Speciality rooms in custom homes

Speciality rooms in custom homes

As custom homes grow larger and larger these days so do the type and function of the rooms that are inside them. The speciality rooms inside them are on the rise and show no signs of slowing or becoming less frequent.

In all custom homes you have designated rooms that are commonly found in every home. Rooms such as bedrooms, ensuites, bathrooms, kitchens, mudrooms, dining room, laundry rooms and mechanical rooms are the typical rooms you see in all homes whether they are custom or not.

What is changing in custom homes are the rooms that were considered the multipurpose rooms, rooms that were called the living room, family room, rec. room are being replaced with specifically designated rooms that are designed to serve a particular function for these new homes.

Here is a list of specific rooms that are now being designed into custom homes and what their function is intended to be in the new home;

1. Multi-media room. This room is where the vast majority of television and movie watching will go on. These rooms are built to a high standard to mimic the movie theatre experience without leaving the home. With stadium style seating and state of the art sound systems people can enjoy movies, television, music or gaming at their very best. These rooms are soundproofed so that no sound can ever escape the room regardless of how loud it becomes. They are set up so that anyone can walk-in pick up the remote and start enjoying themselves without needing a degree in computer engineering to run the system.

2. Great room. This room replaces the family room, living room with a room that is built to entertain. Great rooms are multi story rooms with cathedral ceilings, giant fireplaces and lots of windows to invite the outdoors in doors. They are meant to make a statement and give a feeling of being in a great hall that would be typically found in a castle, these rooms are large spaces that can hold what a house would usually hold allowing for a more organic feel to a party with everyone in one space.

3. Games room. When designing specific rooms for custom homes a place for the young and old to go and enjoy themselves is a must. Depending on how much money you have will usually depend on the size of the toys you will need in the games room. Pool/snooker tables, shuffle board tables, ping pong tables and arcade games take up a lot of space. Think of this room as a big boy play ground. It is usually put in an area of the home that won’t bother people in other parts of the home with the noise that is created there.

4. Crafts room. With people living longer it means that people actually have longer to be retired and when you are retired you want to keep yourself busy, that’s where a crafts room comes in handy. A place to keep all your finished and partially finished crafts, a place to keep your supplies and a place that you don’t have to clean up at the end of each day. This place is usually something out of the way that also allows a lot of natural light and room to spread out to work on your projects.

5. Hot tub room. Why go outside to get in your hot tub room when it’s cold outside. Keep your hot tub inside and open doors or windows to let the outside come to you. This a far easier thing to do then shoveling the snow all the way out to your hot tub so that you can then relax in it. Why not just walk through a door and climb in and enjoy. No shoveling and no cold feet.

6. Pantries. Now pantries have been around forever but the difference is that panties used to be a closet sized space, now they are whole rooms with their own entrances, counters, sinks, dishwashers and refrigerators. Why keep things that you don’t use a lot in your kitchen when you can store them in your large pantry.

7. 4 season room. You would think that a 4 season room would just be any other part of your home because there is only 4 seasons but a 4 seasons rooms is a room specifically designed to let as much of the outdoors indoors and still not be outside. 4 season rooms can be used all year round but they need to be kept as a separate space within the house because they are usually colder than the rest of the rooms. With as much glass as possible in them they will be colder than the rest of the home; because of this fireplaces are installed in them so that you can warm them up to a comfortable temperature when you want to use them. This also allows you to leave the room unheated saving money and energy. These rooms usually have a complete screen system that keeps the bugs out but allows the warm summer air to infiltrate.

The one major reason that there are speciality rooms in homes now is because the sizes of custom homes are growing larger and more luxurious with every passing year. It’s not enough anymore to build large homes with large rooms, the rooms now are designed with more purpose, and a lot of rooms are actually getting smaller the more speciality rooms that are created.

When you are planning and designing your new custom home think about how you want each room to function and what you want them for, you don’t have to leave them as unknowns anymore; every room can have a specific function allowing you to design for a purpose other than for a general space.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.