The Changing Home Design Trends: Comfort and Environmentalism
As home builders you probably know by now there’s no accounting for customer taste. Design trends in home design are like those in fashion, always changing and not always logical. As home builders it is important to keep up with design trends so you’re always selling a product the customer wants to buy. Now there are a lot of design trends right now, some very different from the others, but it never hurts to know where the industry is going. What follows are five trends that are seeing growth in the home design process.
Earth Friendly Design
Home builders in general are excited about this particular trend. With an increased focus on renewability and environmentalism becoming a cultural theme, homes are starting to take this on as well. Some home builders look to more basic concepts such as adobe brick and natural materials. Others look to the layout designs of the home itself and making it suitable to its surrounding environment. The designs may call to mind a more old-fashioned look. These types of homes are not primitive despite their design. They are comfortable, rustic, and no more expensive than any other home.
Repurposing
Old burnt out factories and abandoned warehouses are an eyesore to the local community and residents around them. However, they are still strong and sturdy building that with a little upgrading make fine homes. Home builders these days have found repurposing to be on the rise. The concept of a factory becoming loft apartments or the old weaving mill being repurposed into an apartment complex is common. You’ll find these new homes are considered trendy and hip. Plus they’ve lead to the rebirth of downtown areas adding new business, residents, and strengthening the local community.
Healthier Design
Some design concepts are simply unhealthy and home builders are learning this. You may remember asbestos; well this is the same kind of idea. Designers are figuring out that your health can be affected by how your home is made and what’s in it. Chemical additives in paint, wood treatments, non-organic materials can cause allergic reactions in certain people. To avoid making home life uncomfortable for residents, material use is being augmented. Fewer plastics and less reliance on laminates and other surface coatings are just two methods. This makes a home more comfortable and it ties nicely into the earth friendly concepts that people like these days.
Storm Resistant Homes
If you’ve ever lived in flat or plains area you know that the wind really gets going when there’s nothing between it and your house. In the home builders case there is better engineering to limit the damage. Concrete block shells are being used more and more to combat damaging storms. Also types of concrete foams and steel studs have proven resistant. To put this in basic terms, engineers launched 15-pound wooden two by fours at test structures at 100 miles per hour to see how it held up. The result was far better than traditional homes. A more old fashioned design can be utterly destroyed by the kind of storms some areas see. This isn’t just a building trend, this a great advancement in home safety.
Outdoor Rooms
Nature is in and home builders are right behind it with better floor plans. There’s an increased prevalence in decks, patios, bigger yards, and gardens as part of the basic home design. They are now designed like any other room in the house and some patio areas have kitchen appliances for cooking. Grills and sinks are being used by home builders to create the perfect BBQ.