Tag Archives: luxury home building

Make your house stand out like this one!

3 Ways to Make Your House Stand Out

In a dull, boring black-and-white world, you want to fill your house with vibrant colors — in other words, you want to make your house stand out. No one wants to be a part of the “Stepford” community where everything looks the same. For many people, one single house is all they get in life. So make it different — make it count!

How to Make Your House Stand Out

You don’t have to be a professional designer or landscape architect to do this. All you need is ideas, and herein the possibilities are endless. Here are 3 jumping-off points for you to get started.

Paving Stones

Let’s start with the outside: your driveway and the path leading up to your house. Here, custom paving stones offer you a tremendous opportunity to make your house stand out. Both concrete and asphalt are banal. Moreover, paving stones can be customized to your exact wants and wishes. What pattern do you want them installed in? What color or colors do you desire? Pavers are guaranteed to add value and beauty, plus they are crack-resistant and last for a lifetime!

Landscape & Gardening

Another outside feature all too often neglected is the landscape. Here, too, the possibilities of a custom design are almost without limit. If your front lawn boasts only a few trees and shrubs, consider the following:

  • Natural garden stones to create a unique focal point for your landscape
  • Retaining walls to segment your gardens and trees
  • A coy pond and bridge for an extra hint of luxury

Blur the Line Between Inside & Out

In most houses, the demarcation between inside and out is fairly clear. You can make your house stand out by blurring these lines a bit, installing a courtyard, arcade, or open air patio complete with uniquely designed columns and arches. The Sunshine State is made to be spent outdoors, and these components are all part of the rich tradition of South Florida luxury homes.

Custom home or model home?

Custom Homes vs. Model Homes

Custom homes are great, and of course we as South Florida custom home builders are not without our own opinion on this subject! But are they for everyone? Between the time, cost and energy of building a custom house, some may lean toward model homes instead.

Deciding Between Model & Custom Homes

Thanks to news-press.com for providing the inspiration for this article with their own, “Buyers decide between custom or model homes.” It’s a great and unbiased piece that weighs the pros and cons of each through the real experiences of homeowners. Here’s our own extra two cents.

Model Homes

“Model homes” here refers to homes that are built from a set of pre-designed (i.e. “model”) plans. They can be just as luxurious as custom homes, while not being as time-consuming or even stressful to build. Model homes are a particularly good option for those who don’t see themselves as creative or innovative enough to dream up their own design. There’s no shame in this, although sometimes your own creativity is locked away rather than completely absent. Don’t sell yourself short — we’ve seen many potential homeowners surprise even themselves!

Advantages

  • Easier, takes less time and energy
  • Standardized designs make both costs and scheduling explicit and easier to understand

Disadvantages

  • Sometimes the land to be built on won’t allow certain home models
  • Anything your model home comes with that you don’t like, you must either live with or deal with yourself

Custom Homes

Homes that are custom built are exactly what they sound like: the designs, floor plans and engineering are all based on the customer’s personal wishes.

Advantages

  • Homeowners get to customize everything — down to even the details that may seem mundane
  • Highly adaptable to any factor — be it the land or interior of the home

Disadvantages

  • The prospect of 100% customization from the bottom-up may seem daunting
  • Often takes more time and investment than model homes
  • Fear — i.e. of the unknown, such as building something that later makes resale difficult

A Middle Ground?

The lines between building model homes and custom homes are not always so clear. For instance, model home builders still allow homeowners some flexibility in customizing the interior of their home. Indeed, even prefab homes have a part to play in custom construction.

In the news-press article, one resident expresses her fear that “We didn’t want to have to choose where every light switch goes.” Her unease is understandable. However, we know from personal experience that quality home building doesn’t put that burden on you. The best custom home builders will balance your creative vision with their expertise.

