Designing a home for the South West

May 30, 2022

Designing a new home, especially one built to suit the South West lifestyle, is an exciting process – but before you decide on where to put the master bedroom or start picking out your bathroom tiles, it’s a good idea to gain some clarity on what you want! Taking the time to explore your options is the best thing you can do to ensure that you end up with a home that fits your budget and the way you like to live. To help you get started, we’ve created this useful guide to designing your own home in the South West.

Home design essentials

When designing a home, there’s a few crucial things you should think about. Here’s a checklist to help you out:

Bedrooms

The very first thing you should consider when choosing a home design or planning a new home is the number of bedrooms you will need. Keep in mind your lifestyle and how it might change in the future. Even if there’s just a couple of you that are planning to live in the home, it’s often a good idea to have a spare bedroom or two available, especially if you like to have guests stay over! If you think you might have kids in the future, it’s also a good idea to leave room for your family to grow. You should also consider the layout of your bedrooms – is a peaceful master retreat your dream, or do you love the idea of creating separate ‘zones’ for your bedrooms and entertaining? It’s also important to remember that your chosen number of bedrooms may impact on the costs involved in your build. A 4 or 5 bedroom home will require more budget than a starter 3 bedroom home. Larger homes may also need a bigger block, which may impact where you can build, based on budgets.

Bathrooms

Once you’ve thought about bedrooms, it’s a good idea to think about how many bathrooms you need and where they will sit in your house layout. Will one guest bathroom do, and is it better to build them near the living space, or the bedrooms? In terms of your ensuite, how much space are you prepared to allocate to this? It’s important to think about how you currently live, pain points, space wasted and what’s missing!

Kitchen

When planning your kitchen, you should think about how you like to use the space (or wish you could use it). It’s often said that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and this can be especially true in the South West. If you love a grazing board or cooking family dinner, then we’d suggest starting with the kitchen when planning your entertaining spaces.

Laundry

The laundry is a practical space and some households need more from it than others. Larger family homes may need a bigger laundry with space for storage, but if you’re just looking to build something small and low maintenance you may prefer to tuck it away, by concealing it behind a kitchen scullery. You should also think about it in terms of its proximity to other spaces – a noisy washing machine may be an unwelcome disruption to a good nights sleep! Try looking for designs that don’t put the laundry right next to the bedrooms or shared living spaces, as well as easy access to the clothes line.

Multi-use rooms

It’s always a good idea to plan for the flexible use of space in your new home. A nursery can be converted into a study or an activity room later. A study nook can be transformed into an area for the kids to relax in later on and a theatre can be converted into a guest bedroom down the track. Living in the South West often means enjoying more connection with family and friends. Think about whether your home might become the go-to for watching the footy on the weekend, the site of Thursday night family dinners or the number one hangout spot for your kids and their friends from school.

Outdoor space

The South West is all about outdoor living, so make sure you take outdoor space into account when selecting a home design. A great alfresco area with space for a BBQ might be exactly what you’re looking for, or perhaps you want a big backyard with room for the kids to run around in. If you’ve got a great view, then a generous front porch or a private patio off the master bedroom may be just what you need to take advantage of it.

Light

Leave the caves to Margaret River! If you’re planning to live in the South West, then you’ll want to make the most out of the view with a spacious and light-filled home. Homes that have plenty of natural light filling in and the right lighting throughout the space tend to feel bigger and grander than darker homes. When choosing a home design, make sure you keep an eye out for designs with plenty of windows and careful thought put into the flow of the home. If you’ve already got a block, you should also make sure you consider its orientation and size. Where does the sun come up? A design with large windows on the front may not be ideal if it’s going to get the full glare of the sun in the morning, but an open plan space at the back of the home with seamless connection into an alfresco area could do the trick!

Where to look

It’s hard to get a sense of a space by just looking at a floor plan, so the best way to get a feel for what you like is to investigate house designs online and visit display homes in your area. Ventura South West has a range of home designs that you can explore from the comfort of your couch, as well as a wide array of displays that you can visit.

If you need help finding the perfect home design, get in touch with us! We can help you pinpoint exactly what you’re looking for in a home and help you find the perfect design.

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Designing a home for the South West