1. Cutting edge kitchen with butler’s pantry
The kitchen has long been the design and lifestyle focus of the house and the features that make a kitchen “cutting-edge” are things like:
- A large multi-purpose island bench with generous seating areas
- Plenty of large soft-close drawers
- Overhead cupboards with lift hatch doors
- Deep unencumbered bench spaces with overhead LED lighting
- A concealed “butler’s pantry” with a separate sink and dishwasher
- Loads of storage space
2. Alfresco living / dining area
The desire to create the indoor / outdoor lifestyle is one of the main motivations for designing and building a new home. So, an under covered alfresco area adjoining the main living area should be one of the main design focuses for your new house. The features you should consider for this area are:
- A built in BBQ which often includes a small sink, a bar fridge and stone bench top / work surface.
- Provision for outdoor heating (gas, electric or outdoor fire place),
- Integrated speakers,
- Good dimmable lighting to create a comfortable night time mood and maybe even a sweep fan for hot balmy summer nights?
3. Designer Lighting
The best way to create versatile mood lighting in living areas is to use “indirect lighting” such as recessed LED strip lighting or wall mounted up lighting instead of lots of down lights. This indirect lighting must be dimmable and when combined with carefully selected “drop lights” will add a whole new night time mood to the home. Other current lighting design trends are:
- Staircase handrails with integrated LED lighting
- Suspended strip lighting above island benches
- Internal wardrobe LED lighting
- Super narrow LED down lights used to spot light interior design features.
4. A mud room
A recent addition to our must-have design features list is a mud room. This is a small walk through room accessed directly off the garage that has built in shelving, a cloak cupboard and bench seating that is used as a drop zone prior to entering the living area for coats, school bags, sporting equipment, shoes etc. The mud room is often positioned between the garage and the laundry and is usually finished in highly durable materials such as laminex cabinetry, tiled floor and a nice addition is a full-length mirror for final wardrobe adjustments before leaving the house.
5. Integrated pelmets and motorized blinds
Luxury homes today have large areas of north and west facing glass which needs to have blinds installed for light and sun control. But these roller blinds can look quite unsightly and detract from the desired modern “clean lines” interior most of our clients are looking for. The solution is to have integrated blind pelmets built in above all main windows to hide the roller blind and for maximum convenience these blinds should be motorized. The optimum solution for sun control and privacy is to have double motorized blinds with both block out and sheer translucent fabrics.
