Designing a new house can easily be a super exciting project. Especially, when you are designing and building the first home for your family. It takes a lot of sweat and effort to build a house that you can call home – a sweet home. The expert architects and interior designers also believe that designing a perfect house is not easy. Even a little bit of design error could lead to a badly designed and inefficient house.
The process of designing a house has greatly evolved over the years. In order to design a beautiful home, the architects, the interior designers and the homeowner need to collaborate and think through the whole project, and consider so many things, including:
When designing a new house you can add or remove many features and amenities. And that makes the process of designing a new house a little more complicated and challenging for professionals and homeowners.
Designing a new house?
Designing a new house
for a big joint family can be overwhelming and challenging. Different family
members will have different priorities and feature requirements in their rooms.
The growing up kids
may need a separate room where they can invite their friends to play and study.
The kid’s room may be shared between two siblings or should you build separate
rooms for kids to offer some privacy to a growing kid?
The senior members need a peaceful and comforting space to sit, relax and study, the family may need a common space like an open terrace.
There is so much to think about and consider in designing the home of your dream. And that’s what we are going to discuss in this post today.
What are the important things to consider in designing a new home?
Ideally, a beautiful home is one that fulfills all the space requirements for the family. But, Your house should be planned and designed in such a way that it can be constructed within a budget.
So, if you are
designing a new house, then you may like to consider some of these essential
things and crucial factors.
1. Choose appropriate land
The very first
thing that you should take into account when designing your home is the land.
Certain site constraints may affect the design of your home and that may lead
to additional construction costs.
In particular, the
condition of the soil is very important for the construction of slab and
footing. If the condition of the soil is not favorable, then it can actually
lead to many more difficulties while constructing the home.
If required, don’t
hesitate to go for a soil testing to know the properties of the land. If the
plot is uneven, then that may lead to extra cost in land preparation. However,
if the plot is plain and it’s not rocky, then that kind of land is best to
build a house.
2. Consider your construction budget
Given a chance,
everyone would love to build a super luxurious dream home. However, luxury
comes at a price and that price needs to be paid by you. And therefore, it is
very important to consider a tentative construction budget when designing a
house.
Designing and
building a home is a big financial and emotional decision. You can easily get
carried away while planning and that would mean a lot of extra expenses. But,
there is no point taking additional financial pressures while building a house.
Considering your overall budget will help you stay in budget when designing and
building a house.
Carefully assess your finances – like how much money you have already saved. What kind of additional financing you can arrange like an unsecured loan from friends and family or a secured housing loan. Once you have worked it out, you can discuss your budget with the architect who is helping you design your home. The architects can easily figure out the build cost based on the size and features of the house.
3. Lifestyle of the family
It’s important to consider the lifestyle of the family when designing a house, and decorating the interior space. This becomes even more important for a joint family with kids. For instance, if there are kids in the family, you may like to have a separate games room for them. You may like to plan for an outdoor play area near the kitchen or next to the living room from where you can keep an eye on the kids when they are playing outside.
You can also plan
for an outdoor sit out area where the elderly members of the family can sit and
relax. If there is a fitness freak in the family, then maybe a separate gym
room can be made. The idea is to think through the space requirements for each
of the family members and then plan what is important and which features can be
planned and accommodated when designing a new house.
4. Prioritize your requirements
You may like to add
a number of features and amenities in your new family house. For instance, you
may like to have a rooftop deck or a swimming pool at the rooftop. You can also
install a small generator for power backup and have a games and gym room to
play and workout. Or you may like to create an extra storage room or a study
room.
While all these
features and amenities can be important, the homeowner should get the
priorities right. You can spend money in building a swimming pool, or use the
same amount to install a power backup system or a solar panel to get almost
free electricity for life.
So, it’s important
to think through carefully, and get your priorities right while designing a
house.
5. Choose right facing
Choosing the right
facing and direction for your new home is absolutely important. Not getting the
location of the room right is one of the most common mistakes people make when
designing a house. For instance, if the directions are not right, then your
home may turn too hot in the summer and extremely cold during the winter.
So, if you want to
avoid that, it will be good if you orientate your living rooms and bedrooms to
face the side where there will be moderate penetration of the sun to as many
rooms as possible.
In general, the
room alignment should depend on the overall location of your home. So, it’s
important to consider the direction correctly when designing your new house.
6. Open Vs closed floor plan
Open floor plan may or may not work for everyone. However, they are in trend and many homeowners prefer open floor plan over closed floor plan. Among many other benefits, it offers better flow of light and air throughout the home. It also allows for free traffic movement and gives the home a much more aesthetically pleasing look.
However, when you
are designing a house you also need to think about the lot size. Large open
spaces always look great and luxurious. However this should not be the choice
when you are building a house on a smaller plot.
7. Presents and future space requirements
When you are
designing a house for your family, then it’s important to not just think about
your current space requirements. You should have a long term view and consider
your immediate space requirements, like in next 3-4 years. If you have elderly
parents who will come and live with you in a few years, then it would be wise
for you to consider a separate room for them.