Home remodeling with fiberglass doors offer the best bang for your buck

Home Remodeling in 2015: The Best Bang for Your Buck

We’ve made our predictions about what custom home construction will look like in 2015, but the other side of the coin is home remodeling. Even after homeowners have designed and built their dream house, chances are they will need some kind of post-construction service. Whether it’s for repairs, additions or whole redesigns, these services serve the same function as custom home building: giving homeowners exactly what they want.

The State of Home Remodeling in 2015

More so than in the initial construction process, people are considering resale when they go about the remodeling process. Remodeling is an investment, a means to an end, whereas custom home building is an end in and of itself. This leads to the pertinent question of “which remodeling projects will offer me the best return on my investment?”

The Best Bang for Your Buck

The Chicago Tribune has actually already answered this question. Once home value appreciation, materials, and labor costs are factored in, only 5 home remodeling projects offer the best bang for buck:

  • 20-gauge steel front doors
  • Fiberglass front doors
  • Garage doors
  • Mid-price roof replacements
  • Vinyl siding

The Worst Bang for Your Buck

What about the worst returns on investment (ROI)? In 2015, they are deemed to be:

  • 2-story home additions
  • Bathroom remodeling (57% ROI)
  • Composite decking (72% ROI)
  • Major kitchen remodeling (69% ROI)
  • Master suite remodeling

Why the Difference?

Many will notice something peculiar about this report: the worst returns on investment actually have the highest demand, while the best ones are hardly appealing to the average homeowner. Actually, this is not an anomaly. The cost of these projects — the worst returns, incidentally the most luxury home remodeling projects — has long exceeded their value, and the lack of momentum in the real estate market has only made it worse.

Why don’t housing prices increase with gorgeous, luxury kitchen or bathroom remodeling? People simply aren’t interested in home remodeling without practical value, it seems. Contrast these with garage doors, for instance. Garage doors are a frequently needed home repair, but new ones delay this inevitable cost by a few years. The same can be said for roofing, siding and door replacements.

Doors, roofs and house siding may not be the most luxurious parts of remodeling, but they are the most pragmatic. At the same time, don’t let this discourage you from seeking out the luxury home you desire. You may get only a fraction of your investment back, but you cannot put a price on living in the house of your dreams.

Custom Beach House in Highland Beach, Florida

Designing Your Custom Beach House

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take the art of custom home building, combine it with beautiful sunny South Florida…and the result is a custom beach house. These houses, both primary homes and “snowbirds'” second homes, populate the whole Atlantic shoreline up and down route A1A. Everyone in Florida dreams of owning one of these marvelous domiciles…so why not make it a custom home as well?

Ideas for Designing Your Custom Beach House

Why not only a beach house, but more specifically a beach house that is custom designed to your needs and desires? For one, nothing puts the “luxury” in luxury home building more than a cool salty breeze and a gorgeous view of the ocean. Moreover, custom homes and luxury homes are one in the same, more often than not. So, these two concepts naturally merge and become one.

Building luxury homes in South Florida is at once an art as well as a science, and there are both practical and instinctual considerations to be made. With that said, here are a few for designing your custom beach house:

Practical Considerations

Windows & Doors

One thing home builders must not ignore is the elements, which are especially strong near the beach. Florida may be known as the Sunshine State, but to residents it’s also the Hurricane State. Being so vulnerable to storms during the annual hurricane season, well designed beach houses will always incorporate impact windows and doors.

Why impact windows and doors? For one, they are superior to hurricane shutters not only in appearance but also in function. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials that can be customized to your house, while at the same time providing the following benefits:

  • Anti-theft security
  • Temperature insulation
  • Sound insulation
  • Appreciated home value

Insulation

Humidity near the beach is just as bad (if not worse) as inland Florida, which is the number one factor that causes wet basements. The problem of condensation is not limited to basements, and can easily lead to mold and mildew throughout your beach house. So, be sure to have all the proper insulation installed.

