Articles
Top 10 Ways to Increase the Value of Your Home
February 21st, 2012
If you are starting to think about moving and want to up the value of your home, there are some simple ways to do it. The following are a few easy options.
Paint
Painting your home is a sure way to dramatically increase the value of your home, whether you paint the inside, outside or both. Providing you get it painted properly and pick even half decent colours, you can have your home looking like an entirely different place.
Build a garden
Lots of people love to garden, and with the prices of fresh fruit and vegetables going through the roof, garden ownership will only become more in demand in coming years. A well-built and well-maintained garden adds light and colour to the whole property, making your place a far more desirable and, therefore, valuable location.
Miraculous Modern Building Materials
December 30th, 2011
The materials we build with have changed a great deal over the years. They have become stronger, lighter, more durable and cheaper to make; factors which have led to a resurgence in many building-related industries such as the manufacture of kit homes.
Traditional materials such as wood, bricks and steel are still widely used, but due to a growing demand for environmentally-sound building practices, these materials must now either come from a sustainable source or justify their use in terms of energy efficiency and environmental impact.
Building materials have five stages in their life-cycle: mining / harvesting, manufacture, construction, use and demolition, and the environmental impact of most materials is heaviest in the first two stages.
Developers of new building materials are now very conscious of their environmental implications, which is why recycled materials are becoming more and more widely used.
If Celebrities Designed Their Own Kit Homes
December 22nd, 2011
The great thing about designing kit homes is you start with a blank canvas. Kit home manufacturers now offer so many design options, you can have virtually anything you want, as long as it can be manufactured in kit form, is structurally sound and conforms to local building codes.
So imagine if someone like Lady Gaga decided to design her own kit home; perhaps a weekender in the Hollywood Hills. It would most certainly be eye-catching and undoubtedly bizarre; perhaps a series of rooms built around a central recording studio, with a pink mushroom-capped tower from which she could count her trucks full of money on their way to the bank far below.
Or what if Clint Eastwood designed a kit home? Would he have sawdust on the floors and a hitching rail on the front verandah?
Challenging Home Site? Build A Kit Home
December 14th, 2011
Not everyone wants to live in the suburbs. Traffic congestion, crime, noise and pollution are all on the increase, making many new home builders yearn for a sea change.
The problem is that when you move outside the city limits, the terrain becomes much more chaotic. The very thing that appeals to us, the untamed nature of the landscape, can mean that some rural and seaside blocks are difficult to access and even harder to build on.
Hard, but not impossible, as these examples show:
Chilean Architect, Alvaro Ramirez built a cabin that is perched on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean far below. Made from local timbers, it would have been a logistical nightmare to transport the materials to the site and a job for builders with a good head for heights, as the decks have no railings and extend out over the abyss below.
On the banks of the river Loddon in the United Kingdom, a water-loving firm of architects built Hind House, a stunning home that is more like a bridge than a house, extending as it does almost all the way across the river.
Kit Homes; Salvation For First Home Buyers
December 7th, 2011
Unless you have half a million dollars in the bank or you’re happy to be saddled with mortgage payments for the next thirty years, the options for first home buyers are somewhat limited in today’s cut-throat housing market.
You could buy a cheap ‘fixer-upper’ and spend all your free time up to your elbows in plaster and paint. Alternatively, you could buy an average house way out in the boonies somewhere and commute several hours a day to work.
Or there’s a third option, one that more and more first home buyers are seizing with both hands; you could build your own kit home.
Here are just some of the advantages kit homes offer first home buyers:
Because a kit home comes in pre-fabricated pieces, you have the option to assemble it yourself. This can save you up to 40% on the cost of a traditional build. If you have basic trade skills, a good work ethic and family or friends you can call on to lend a hand, then this is your best option.
You also have the option of hiring a contractor to build your kit home for you, or having the manufacturer do it for you as part of the package. This will still save you thousands on a traditional build.
Kit Home Design: Achieving Practical Innovation
November 30th, 2011
So you’ve decided to buy a kit home and have opted for your own design. Great choice! The opportunities for innovation are practically unlimited in today’s kit homes. Victoria and most other states have manufacturers who’ll work with you to achieve exactly what you’re after in your dream home.
The thing to bear in mind is that innovation sometimes comes at a cost, so you need to consider the practicalities of every idea before including it in your house plan.
For instance, you may have always wanted an indoor garden, a great feature that has been successfully incorporated into house designs in the past. But how practical is it in the house you are planning? Do you have a large enough living area to accommodate it? What about maintenance? Will it require hoses trailing through your living spaces, or do you plan to have built-in irrigation?
Kits; For Do-It-Yourself Dreams
November 22nd, 2011
These days, you can buy just about anything in kit form, from kit cars and kit aeroplanes to kit boats and kit homes .
A kit is basically a series of parts pre-manufactured to yours or the designer’s specifications and delivered ready to assemble.
Kit cars, or component cars, are very popular and come in several forms. They can be the parts for a complete car, with everything provided, or just the non-mechanical parts, with engines, transmissions and the like being sourced from other cars or bought new.
An extremely popular form of kit car is the body-only kit, where the chassis of a normal automobile has a new body added, usually something exotic like a Maserati, Porsche, Lamborghini or Ferrari. Because of the price difference, it is the ideal way to own a style of car that would normally be out of most people’s reach.
Totally Unique Homes
November 14th, 2011
When you build your own home, you want it to be unique, to have your own personal stamp on its design that says who you are and how you like to live.
To achieve this in a cost-effective manner, you could build a kit home. With a practically infinite number of design options, kit homes are the perfect way to express your individuality.
Or you could do what these pioneering souls have done … gone to extremes to show the world their uniqueness.
In 1948, The Shoe House was built by Colonel Mahlon Haines, the self proclaimed ‘Shoe Wizard’ who owned forty shoe stores in Pennsylvania and Maryland USA.
Built largely as an advertising gimmick, the Shoe House is a giant replica of a boot, quite liveable, if a little on the cramped side. It is 25 feet high and 48 feet long and features 5 levels, stained glass windows, a staircase, plumbing, a shoetop observation platform and even servants accommodation.
The History of Kit Homes
November 7th, 2011
When you see the choice of designs and quality of materials, you could be forgiven for thinking the kit home is a modern day invention.
But the idea of the kit home has been around since the early 1900’s. Kit homes became popular in American after World War 1, offering a way for the expanding middle classes to buy and build in affordable stages (mortgages not being readily available in those days).
The very first kit home ever built was manufactured by a carpenter in England in 1830 and erected in Australia by his emigrating son. Although technically a prefab, as the pieces were cut, shipped and reassembled, this first portable cottage proved very popular and helped pave the way for the kit home industry in Australia.
Kit Home Studios; the New Great Australian Sheds
October 30th, 2011
It’s been the stuff of urban legend for generations; the Great Aussie Shed at the bottom of the yard, where blokes disappear for more than 12 hours a week on average (nearly a month out of every year) to attend to Secret Men’s Business.
While the English have their studies and the Americans have their dens, the backyard shed has been the traditional retreat for Aussies since we first climbed down from the trees and began living in the suburbs.
But the days are numbered for the drafty, dimly lit potting shed, full of rusting tools and piles of old junk that’ll never be repaired. Thanks to rapid advances in modern building techniques, today’s bloke can now have his cake and eat it too.
Kit homes are set to become the new Aussie sheds. They still offer a backyard refuge where, unlike the workplace or domestic front, men can be fully in control of their environment. The only difference is they come with all the comforts of home like power, running water, good lighting and even bathroom facilities if you want them.
