playroom

Rightsizing – What’s the Ideal Home Size for Your Family?

Highlight Homes Atlanta Custom Homes, Luxury Renovations
Rightsizing – What’s the Ideal Home Size for Your Family?

It’s likely that you’ve heard of upsizing and downsizing in homebuying, but have you heard of “rightsizing”?  The act of rightsizing is basically just what it sounds like – building a home that’s the right size for your family or reconfiguring your current home to make the best use of your existing space. There are several factors to consider when determining the ideal house size for your family…

Household Composition

There was a time when the general thinking was that the perfect house size for a household of four was a four-bedroom home. A bedroom for Mom and Dad, a bedroom each for the kids and a spare room for when company came to visit. But with more and more multi-generational families coming into the mix and a greater number of parents seeking the privacy that a master-on-main affords them, traditional thinking has given way to more innovative home designs that include things like dual master bedrooms, a large bedroom devoted to more than one child with built-in bunkbeds or an entire floor devoted as a guest or teen suite. If building a custom home, talk about your current family’s composition, but remain forward-thinking. According to the National Association of Realtors, the average length of time a family stays in a home is 10 years. A lot can change regarding your family composition over the course of a decade – from adding new family members to inviting an aging parent to move in to college-bound children moving out.

Collective Personality

Does your family love its together time, or does everyone crave their own quiet space in the home? Are you a family who loves to entertain guests, host friends and family overnight or do you prefer to keep to yourselves? Your answers to both of those questions can impact your ideal home size. You may be that family who loves its together time but doesn’t really entertain others – meaning you could probably get away with a smaller home. However, you could fall into the other end of the spectrum – a family who appreciates space, but also loves to entertain – meaning you’ll need more room to spread out. For families who like together time and regularly invite others to join in the fun, an open concept design on the main level might be the ideal move for you.

Family Interests

This is another area where entertainment plays a major role. For one, if you like to entertain – chances are you’ve shared that “gene” with your offspring. If you have teenagers who like to host their friends at your house (the COOL house), you may want a dedicated space for them where they can watch YouTube or play video games on the big screen. This could be an upstairs bonus room, a space in the basement or a room you’ve never even imagined. A family of movie buffs may benefit more from a media room or home theater than they would a formal dining room. A health-conscious family may prefer an upstairs gym not far from their bedrooms for early morning workouts or a room in the basement where it’s quiet. If your household is full of family members who like to pamper themselves, you may want to put more of an emphasis on number of bathrooms and bathroom space. And if you have a home full of aspiring chefs, kitchen space and configuration is a major consideration.

Existing Property or Starting from Scratch

You’ll also want to determine whether It’s time to move or if you plan to stay in your existing home and simply “reimagine” it. Starting from scratch with a set of blueprints to your dream house can be exciting – allowing you a rare opportunity to create the interior and exterior of your new home with a custom builder using things like family composition, collective personality and family interests as your guide. However, that endeavor can be expensive and time-consuming. If you love your current neighborhood, your kids have lots of friends there, it’s a short commute to work and the schools are good, why move? A great renovation company can help you redesign the exterior and interior of your home to fit many of the same specifications outlined above. Live on a slab in a one-story home? That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re limited to existing space. Pop-the-top renovations are growing in popularity, where the roof is removed, and a second story is added to create TWICE the amount of space that existed before. This will require you to live off-site while the renovation is ongoing, but – if done properly – it’s well-worth the hassle.

Budget

Last but certainly not least comes the amount of budget you have to work with to get your custom home or renovation project off the ground. You may want to speak with your lender first to get a general idea to how much money you can access, then speak with a custom builder or renovation company to discuss your vision and hear their ideas. They can pull together a proposal that will give you a better idea of what your vision will cost. OR you can share your budget with them first and they can tell you what is doable and what may have to wait. If a custom home just isn’t in the cards, make a list of the things you want in your next home and explore up and coming communities to see who can get close to your vision AND budget. More and more builders are incorporating “flex spaces” into their floor plans – allowing you the flexibility to use spaces the way they’ll see the most use. If your family is small and doesn’t really entertain, do you even have a need for a formal dining room?

