7 things to consider while Designing a Home

When designing a house interior it can be frustrating if you haven’t started with the right plan. Planning and doing extensive research before can make things a lot easier for you to get going.

Designing an interior is like a dream come true for most people, but planning it isn’t easy at all. Finding all the items, putting things together is harder than one can imagine. Things should have arranged and designed in such a manner that every corner of the house should reflect its owner’s style.

Many people are embracing the idea of doing their home design themselves. If you are also considering doing your home plan yourself, there are certain things you must know before you commence.

1. Consider your budget in advance

Home design is not a finite science. While architects would like to be able to predict how much the design of your home will be just by talking to you once, the reality is every homeowner and their ambitions are different.

Before meeting with an architect have a rough estimate of a budget in mind. Vocalize your budget when interviewing architects before you start your home design. This will help your architect explain what design effort will be “in scope” and what other items may need to be put on hold for the future or carried out on a smaller scale, different materials, etc. Set your budget (plus a bit of a contingency) from the start and don’t stray too far from it. There can be unexpected costs or changes along the way so you don’t want to blow the budget before the build even starts.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Furniture

Getting the appropriate furniture size for your living area is necessary. It’s essential to consider this early to create enough space for your furniture. You can use the dimensions of the furniture you currently have. If you intend to move into your dream home with the same old furniture, it has to fit into your new home.

Furniture should be well arranged to fit into your floor plan. They should not obstruct traffic flow—no excess furniture. Just the right number is needed.

5. Extra Storage

A house without an efficient storage space will be cluttered most of the time. Growing families always need more storage space from time to time as new members are been added.

Consider adding additional storage space when designing your house so that it doesn’t start to get cluttered. Think wider; try to picture the extra things that you will need when a new baby is added to the family. And consider including built-in storage in your plan.

6. Current & Future Family Needs

One mistake many people make when designing their homes is only planning for current needs.

You might be a young family with 3 kids now, but don’t forget to think about the future. How will the housework be when the kids have grown up and moved out? Is there a chance you may have elderly parents come and live with you one day?

If you want to stay in the property long term, make sure you incorporate design features that could be adapted or useful in years to come, not just the short term

7.  Avoid Trends

Trends are trends for a reason – they come, and then they go.

Build a house that will stand the test of time and won’t look outdated in 5 or 10 years. Speak to your home builder about what constitutes a classic design that won’t date easily.

Designing a house interior can be fun but with a few difficulties. Luckily if you hold enough experience and knowledge, you can plan and create the house interior on your own and save yourself a lot amount of money. Issues can arise that force you to take a different direction but stick to your original plan as closely as you can without too much compromise. The grass-is-greener syndrome is a huge culprit in distracting you from your goal, but impulse changes can leave your final design looking muddled. There’s always the worry that there might be something better out there and, to be honest, there probably is, but the only thing that matters is that you love what you’ve designed.