February 2014

The benefit of choosing a custom home builder: Because your preferences matter

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Chances are, you’ve been a renter at some point in your life. You have probably even purchased your own home. The problem is, when you depend on someone else’s design, you don’t always get exactly what you want. When you’re ready to buy a new home, it makes sense to work with a custom home builder to ensure you get exactly what you want.

The Search for the Perfect Home

Do you remember the days of searching for the perfect home for you and your family? Perhaps you’re even searching for a home right now, but you keep running into problems. It’s difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for. One home might be in a great location, but it might not have as many bedrooms as you’d hoped it would have. Another home might have that beautiful fireplace you’ve been dreaming of your entire life, but the layout of the rest of the home is all wrong. The search for the perfect home can really be exhausting, and that’s because those houses weren’t built according to your specifications.

What Have You Always Wanted?

For just a moment, allow yourself to think about the features of your dream home. What have you always wanted in a home? Perhaps you’ve wanted to sit in a lovely sunroom, reading a good book and drinking coffee. Or, maybe you’ve always wanted a finished basement that could be designated as an area for the kids’ playroom so that you could finally banish their toys to a different part of your house. Everyone has their own preferences, and those preferences are important.

Working with a custom home builder offers you so many benefits that you would never experience when you buy a home that was built for someone else. As your home builders, we make it a point to listen to your hopes and your dreams for your house. We build your home according to your specifications, and it’s our goal to build a home that you truly feel is home. If you would like more information about what we can do to make your dream home a reality, we’d love to talk with you. Contact us today!

in Home Building 28 Feb 2014 0 comments

Three Things to Consider When it Comes to Home Building

Home Design

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Helping to design your home can be an exciting experience. Instead of having to adapt your dream home to meet the reality of what someone else had already built, you get to make your dream home into a reality with our home designs. When deciding upon the plans for your home building project, it is important to consider three things: location, size of the home, and affordability.

Location

Some homes work best built in the country or on the outskirts of town. This is especially essential if part of the plans for your home include outdoor features. If your dream home includes a tennis court or a large outdoor swimming pool, you will need a large amount of land to make your dream home a reality.

Even if your home does not require a large amount of space to make it a reality, location may play a major part in deciding where you want to build your home. Are you someone who likes close neighbors, people who can help you right away if an emergency arises? If that is the case, you will probably want to build your home in the city. Maybe you want your children to go to a certain school. You will want to make sure your home is built where you kids will go to that school. Other factors such as proximity to grocery stores, safety of the neighborhood, and driving distance to a family member’s home might also be things you will want to take into consideration when it comes to the location of your home.

Size

Some people like large homes, ones with more bedrooms than occupants and which allow ample room if guests should want to stay the night. Other people’s dream home is a small home which requires little cleaning. Of course, the size of the land upon which you plan to build your home may play a part in this, but multiple story homes can allow a larger home on a smaller-than-ideal plot of land.

Affordability

Ultimately, the creation of your dream home may come down to affordability. If you find your dream home and your budget are not meshing well, make a list of what is most important in your home. Maybe the jetted tub in the master bathroom will have to be a regular tub for now. Maybe the game room with a built-in bar will have to be put on hold for a while. Figure out what is within your budget, and go from there. Even if it is not within your budget right now, you can  remodel later and add in the things you had to put on hold for now. On the opposite end, if you find your home is not costing as much as you had anticipated, you might be able to afford the three-car garage instead of just a two-car garage, or you might be able to have the beautiful chandelier in the dining room.

Give us a call to discuss location, size and affordability in your next home build. We can find a home design that will work for you and throughout February you pay no GST and receive a free appliance package.

in Design Tips 18 Feb 2014 0 comments

Great Ideas for Making the Most of the Limited Square Footage of Vacation Homes

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Although it certainly sounds enticing, vacation homes are not intended to replicate the home where you spend the rest of the year. Vacation homes usually aren’t as spacious and packed with all the amenities of the home you return to in the real world away from your vacation. For this reason, you should do your best to become a partner during the home construction process in order to ensure the most efficient use of the limited space at your disposal during vacations.

Kitchens

In order to make the most of the small kitchens found in many vacation homes, you must think in terms of storage rather than cooking when it comes to efficiency. After all, you didn’t escape to your vacation home just to spend all day running back and forth between the oven, range and refrigerator, right? Look over the floor plans during the pre-construction process and immediately get rid of any appliances you don’t need and downsize any appliances that are too large. Carve out every last inch of space in the kitchen and the area adjacent to the kitchen for storing canned goods, frozen foods, bottled drinks, bagged snacks, fast food leftovers and all those other typical examples of vacation nutrition. Since you are still on vacation even when you do cook, it certainly doesn’t hurt to add a nice big window to look through and enjoy the view while preparing meals.

Bedrooms

Save usable square footage inside the bedroom by foregoing closets if your plans for vacations are not extended ones. Consider adding some sturdy built-in storage drawers beneath the bed as one place to store clothing in the absence of a closet. If you can eliminate bedroom closets and still be satisfied with your clothes storage alternatives, the larger area can be used for a second bed or a video game station or even a small desk if you absolutely must conduct business while on holiday.

Living Rooms

Even vacation homes require some time for relaxation of the type you normally enjoy every night back at your residence in the real world. When planning for construction of the living room in vacation homes, it may well be worth a little customization to allow sink back into routine if you so desire. Built-in shelving means you can design a place to keep books, video game cartridges, your old vinyl record collection or anything else to exact specifications. Not only do built-in shelves give you a chance to place what will likely soon come to be seen as a necessary limitation on what you want to bring from home, but it also eliminates the cost of buying shelving and the labor of transporting it to your vacation home. Corner built-in shelving is even more efficient use of limited square footage in living rooms.

Laundry Room

You’ll regret using up precious space in your vacation home to make room for including a washer/dryer combo, but if you plan on spending long periods of time in your vacation home, you will regret not having included it even more. Scrutinize the floor plan closely to uncover any area that can be transformed into the most efficient laundry room possible. If you have to sacrifice some deck or patio area, so be it. The longer you spend in your vacation home, the less of a sacrifice it will come to be seen.

Looking for the perfect vacation home? Give us a call we can find a vacation home design that suits your needs. No GST and Free Appliance Package until February 28th!

in Design Tips 12 Feb 2014 0 comments