Long story short, no one knows better than you what’s the best size for your “home sweet home.” Working closely with a custom home builder (like Highlight Homes) or skilled renovation company (also Highlight Homes) is a great way to determine not only the appropriate size of your home, but also the most beneficial uses of your living spaces. The Highlight Homes’ team welcomes the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the home of your dreams – whether that’s a brand-new custom home or a complete renovation of your existing home. We can design to your specifications, offer our own suggestions or find an existing plan that’s the ideal fit for your needs and wishes. To learn more about Highlight Homes and our signature design-build method, please visit www.highlighthomesga.com. Once you’re ready to get started, contact us at 678-874-9234 or info@highlighthomesga.com.

Three Ways to Celebrate National Family Fun Month with Highlight Homes

Highlight Homes Luxury Renovations
Three Ways to Celebrate National Family Fun Month with Highlight Homes

It’s true what they say… the family that plays together, stays together! In our everyday busy lives, it’s important to reserve some time to blow off steam and enjoy some good old-fashioned fun with the ones that we love. While we may make the time, we may not always have the dedicated space to enjoy family time beyond sharing a meal in the dining room or watching TV together in the family room. In the spirit of National Family Fun Month, Highlight Homes suggests three ways to CREATE the space where your family can make lasting memories and share countless good times together.

Let’s Take this Party Outside: Create a Family-Focused Outdoor Living Space – When you don’t have room for a family fun space INDOORS, you may have plenty of room to create a dedicated space OUTDOORS. Outdoor Living Space renovations continue to rein supreme in increasing your home’s curb appeal for prospective future homebuyers, but – more importantly – it can also increase the amount of time spent outside enjoying time with your family if designed properly. Is your family active? You may want to place an emphasis on recreation with the addition of a pool, playset, basketball court and/or trampoline. Does your family enjoy playing games? Landscaping surrounding a multi-purpose field for badminton, volleyball, cornhole and more is sure to see a lot of action. Do you have budding environmentalists in your family? A raised garden for planting their own fruits and veggies might make a great addition. Does food have a cohesive effect for your family? An outdoor kitchen and dining room where meals can be made and shared together might be ideal. And for when it’s time to wind down, a cozy seating area surrounding an outdoor hearth for roasting marshmallows and swapping stories will make this space one of your family’s favorite “rooms” of the house. Add a weather proof flat screen for football watching, tail-gating themed fun in the fall! The return on investment on the addition of a simple wood deck can be as high as 82.8%.

Room to Spread Out: Enhance Your Home’s Interior with a Room Addition – With a solid background in architecture and engineering, the team at Highlight Homes can assess your current layout and determine ways in which the flow can be improved. We can also create a seamless room addition that looks as though it was part of the original home design. A room addition can serve as a blank backdrop to become whatever you want it to be – depending on your family’s shared interests. From a craft or rec room to a home theater or game space, the possibilities are virtually endless. No room to increase your home’s footprint? Highlight Homes can “raise the roof”… literally. We can add a half or full floor above your existing home for a bonus room, additional bedroom, full bathroom and more. The addition of a new master suite and bathroom up there could pay off considerably when it comes time to sell – to the tune of a 55%+ return on investment.

Down to Earth: Finally Finish That Basement to Fit Your Family’s Fun Time – Another often overlooked option is to finish that basement that has served as a cobweb-infested storage space for far too long. It’s AMAZING what a little drywall, paint and carpet can do, but with the design talents of the Highlight Homes team on your side, you may find yourself wondering how your family ever lived without a finished basement in the past. This is another space that can serve as a blank backdrop to become anything you want it to be, and given the fact that it encompasses an entirely new floor of your home – it can serve a wide variety of purposes: playroom, media space, exercise room, party space for entertaining, sleepover headquarters – the list goes on and on! The return on investment for a finished basement is about 69%.

Highlight Homes can visit your home to determine which of the three options above might prove the best decision for expanding your home’s family FUN factor. To set an no-obligation consultation with a member of our team, call 678-873-9234, email us at info@highlighthomesga.com or fill out our convenient online contact form.  If you’d like to view our gallery for a peek inside past Highlight Homes’ projects, visit us at www.highlighthomesga.com.

Source: https://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/2018/