Aesthetic Considerations

  • Installing a dock nearby or on your property if you own a boat
  • An outdoor residential area with a grill, bar, etc.
  • Balconies
  • A wraparound deck
  • Paving stones and custom landscape treatment
  • Open concept designs to let the ocean breeze in
  • Sunlights installed in your roof
  • And so much more — it’s your custom beach house, and the sky is the limit!
Custom home construction in 2015 - what will it look like?

What Will Custom Home Construction Look Like in 2015?

Custom home construction is an exciting and dynamic industry, always changing with the cultural, economic and aesthetic landscape it inhabits. Year after new year, it changes as new homeowners take a liking to new and upcoming trends. Now that 2014 is behind us, we at CCM are excited to see what this new year brings us. Here are our predictions for what custom home building will look like in 2015!

What Custom Home Construction Will Look Like in 2015

Going Green in 2015

First and foremost, it’s impossible to deny that more and people are going to make their home green in any way that they can. There’s no reason to doubt that this trend will continue in 2015, and not just for moral (i.e. environmental) reasons. There are also practical benefits to “going green”: some evidence suggests that green construction costs less and improves homeowner satisfaction.

It’s All About the Bathroom

Bathrooms are often the focal point of luxury home building. Why is this? Because it is both easy and highly desirable to incorporate an atmosphere of luxury into your bathroom. How else would you describe a jetted bubble bath, heated towel racks, and even an HDTV rack in the far corner? Many homeowners have recognized this potential in custom home construction, and many will continue to do so in 2015.

So Long Asphalt! So Long Concrete! Hello Pavers!

We can’t say that concrete and asphalt are “so 2014” — after all, paving stones have long been a staple of custom paving in South Florida. In 2015, it looks like this trend will be catching on elsewhere. More people realize that their pavement, driveways and walkways have been neglected for far too long. After all, why spend so much time and money beautifying the inside of your home only to pave your driveway with unattractive, cracking asphalt? Why put the effort into custom home construction only to have your outside as banal and commonplace as everyone else’s?

Each new year brings with it new opportunities: an unknown future waiting to be explored. For our part, we can’t wait to explore the exciting possibilities 2015 will bring for custom homes.

What luxury home building in South Florida results in

Putting the “Luxury” in Luxury Home Building

What puts the “luxury” in South Florida luxury home building? Is it the glass, the countertops, the appliances, or the floors? Is it floor plans customized to your every desire, down to the finest details? What about the exterior — rock gardens, hardscape pavers, and landscape designs?

What Luxury Home Building Is

The answer is all of the above — and so much more! The beauty of custom home construction is that it takes into account all your wishes and directs them toward one end: life in a house of luxury.

Building a luxury home is a huge enterprise that takes into account far too many elements to list here. However, CCM is happy to provide you with a few ideas for luxury home building from the inside-out. Here are a few jumping off points.

Bathroom

  • Fixtures & Accessories: Consider adding a spa and/or jetted tub, heated racks for towels, steam-free mirrors, multi-functional and/or low-flow faucets and fixtures, and bidets.
  • Design: Incorporate bronze, glass or natural stones into tiles and surfaces of your bathroom.

Ceilings

It’s easy to overlook the potential of adding luxury to the ceiling, However, no other part of the house has more potential to showcase the magnificence of luxury home building. Consider construction with such materials as:

  • Faux wood
  • Urethane & PVC
  • Plaster

Kitchen

Kitchens are one of the most expensive spaces to renovate and remodel, but they are also one of the most essential — and luxury home building is no different. They say the kitchen is the heart of the home, for it is where meals, parties and other events center in. Therefore, your kitchen speaks to your entire home. Add some luxury to spill over into your whole house by retiling and resurfacing your counters. You can also design your kitchen to maximize space and eliminate clutter.

Living Room

Finally, your living room has just as much — if not the most — potential to enhance the luxury of your home. You can add style and appeal by:

  • Carefully selecting the furniture that will furnish your living room
  • Making sure to install a fireplace, the centerpiece of most living rooms
  • Customizing your room with tiles, columns and millwork