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Current Design Trends
Finding the Best Fittings for Your Kit Home
January 30th, 2013 | Current Design Trends
Finding the right fittings for your kit home can make a significant difference to the look, feel and function of your new place, so make sure you take your choice of fittings seriously. The following are a few important things to keep in mind when hunting for those ideal fittings for your kit home.
Research
To be any chance of finding the best fittings for your kit home you will need to do plenty of research, so get online, check out friend’s places, or stop by a few showroom kit homes. The more you know about what is available, the more chance you are of making an informed decision, so make sure you know about all of those leading options.
Buying Established Plants for a New Garden
January 15th, 2013 | Current Design Trends
Setting up a new garden can be a lot of fun, whether you are moving to a new house or just changing things up in your yard, and one of the best ways to make life easier on yourself is to buy established plants. The following should be some of your main considerations when buying established plants for your new garden, so make sure you have done your homework and know exactly what you are doing.
Why?
Enjoy them straight away — While growing your own plants from seed is a fantastic idea, it requires a lot of patience, so if you’d like to enjoy your garden sooner rather than later, buying already established plants is a smart idea. It will cost you more to buy your garden plants in this way, but if you can’t or don’t want to wait months for the garden to start to thrive, it can be a worthwhile investment.
Best Plants for a Drought Resistant Garden
December 30th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
Backyard garden plants help to define spaces and provide shade, screening and privacy. Above all, they make our gardens look beautiful. Selecting plants for your garden isn’t just about the ones you like the look of, however, as they should also be durable and right for your climate. If, like most Australians, you’re looking to build a garden that has low water requirements, you’ll have to choose plants that also have low water needs, or drought-resistant plants. Whether you have just built a kit home, or you’re simply landscaping your existing yard, the following plants are ones you should consider if you live in a dry climate.
Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica)
This is a highly attractive deciduous tree that grows to eight metres and features peeling bark and colourful foliage. You can get them with white, pink, or crimson flowers, which is perfect for coordinating with your custom home. There are a few different varieties you can choose from as well, but they all require some annual pruning to manage their height and flowers.
Finding Online Inspiration for Interior Design
November 30th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
In the days before the Internet, to find inspiration for improving your interior design you would have had to pour through dozens of design magazines or spend a lot of time going to open house showings, but nowadays you can access an almost endless amount of inspiration for free online. The following is a brief look at how to use the Internet to find inspiration for your interior design projects, whether you are looking to spruce up your bedroom or an entire kit home.
Find something different
If you are hoping for some true inspiration as opposed to more of the same ideas, you need to be willing to step out of your comfort zone, and the Internet makes this extremely easy. Take advantage of the power of the Internet to connect all corners of the earth and look for inspiration is a few different areas to normal, because with the world at your fingertips, you’d be foolish not to at least check out what others are doing with their custom homes.
Choosing Between Timber and Steel for Your Home
October 30th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
Choosing between steel and timber for your new home is one of the biggest decisions you will need to make throughout the process of having it built. The right choice for you will depend on a lot of different factors, the most important of which is the cost and look you hope to achieve. The following is a brief look at some of the key considerations when choosing timber or steel for your home construction.
Humid areas
In humid areas you may think that steel is the best but, just like wood, these types of construction are prone to decay. While steel can rust away, wood can be easily protected (treated timber) as well as retreated with timber oil and other sealing coats. So don’t let the humid weather deter you from wood frames as the right timber won’t have many issues with wetter weather.
Planning Your Home From Start to Finish
September 15th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
Planning to have a new home built can be a lot of fun, but make sure that you are taking your time and are planning for every detail from start to finish. The following ideas will help ensure you have your bases covered when it comes to planning out your new home.
Do some research
Unless you are a master builder, the first thing you are going to need to do is spend a decent amount of time doing some research, because there are a lot of steps that need to be taken throughout the building of a home, and you won’t want to miss an important one. There are permits you will need to get and contractors you will need to hire, so allow yourself plenty of time to get your head around all of the details.
Options for Interior Design on a Budget
August 15th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
Whether you are planning for the interior design of your kit home or split-level house, if you don’t have a large amount of money to spend you are going to need to get creative. You can definitely still have your place looking great without spending a lot of money; you just might need to put in a little more effort. The following ideas are all sure to help drastically cut your interior design bills.
Second-hand materials
You really can find just about anything second hand if you look hard enough, and so if you don’t have a lot of money in your budget to spare for design costs, try to find some second-hand versions of whatever it is you are after. Making use of second-hand materials can help create a unique and stylish look, and is also a smart move for reducing your impact on the environment. More often than not, you won’t be sacrificing anything in terms of function or style by opting for second hand.
Choosing a Colour Scheme for the Interior of Your Kit Home
June 30th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
Coming up with a colour scheme for your kit home is all important, as the right colour combinations can make a world of difference in terms of how it feels to be there. However, unless you are a rare talent, finding the right colour scheme is far from easy, so make sure you take the time to get it right, and take the task seriously. The following is a brief guide to choosing the colour scheme for the interior of your kit home.
Get inspired
Whether you are down at your local library checking out interior design magazines or online looking through the endless amount of information, images and ideas, you would be silly not to check out what others are doing with colours in their kit homes, as they are sure to spark a few ideas.
Considerations When Designing Your Own Home
March 15th, 2012 | Current Design Trends
Designing your own home is a gratifying way to ensure that you get a place that is exactly what you want, and there are a lot of online programs to help you come up with that perfect design. Whether you are customising kit homes or starting from scratch, the possibilities are endless. Keep in mind, though, the following considerations to ensure that your new home ends up being everything you’ve dreamed of.
Size
This is probably the biggest decision when designing your home. When deciding on the size of your new home, consider what you currently need as well as possible needs for extra space in the future. If there is space on your lot, having room for a kit home granny flat can be a huge benefit, as you can use it for your family’s needs right now or even rent it out until you need it further down the line.
If Celebrities Designed Their Own Kit Homes
December 22nd, 2011 | Current Design Trends
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?
