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Archive for the ‘unique house’ Category

There is of course a positive change in what is achievable when you first building a house and exactly what can sensibly be performed just as one “improvement”. For example, we included a hard-wired dual LAN within the building, which would be extremely tough to attain without a fairly major upheaval post-building. However, thinking laterally, nowadays you can always think about a wireless LAN, which would give you almost a similar result minus the drilling, channelling and re-plastering. We also incorporated a “Silent Floor” design inside building, which meant we had a completely squeak-free first floor. What a luxury, but hardly everyone’s notion of an absolute necessity!

The minds I am going to suggest assume a complete re-building isn’t on the cards, but a certain amount of creativity and personal interpretation can be highly valuable in any case.

Firstly, what exactly are you looking to achieve? Would you like to personalise one room of your house, or aiming for a common theme throughout? Remember, to abuse a well-known metaphor, the bigger the omelette, the greater eggs you have to break! Have you got a spare room you should use during the works, which enable it to you close the entranceway about the room being reworked? If you do, you may well be capable whereby you are able to spend some time and result in a greater upheaval than if you have to are now living in chaos for several weeks or months.

Easily did use a “must-have” for my personal building, it was that lighting ended up being to form an essential area of the self-building project. I wanted variable lighting that is set based on the use of the area, and to this end I performed weeks of research about them, and employed a classic school mate of mine (a corporate architect) who had completed several architectural designs incorporating specialist lighting themes. The consequence of these studies was that every living areas incorporated at the very least three various forms of lighting. Included were: wall lights (both up-lights and down-lights), ceiling down-lights and spots, under-cupboard lighting, along with a separate lighting circuit for floor and table lamps, operated by wall switches. Nowadays, using the introduction of LED lighting and fibre-optic lighting, a much greater selection of lighting effects can be accomplished. The explanation for dwelling awhile on lighting, is the fact that creative lighting can alter the way we perceive everything in our homes, and careful programming (or manual adjustment) with the lighting may give the perfect level of depth with a reproduction oil painting, or create the right mood to the evening dinner, as well as aid the prevention of eye strain when watching your waterproof TV from the comfort of the warm spa bath. The proper lights are key to supplying the desired mood for virtually any liveable space, whether indoors or outdoors.

When you have the proper lighting, whether furnished by programmable light switches or naturally via glass-block walls, how could you personalise your space further? Colour schemes also help provide you with the desired mood for income space. Do you need contemporary, clean lines, or perhaps is traditional more in your case? Deep, rich colours, when used sparingly, can complement a contemporary style beautifully, or works extremely well in another way to generate a more homely feel. We decided that people wanted an up to date kitchen/family room, so incorporated steel, glass and mirror finishes, but tempered it slightly with deep, warm granite and mid blues, to make the overall effect “less sterile”. The general effect, in conjunction with the mood lighting, was called “stunning” by relatives and buddies alike.

Now the colour schemes and lighting are sorted, what is next? Well, our approach was “less is better”. In effect, what that translated to, was to have the majority of with the walls a neutral colour (we used white), and splashes of colour were added where we thought necessary. We’d a framed landscape triptych across the staircase, a substantial cloth Turner reproduction mural across the galleried landing, and splashes of deep, rich colour (selected obviously by incidental lighting!) wherever we deemed essential for the complete effect. Oil paintings to the lounge which, when illuminated with a flickering log fire, looked amazing, plus much more subtle (contemporary) prints in the brighter rooms.

Lastly we looked to generate us a little easier (and much more fun) by automating what we should could. The lighting (indoor and outdoor) was timed, electric curtain pullers and window openers were added and last, but by no means least, we installed sound (and often vision) everywhere we could. The TV in the family room was 5,1 Dolby Surround-Sound (now old-hat), so we had sound inside bathroom, en-suites and outside with waterproof speakers, and elsewhere the sound was fed from a centralised AV server.

Altogether, lots of fun, the design and installation much enjoyed by both my partner and myself, and benefits reaped by both friends and family during visits and parties!
I hope these tips have given you some ideas, or otherwise got you thinking, with what you can do to generate your own house unique. Homes are like their owners: they’ve personalities too, by imparting a modicum of your own on which is most likely your biggest investment, you also can create an extension box of your personal personality through careful design, preparation and implementation of your respective ideas and dreams. Good luck!