Like many folks around Central Virginia, we were fortunate enough to spend a few days at the beach. We rented a large house and filled it with friends and family. In addition to the usual sunbathing and splashing in the surf, we spent several evenings engaged in games like charades and some low-stakes poker. One of the more popular pastimes came from one of our guests. Their contribution was several boxes of 1,000+ piece jigsaw puzzles. It kept our guests, both young and old, engaged for hours.
A 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle isn’t something that you can do in one sitting, and it’s not something you can simply leave on the kitchen table. Our rental, however, had an interesting turret-like room for watching sunrises, and it had a huge circular table that was perfect for our puzzle solvers.
We look for spaces like this when we help our clients design their custom homes.
When laying out the floorplan for a custom home, we frequently find ourselves with a space that doesn’t have a specific use but could be converted into a “bonus room.” This might be an attic or basement space. To make proper use of it would only require around 70 sqft – enough for an office or yoga room. Finishing this space could add as much as $30,000 to the value of your home.
Oftentimes, however, this intended use is incorporated into our plans.
One client was a collector of wines. As he traveled the world, he would buy cases of wines that struck his fancy. What would normally be a large pantry off his kitchen became his wine room. An upgrade in insulation, a properly sealed doorway, and a dedicated air handler created an immaculate temperature-controlled wine cellar – and there was no need to traipse around the house to find the bottle that he wanted.
Is music your thing? Again, a bit of attention to insulation and the floors would create a room where you could bash away at a drumset or crank up a guitar amp without your music reverberating throughout your house.
Perhaps you’re like our puzzle-builders or enjoy a craft that requires a bit of dedicated space? Using the same design elements as we might for a laundry room or pantry would come in handy for a craft room. Built-in cabinets and shelves would provide storage for your materials and allow for the display of finished projects, and a workspace like a kitchen island would give you the room to create.
We often think of home design as basic elements – bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. But more and more, our homes are becoming a reflection of who we are: collectors, creators, and crafters. Putting those fancies at the front of the design process can incorporate them into your dream home.