Similarly, if a
room is being shared by a sibling, consider another room if they are growing up
and getting married in the next couple of years. When you consider these future
space requirements at the time of designing your new home, you won’t regret
your decision.
8. Allow natural light
Besides considering
how hot or cold your home can get, you should also consider proper natural
lighting. It is important to design your home in such a way that natural light
can enter inside your rooms. If you love the morning sun, make sure you have
windows on the east.
Light helps keep
the interior air fresh and purified. Moreover, too much moisture can make the
spaces all the more prone to pests. Moisture can also increase the chances of
having mold and mildew. So, it’s better to go for big windows, from where light
will enter and keep your rooms airy and dry.
9. Consider natural ventilation
Cross ventilation
is a process that helps free movement of air inside the house and it helps keep
the house cooler. Proper ventilation is an important factor that must be
considered when designing a house. A house with low or no ventilation can be
suffocating and therefore you should consider adding larger doors and windows
to allow fresh natural air into the house.
10. Proper room size
When creating the
floor plan, you should pay a lot of attention to the size of the space or the
rooms. Although it depends on the overall build area and the number of rooms
you want. However, you should visualize the space and measure the size of the
room i.e. the actual carpet area.
When you are creating a house floor plan, it is much easier to tweak the size of the space on the paper or in the computers. But, once the size is fixed and you start building, you can’t really do much about the size of the rooms, even if you want to increase or decrease the size.
So pay good
attention to the size of the space when designing the floor plan of your new
house.
11. Create multi functional space
Multi functional
rooms are the need of the hour. When designing a house, you should look to
create multi functional rooms and spaces. Multi functional space is something
that can be used differently, without major changes as per the circumstance.
While planning the layout and interior designs for a room, just think how that room or the space can be used in multiple ways when needed. For instance, the study room can be designed in such a way, that it can easily be converted and used as a home office.
12. Create a quiet zone
I personally
believe that every house should have a special room or space in the house
called the quiet zone. The space can be used for different purposes like to
just sit ideally, have a cup of coffee while enjoying the outside rain or just
to relax and do nothing.
This space can be
used in different ways like kids can sit and play board games, or seniors can
sit and read books and things like that. This whole space should be created
with flexibility in mind and thus the space can even be converted into a
separate room when needed.
13. Single storey or duplex
Some prefer to
design and build a single storey house. Some prefer to build a duplex family
house. Whether you should build a single storey house or a duplex house depends
on your personal preferences, your space requirements and the size of the plot.
Single storey
family houses may work well for aged people who don’t want to climb the stairs
every time. However, a duplex becomes the need when the size of the plot is
smaller and the homeowner needs more rooms and space.
There is no right
or wrong way in choosing the number of floors. It all depends on the space
requirements for the family and the total build area available. So take a call
on the number of floors you would like to build considering these factors.
14. Indoor and outdoor open space
Indoor open spaces
like a balcony, verandah or an open terrace can be used differently. And not
just that, when you add these open spaces in your house design, the aesthetic
looks and the exterior views of the house will become more appealing.
Consider adding
these indoor open spaces and features when designing a house. Even if you are
building on a smaller plot, you can consider adding these features on the upper
floors of the house.
Leaving some
outdoor open space is yet another consideration that experts suggest. Although
it depends on the lot size and the total build area you get, you should
consider some open space at the front. The outdoor open space is a multi
function space that can be used differently e.g. plantation, or sit out area
and so on. And therefore it’s totally worth it to leave some open space at the
front when designing a house, especially if you are building on a larger size
plot.
15. Durability and build quality
Last but not the list – the durability and build quality of the building. You are not going to build a house in the next couple of decades as it involves a lot of money and effort. Whatever you are planning, whichever feature and amenities you are adding, you should keep the build quality and durability of the building in the highest priority list.
Work closely with
the architect and the structural engineer to ensure that the house you’re
designing is going to be built with durability and longevity in mind. The house
should be built to face all kinds of harsh weather and natural calamities like
heavy rain, cyclones, floods and earthquakes.
Concluding thoughts on house design considerations
Designing a new
house can be exciting or overwhelming and challenging.
It’s going to be
exciting because you are working on a new family home that you always wanted to
build your way. You can add a number of features, amenities and build it the
way you wanted your dream home to be designed and built.
However, it can be
overwhelming and challenging because there is so much to consider and think
through before meeting an architect. You have to plan for the number of
bedrooms, bathrooms, number of floors, construction budget, housing loan
requirements and so on.
We have already
discussed some of the major things and house design considerations worth
knowing. And if you consider these important and crucial things, you will be
able to avoid many house design errors and mistakes.
What else do you
think one should consider when designing a new house?
Share your major
house design considerations by commenting below.
Pingback: Small house Interior Design and Decorating Tips Worth Checking
Pingback: Guide to Buying a House – How to Search, Select, Get Home Loan
Pingback: Things to Consider When Designing a Kitchen That You'll Love