Main living area opens to a screened porch, making a rear patio more useful and connected to the house.
Main living area opens to a screened porch, making a rear patio more useful and connected to the house.

A new home: Main living area opens to a screened porch, making a rear patio more useful and connected to the house.

 

Other pages you may enjoy:

50 Popular Home Features

25 Potential Resale Problems

Building Green In Austin

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Design Tips for Austin.
You will see new building going on in Austin's suburbs and plenty of remodeling in the central areas. Would you like to build or remodel a home in Austin? Here are some design tips to help you design a wonderful new home that people would love to live in.
 

Our clients sometimes say that they want to find a house with good bones (meaning good basic design), that they can update. In reality, an outdated, but well designed home is hard to find. What we see more often are houses that have some elements in the structure and site that are appealing, yet need serious improvement in other ways.

Most homes have some good and some bad design. Painting walls and simple updating will not correct bad design. To have really good bones, you may need to do some surgery.

It is valuable to be able to make the decisions that transform a poorly designed house into one that is memorable, enduring, and widely appealing. To do this you need to go deeper than simply updating finishes or increasing square footage.

As Winston Churchill said, "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." To create good design, you must think about how the structure will shape the feelings and experience of its inhabitants.

 

Consider how the house relates to the lot and the
neighborhood around it.

  • The relationship between the interior of the house and the site is fundamental, but often ignored.
  • Manage the views that connect the house with the site. Is there an undesirable view into a neighbor's home or yard? Is there a nice view that is blocked by a wall or fireplace?
  • Improve the front walk with a curving shape, nearby benches, or garden along its edges.
  • Create private areas using screening or plants. A side area could be a private garden, accessible from the main bedroom.
  • Plan for noise buffering, if needed.
  • Understand how drainage will work on the site.
  • Consider adding a front porch, to bring the house into a relationship with the neighborhood.
Bring in natural light.
  • Houses are transformed by new windows and light sources.
  • Natural light raises the beauty and level of importance of rooms.
  • Light all main rooms from two sides, if possible, to balance the light and reduce glare.
  • Use glass doors, windows, transoms, skylights, and light tunnels.
  • Remember to use passive solar techniques when adding windows and shading devices. The control of passive solar energy for light and heat is crucial for a low maintenance and comfortable home.
  • Generous light feels safe and uplifting, and attracts people toward it.
Break down hard barriers between indoor and outdoor spaces.
  • Glass doors, screens, and walls that slide open can create indoor/outdoor spaces that have tremendous appeal.
  • Screened porches, covered breezeways, garden rooms, and bay windows are spaces that people love.
  • Indoor/outdoor rooms bring people into contact with the outdoors, yet are protected, and can be furnished in a comfortable way.
Think of outdoor spaces as large rooms that connect to the house and extend its reach.
  • When all areas of the property are thought of as living spaces, new possibilities open up.
  • Outdoor spaces create a sense of semi-enclosure in various ways.
  • The edges and boundaries of outdoor rooms can be defined by trees, fences, wings of the house or other buildings.
  • Develop an outdoor room from a shady natural space on the site enclosed by a line of trees and shrubs.
  • Add a courtyard, walled garden, trellis covered breezeway, stone patio, or outdoor shower.
  • Built a multi-purpose front porch.
  • Often, we see an exterior space that is built as an isolated destination place - a second floor deck, for example. If you have to make an effort to go there, the space will not be used.
  • Outdoor spaces are most used when they are on paths used by people coming and going. This is why a front porch is a very appealing design element. People naturally meet here, and the porch connects with neighbors walking by.
  • A common exterior living area is the back deck. This often seems to be an afterthought, an elevated platform tacked on to the house. Can the deck be enlarged, covered, and screened? Can it connect to tree covered patio?
Consider extending the roof overhangs and adding propped shutters over windows.
  • In warm climates, this green building technique is used to block solar penetration.
  • The outside roof structure, seen from inside the house, evokes a sense of shelter and protection.
  • Look for places to extend the roof to create covered porches or breezeways.
  • Rooms that are simultaneously protected and open to nature are very appealing.
  • Inside the house, exposed ceiling rafters, rustic beams, or wood surfaces on the ceiling evoke a sense of strength and warmth.
Traffic flow through the house is a crucial, but often ignored, part of the design.
  • Think about the walkways that bring you inside the front door and lead to various rooms through the house. Do they cut through the middle of living areas? When this happens the living area will never feel comfortable and set apart.
  • Circulation paths should lead efficiently to all rooms. A maze like floorplan creates a sense of wasted energy and confusion.
  • Circulation paths should move along the edges of main rooms.
  • Circulation paths should offer several ways to reach the outdoors. Few exterior doors may create a subtle feeling of being trapped.
  • Bring multiple uses to landings and connecting spaces with bookshelves, windows or window seats.
  • Give importance to the main entrance of the house with special details, such as special doors, a covered stoop, benches, or potted plants.
Balance the rooms of the house in proportion to each other.
  • People have an intuitive sense of the correct hierarchy of spaces.
  • Small living spaces will seem wrong when combined with large bedrooms. A big dining room does not go with a small kitchen.
  • Homes with awkward design can often be improved by taking out walls to make one large space from several smaller ones.
  • Determine the use and function of each room. Is the room to be used privately, such as a bedroom, study, or library? Or, will the family gather here to cook and eat informally?
  • Some houses have formal areas, others do not. Some have many rooms, others are very open. There is no right or wrong decision here.
  • Houses that have a true and intuitive appeal have a clarity as to the function of each room.
Choose materials as an integral part of the design - not as decorator selections to be made at the end.
  • Structural materials can be exposed, with great effect. Flooring can be used to connect or to differentiate spaces.
  • Bring in the beauty and texture of natural materials, such as wood or stone.
  • Use materials that contrast and offset each other, such as warm and cool colors, smooth and rough textures, solid and delicate walls.
  • Connect the house to the site by using similar materials - for example, a wood clad house surrounded by woods, or a stone house set near outcroppings of stone.
  • Reconnect the house to an old neighborhood with historic colors, siding, windows and other materials.
  • Repeat materials and colors to unify and blend the interior and exterior.

 

    
 
     
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