Three things to consider when designing a dream home advice, Property smart technology design guide, Real estate internet of things style

Three Things to Consider When Designing Your Dream Home

29 December 2023

Designing your own home is a luxury to be enjoyed, and not the average experience for the vast majority of people on the property ladder. Even those lucky enough to work their way up it are often developing existing properties; building one from the ground up is usually reserved for entrepreneurs and couples with a screw loose on Grand Designs.

Starting your dream home design journey is, nonetheless, profoundly exciting, and gives you the blankest of canvases on which to paint your ideal life. You’ve crunched the numbers and you’ve bought the land; now what should you be thinking about?

Architectural Features

The great thing about designing a dream home is that you get to do so, effectively, from the ground up. There is no compromising on core architectural features here; all are yours on which to decide. There are two sides to architectural decision-making, mind: the aesthetic, and the practical.

The aesthetic side of things is easy enough, as you can marry your interior design sensibilities with an architectural period or discipline with a fair amount of ease. The practical side is where a quality contracting team comes in handy, so as to preserve your vision while ensuring everything is – regulatorily and literally speaking – watertight.

Energy Efficiency

While not the most immediately exciting of considerations, energy efficiency is nonetheless a vitally important thing to think about while putting your home’s design together. The climate crisis should, of course, be a major factor in this decision-making – but even without the prospect of climate collapse in our lifetimes, thinking about sustainability can be extremely helpful long-term.

Simply put, the better your home is at heating up and staying warm, the less you will spend on your energy bill over time, and the more money you will have available to do with as you wish. Your home will be remarkably more comfortable besides! Of course, investing in energy-efficient systems and materials can add significantly more in the way of upfront expenses to your build budget – making it all the more important that you shore up enough savings in the right places ahead of time.

Smart Integration

Smart homes have been part of the cultural consciousness for decades, but only recently has become anywhere near a reality. Indeed, smart technology and the ‘internet of things’ have advanced to such an extent that they are already a constituent part of most homes in the UK. The difference here is that you have a golden opportunity to wrap your dream home around these modern conveniences – as opposed to wedging them into an existing space.

For example, in organising the electrics for your home, you could ensure that all outlets and switches are WiFi-connected, enabling remote control via smartphone app. The same could be done for your central heating, enabling modular control of your home’s heating.

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