We design houses all across the United States. We thought you might enjoy reading about some of the emerging trends in residential design for the new year from our point of view.
2001 Trends in Home Design
1. LESS IS MORE: people are wanting to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have a smaller house and pay less for a smaller residence, but they want the spaces inside to be larger and have greater luxuriousness than the larger houses they have had in the past. Sound impossible? It is not. We have been optimizing our designs to result in not a square inch of wasted space. No unnecessary hallways, doors exactly where they should be for your furniture and appliances to work effectively. Efficiency. But not efficiency at the risk of luxuriousness. Oh no. We are creating simpler houses for less construction cost, but with larger kitchens, larger master bathrooms, larger foyers, powder rooms, multiple fireplaces, walk-in laundry and pantries and other rooms that people have traditionally associated with mansions. We actually call our current effort: “Crossover Cottage – Mansions.” Smaller houses that have upscale features people think of in larger, more substantial mansions.
2. ENERGY EFFICIENCY: people want their houses to sip energy so that they pay lower utility bills, and are more comfortable. The by-product is that people also get bragging rights to say that their house leaves a smaller carbon footprint on the Earth.
3. OPEN PLANNING: we specialize in open plans. Especially in our public areas, people seem to appreciate interconnection between spaces. The line between Kitchen, Dining and Living is being erased. There is an art to this, however.
4. OUTDOOR LIVING SPACE: ever since we began creating outdoor living rooms in our designs, about a decade ago, all of our clients have said “I want that!” We provide a roof, screening, outdoor fireplace(s), outdoor dining, summer kitchen, outdoor bar, outdoor dining, outdoor tv and outdoor furniture that is as comfortable as furniture in your main living room. People love feeling like they are outside, but having creature comforts.
5. FLEX-SPACE: this has yet to catch on, but we believe that eventually it will. Here, we provide a whole wall of sliding interior doors that can be slid back into an alcove, thereby allowing that entire room to be combined with the one next to it, allowing the space of both to combine into a much larger space, when they do not need to be separated. Think of combining that fourth or third bedroom into the Family Room, when that extra bedroom is not in use for months at a time. Might as well enjoy it!
Please give us a call if these principles appeal to you: 1-828-269-9046. Rand Soellner Architect.