Houston luxury homes are a reflection of their owner’s lifestyle. As their original home design ages, even the most iconic luxury houses can wane. Your home is your castle is a term we do not here much these days, but really sums it up. Your luxury home should be a mirror image of the best of your lifestyle. Like the castles of the medieval periods throughout Europe reflected the stature and abundance of its owners, today’s luxury houses are little different. Location, size and access determines the allure that today’s metro Houston luxury homes have on their admires.
Decorating and trending ideas come and go overtime, but what sustains a luxury home’s intrinsic value are well planned features and improvements to your home that will raise the bar on the owner’s quality of life. Much like the castles of old, when the owners would add a hoist to transport supplies to the upper parts of the old-world structure. Today’s luxury home owners want to incorporate their favorite services enjoyed outside their home into the convenience of their own residence.
So, let’s examine some of the classic features and improvements that luxury house owners seek for today’s fortresses.
Gourmet Kitchens
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Luxury kitchens are a must for the enriched enjoyment of your home. Almost every event involves the kitchens activities from family gatherings to entertaining a large social event crowd. So, the kitchen needs to accommodate these demands. When planning the architectural design of your kitchen you should be mindful of the work triangle that a well-planned kitchen offers. The prep area, the cooking space and the cleaning station. These areas should not require the need to cross through any of the immediate working areas of each station. This is tested during larger gathers when more than one person is working the kitchen.
The collection of appliances speaks to the convenience and preparation of a well-planned dinner. A second dishwasher, warming drawers and an ice making machine are absolute time savers for those holiday meals. Hard surface counter tops not only add elegance but also provide a low maintenance long lasting solution to an age-old utility problem.
With the demand for higher ceilings, kitchen cabinetry is also getting higher and out of reach. Although this does not necessarily provide additional storage opportunity. In luxury homes, kitchen cabinetry has taken on a furniture like appearance instead of the traditional boxy look. Adorned by accenting moldings, built in lighting and built-in appliances have transformed kitchens into the most important and expensive room in the home.
Picturesque Views
Owners want to be transcended outside of their daily grind when they are in the comfort of their own home. Owners want to be able soak in the splendor of their home to refuel their soul. A picturesque view from the home’s interior has become as important as the interior views. Albeit that most luxury properties in Houston are not located to view the ocean or a majestic mountain, your yard can be planned for a breath-taking appearance. To accomplish this, you need to understand your lifestyle needs and what winds your clock. To some it may be a beautifully sculptured garden, while to others it may be a specially designed pool and outdoor living area.
Planning these features is critical to achieving a seamless integrated extension of the home design concept transference to the outside. The direction orientation of the homes view can also play a huge contribution to the appearance and overall impact such as viewing sunsets or the amount of direct sunshine specific plants might receive. Natural lighting can influence the interior of the home as well through accenting architectural features and interior paint colors. Windows and their placement have an enormous effect on the views and natural light that is allow to appoint your views and interiors.
Oversized and Volume Filled Rooms
One of the distinctions of histories luxury homes over time has been homes that contain oversized rooms with high ceilings that create a spacious sense of volume. Floor plans that role from room to room defining the function of the space with distinguishing architectural design elements. Today’s architectural features may be different then the affluent homes of the past in products and methods but good architectural design transcends time.
This is much easier to obtain these types of features when building your new home, but not unobtainable through well planned and executed design of an existing home. There will be limitations imposed by the existing structure, but with a seasoned and skillful home design build team you can capture most of the characteristics you are seeking for considerably less than the cost of a new luxury home.
Master Villa Suites
One of the truly modern improvements in luxury home remodeling design is the advent of what I refer to as villa master suite. They consist of expanding the concept of a traditional master bedroom with bathroom and walk in closets to include additional private spaces such as a resort style exercise room, aquatic spa and private secure room. A collection of personalized resort feature spaces that are primarily accessed through the master suite, hence the name villa suite.
Master Bedroom
A master bedroom traditionally has been the primary private space of the owner to retreat when they need solitude. They are not just the largest bedroom in the house but rather highly personalized spaces including features such as a fireplace, sitting area, private balcony and special exterior view orientations. Master bedrooms remain the central piece of the master villa suite. They are also the nucleus of private living space including working office, health centers for self-balancing.
Master Bathroom
The master bathroom has long been the owner’s sanctuary of the home. They are often outfitted with whirlpool tubs, stone clad showers with multiple showering hardware fixtures and his and her vanity areas during bathroom remodeling. Their uniqueness is defined by the rooms use of space, selection of fixtures and the stone floor designs that capture one’s imagination.
Master bathrooms usually represent the second most expensive room in the home. This the result of the cabinetry, plumbing fixtures and stone & glass products required to equip these spaces when it comes to bathroom remodeling.
