floor plan will look like.
Your new home builder will be the best guide as to what floor plans are available to suit your budget and block needs.
To make your decision making easier, we have outlined important information that you should begin to collect about your family to help you make the final decision on your new home design.
Consider your lifestyle
Your family’s needs
Think about your family’s lifestyle – if your current home design is presenting a challenge for whatever reason, address these limitations in the design of your new home. Is there enough space? Do you need another bathroom?
The design of your new home should complement your day to day life. If you have toddlers in the house, for example, consider an outdoor area that you can section-off for them to play in. If you have elderly people living with you, perhaps make sure that there are ample facilities and bedrooms on the ground floor.
Your home should grow with your family, especially if you are investing your money to make this your “forever home”. Think about the future needs of your family, such as additional bedrooms for the 3 children you would like to have one day or another living space for your soon to be teenagers.
Entertaining guests
If entertaining groups is something that you’d like to do in your new space, think about how you want your new dining and living spaces to work together.
If you want to take the entertainment outdoors, consider how you’ll balance the flow of your outdoor dining and living areas with your interior space. Unique ideas like servery windows or outdoor kitchens may be something you want to plan in your design.
You may also want to think about how your furniture will fit in these spaces and if it will give you enough room to still entertain the way you want. Do you have a living and dining set for your alfresco that you would love to have in your new home? Have you consider the amount of space you will need for these items? It is important to consider how your furniture will fit to make sure you can still live the way you want to.
Design based on your surroundings
If you want to maximise the views, contours or trees found on your specific lott. You will need to involve your new home builder to discuss your vision for your new home, and what rooms should have the views that are crucial to you. Don’t forget to also consider where the best place might be to have a backyard or an outdoor living space, like a patio. It may end up that a custom home design or a heavily modified standard floor plan may be right for you. Depending on your new home builder this can be charged at an additional costs. At Vogue, we do not charge extra costs to modify a design, you only pay for the cost to build the actual home..
As mentioned, it is vital to consider how the size and shape of the land that you’re working with. For example, if you’re working with a smaller land lot but you have a family, you might look into a double story floor plan.
Another element to consider here is lighting. Orient your home build in a way that allows the sun to come through the right windows of the right rooms at the right times of the day. Figure out where the sun rises and sets in relation to your property, and see if this affects how you want your new home to be laid out.
Visit display homes
The best way to get a feel for a floor plan is by walking it out. When you start choosing designs for your new family home, it’s wise to invest time in visiting display homes. This will help you better visualise the size of rooms with furniture in them and how you can live in the home.
It’s also a great idea to bring your family with you to look at the homes. Watch how they react, ask for feedback and see how everyone feels in the space. It’s a really good way to uncover new things that you and your family are looking for in a new home.
A word of caution, though. Be careful not to get too attached to the design of a display home. They are a guide, not a blueprint. They have been dressed up to impress you and it can blur what is really important, the layout.
Landing on the right design for your new family home will take effort and intensive planning. Just do your research, be clear on what you want, and keep the communication flowing with your builder. The preliminary design phase is most important to get right, as once you have chosen your floorplan, it is very difficult to change later down the track. Once you’ve settled on your dream design, your builder can do the rest!
If you have questions or are after some advice on Picking The Right New Home Design
For Your Family – we’re here to help! Give us a call on (02)9607 9554 for a chat.
