News

9 Essential Tips For Building Your Ideal Family Home

houses homes

Parents understand the essence of designing the perfect home for their kids to grow up in. It should be sizeable enough, comfortable, and well taken care of. Although the love and support you give to your family is great, you can further improve everyone’s quality of life by upgrading your interior design.

With a house being a significant investment for any family, you have to ensure that the construction project doesn’t become a nightmare that will impact your loved one’s peace of mind for many years. Here are some essential tips to build an ideal family home.

  • Hire professionals

One important step to creating a wonderful family home is to hire experienced construction professionals. These should include at least a reputable architect and a contractor. Apart from that, it would be best to hire a civil engineer landscaper and invest in reliable and accurate measured building surveys.

That is because navigating the complex world of home construction requires precise and detailed surveys, which will give you a complete map of the property by showcasing every structure in depth. Concerning safety at construction sites, even the slightest margin of error can create significant implications for your family.

Fortunately, an experienced team of surveyors will take time to obtain your family’s specific requirements and tailor their approach to ensure optimal results. Also, consider looking at reviews on contractors’ past work and find out from previous clients their level of professionalism and reliability. 

  • Create a realistic budget

Set a practical home construction budget by factoring in the cost of materials, building permits, architectural fees, and other expenses. You may also want to allocate 10% of the budget for contingency since prices can change along the line, not to mention the risks of other unforeseen circumstances cropping up.

Your budget should tally with your family’s expectations and needs. Begin the process by working with your chosen contractor so that they will know what you can and can’t afford. Once you define your budget, you can make other important decisions from there. 

  • Check with local building codes

Different states, cities, and subdivisions may have their specific sets of building codes and regulations. So, check with local building regulators to know what works best for your area and nationally. It’s worth noting that you may have to send your building plan to local architects and engineers to verify if it complies with local codes.

Cities and states may require licensed architects or engineers to review and approve your plan, taking safety, energy costs, and other crucial factors into consideration. Before applying for a building permit or starting the project, talk to local building officials to see if such a review is necessary.

  • Make it pet-friendly

An ideal family home should meet your lifestyle. Therefore, designing a pet-friendly family home is important if you love animals. Consider this before the construction begins, as it may cost more to make additional changes once the home is completed.

Installing dog doors and other pet-friendly features will help you avoid dirty paw prints ruining the place. Therefore, if you plan to keep animals, talk to experts to help design a house that suits the creatures.

  • Ensure the kids’ bedroom size is big enough

Bedrooms are a popular topic for conversation regarding the construction of an ideal home. When you host a young family, staying close to the kids’ sleeping quarters is great for convenience with nighttime waking. However, kids often grow bigger sooner than expected. Therefore, you may not want to drastically reduce their bedroom sizes when building a new home.

There are diverse views on whether kids’ bedrooms should come with enough spaces for double or larger beds along the line. However, since many kids spend a lot of time indoors these days, ensure their bedrooms can accommodate single beds while they are younger and double beds when they grow up.

Another great strategy to build a kids-friendly space is to set up a study area near the master bedroom, making it easier to convert it into a mini nursery in the short term.

  • Include privacy and protection

One great aspect of home ownership is that you can control who enters the building and who hangs out in it. A family home should be your private domain, making prioritising privacy and protection in the design a smart strategy. Know how potential visitors will arrive at the front door of the property from the street.

If the area is a high-crime zone, you may have to use a secure gate and fence to make intruders question whether they should break in. Also, try to find out if passersby will see you when the front door is open. Depending on the layout, you may need a small entryway to screen the rest of the home.

This way, you can control who gets to see what when you open the door. If you want to monitor the home casually, then ensure the window design allows you to keep an eye on the street.

Those who live close to their neighbors may find it hard to keep their eyes away from their homes and gardens. However, you can use pergolas and awnings to cut off views into your garden and living spaces.

Another thing worth considering is the safety of the kids, especially as you have to be able to watch them play outside or in the living areas. Overall, managing these views within the home and physical connection will improve your family’s sense of security and privacy.

  • Incorporate functionality

Useful buildings are vital for a family’s convenience. You may not have the entire space in the world, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most out of your available space. Creating a highly functional home all boils down to making your existing space handle lots of jobs. As you design your family property, make sure you don’t overlook furniture in the floor plan.

That will help you understand how you would arrange windows and doors to avoid limiting the functionality of the rooms. Please understand that each room may serve more than one purpose. In addition to that, you may want to use the corners and edges of the home to create a more intimate space, boosting its functionality.

  • Ensure the bathroom space is sufficient

Any homeowner with kids will know the stress of sharing bathrooms with various family members. Multiple bathrooms will allow every household member to have their own bathing spaces, which will give you peace of mind, provided you can afford the investment. However, in most cases, building several bathrooms is not a viable option for families.

That means if you have a lot of kids, you have to learn to share the space with them. One idea to ensure your bathroom can meet your family’s needs is making the room spacious enough for individuals to store their products separately. Another great way to seamlessly share a bathroom with your family is to design a schedule for them to follow.

  • Make outside living super-comfortable

Try to make outdoor living worth it for your family. Parents usually want their children to be able to spend quality time outdoors, but that may be challenging if the outside amenities are not appealing.

As a parent, you have to take the initiative to boost outdoor comfort to encourage the little ones to spend more time outside the home. A swimming pool, spa, gym, swing, and other forms of exciting opportunities will make outdoor time more enjoyable for your family. Motivate them to embrace a connection with nature through hobbies like gardening. Finally, fence the backyard to ensure that your kids are safe.

PM Today Contributor
Related News
Related sized article featured image

Arm will pay for initial development costs, which may total hundreds of billions of yen, with SoftBank also contributing.

Gursimran Kaur
Related sized article featured image

The company requires around 840 hectares for its four-mine project in the Barroso region.

Catarina Demony