Resort Style Spas and Exercise Rooms
These special functional element spaces have become very welcome features in luxury house modern lifestyle needs. As people have become aware of the importance of how physical fitness can contribute to extending life. The home exercise room is a flexible space that can also be accessed from other areas of the home, but remain convenient when located close to the master suite. This is absolutely true when combined with aquatic spa space and makes for great additions to the home design during a remodel.
The aquatic spa rooms are tranquil spaces equipped with a sauna or steam room and often feature some form of hydro treatment area and possibly appointed with a message table. Your relaxation is heightened by surround sound and a built-in water feature that adds to the serenity of the room. Placement of these room are an ideal complement to your exercise room. These rooms become extremely useful as one ages. The hydro treatments and message tables double their purpose value through their therapeutic properties.
Master Walk in Closets
Master closets always provides value to owners. Traditionally including built in cabinetry, drawers and lots of shelving. Shoe racks, tie racks and pull-down shelving features add to the amenities of a well-appointed closet. The planning of a well-designed walk-in closet during the home remodeling design begins with taking inventory of your wardrobe and personal effects.
Master closets have also proved to be an excellent location for security safes for valuable coins, jewelry and documents. There has also been a recent trend, due to insane world events, to use these rooms also as panic rooms equipped with surveillance and satellite radio for emergency communication. Disappearing wall panels and blind spaces are well concealed by the distractions of the closets contents and add your room with luxurious home design.
Security & Surveillance
Security continues to be a significant concern as social unrest continues to mount. The need for a comprehensive security system is essential in all luxury homes. Technology has contributed to many useful mechanisms that provide for a secure perimeter and constant monitoring. The most important development during the internet period is the ability to remotely activate the home security system and to actually receive real time video feeds through your surveillance system.
Surveillance systems have advanced to the degree that the video is fully integrated to our communications systems. This provides the ability of monitoring the exterior of your home, entryways and driveway gates from your living room television or tablet. These systems can also be integrated into many of the luxury homes software’s as well. Technology in this area will continue to evolve and advance to be incorporated in the architectural design elements.
Power Generation
Luxury house electrical power needs will not be going away anytime soon. Our increasing electricity requirements creates the need for supplemental power for your home. The two most common supplemental electrical systems are solar power and backup generators. There are other alternative supplemental electrical systems but none as reliable and cost effective. Solar systems are designed to produce a monthly kilowatt total equal to a predetermined amount. It is important to understand that without battery backup devices, you are required to consume the power generated by your solar system or sell it back to your power company at a price that you pay from that same provider.
Backup power generators are just that, backup to your primary electrical sources if your power is interrupted for any reason. The power generators are typically fueled by either gas, propane or diesel fuel. The generators are sized to your power use and demands.
Your generator is sized for approximated 85% largest amount of electrical monthly use. This means that you should not be running the air conditioners while having all the lights are on in the house, while using the oven. So, generators will power the home for an indefinite period. It is feasible to interconnect your solar systems with the backup generator and battery backup if you were so compelled.
Outdoor Kitchen, Water Features and Living Areas
The most common exterior feature associated with luxury home lifestyle living is water features. They consist of swimming pools, whirlpool spas, fountains and waterfalls or a combination of all. The types of improvements to the rear yard not only provide the functional value of lifestyle enjoyment but also create a picturesque view from the luxury house. To be fully rewarded for the esthetic value that water features can contribute to your home, it is best to incorporate a landscape architect into your design team.
There are many factors to consider when designing water features to your home, such as the placement, orientation and size shape relationship. A well planned and designed pool will compliment your lifestyle and capture the architectural design flavor of your home. Good design will take in consideration the maximum orientation of sunlight and the best placement to the home to optimize the space relationship and views from all angles.
In the Houston luxury home market outside living areas are both a valued extension of the living area and a practical function courtesy of the weather. These exterior living areas contain covered lanai’s areas with kitchens that include sinks, refrigerators and bar-b-que cookers. These kitchens should consist of cabinets and counter tops that are built from materials that will hold up to the weather. They will require access to electrical and plumbing to be completely functional.
Many of the exterior living areas have fire pits or full fireplaces constructed as an element of the space. It is recommended that for the best long-term service, these fireplaces be constructed on the proper foundation and be built as masonry fireplaces instead of using a prefabricated box.
True luxury homes represent the best architectural design principles and contributes to the function of ageless lifestyle demands. They serve their owners needs through each phase of the owner’s life while increasing in future market value. These home design principles are not to be confused with trending decorating ideas that change rapidly over time. Trending decorating ideas are most often associated with decorating themes and provide little value to the functional contribution to the owner’s lifestyle. They focus on color, textures and fabric not functional value. It is for this very reason that luxury homes albeit much different today are very much like the castles of the medieval period.
Conclusion
Luxury homes are defined through the personal home design appointments made through classic architectural design by their owners. Great luxury house design tends to survive the test of time. Although when a new owner takes ownership, they have the need to personalize their luxury home through modifying the architectural design or increasing additional space through luxury home building addition or home remodeling design. To learn more about the luxury home architectural design process read.
