As the housing market in Utah and its surrounding states continues to grow, it’s important to factor comfort into the equation. Building a beautiful home is one thing, but building a comfortable home will go even farther. So can it be done? Can you build a beautiful, yet comfortable home? Or do you just have to prioritize one over the other?
How to Build a Comfortable Home
One of the most overlooked aspects in the design and build process of homes is the comfort level of the finished product. Check out these great tips for building the most comfortable spaces in your new home.
Where Does Comfort Come From?
Most people would say that comfort is a matter of feeling good. But what does it take to make you feel good? Is it a cold drink at the end of a hot day? Is it a soft couch for a quick afternoon nap? Is it spending time in the kitchen with your family? Whether you enjoy spending time outside, or time inside, feelings of comfort come from the satisfaction of human sense like touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. The more senses you can satisfy in a space, the more comfortable it becomes.
But it’s all about finding balance. If you are overstimulated with all these senses, the space can feel overwhelming. So where does the balance come from? It comes from the perfect levels of stimulation of each sense at the right time. If you want each space in your new home to be as comfortable as possible, you need to find balance with all these impactful senses
The Common Mistakes
The biggest mistake is disregarding the lighting and sound of a space. All too often, when homes are being built, the priority is physical appearance. Physical appearance is an enormous factor in each space, but can be completely erased by poor sound, acoustics and lighting.
Another big mistake is waiting too long to have to conversation about technology such as lighting and sound. All too often, technology is treated as an after-thought or something that can be talked about when the home is complete. This mistake is caused when technology is seen only as a toy or entertainment factor rather than an essential part of the design.
The last mistake we will cover is failing to budget for improved lighting and sound. When these features are overlooked, it’s nearly impossible to make budget considerations.
If you are wanting to avoid these costly mistakes, follow these tips.
Prioritize What Matters
Start by thinking about the different spaces in your home, how frequently you will you use them and what you will use them for. While a fancy gym or a big sports court might sound like something you would use all the time, you might start to realize that you need to prioritize comfort in the main areas of your home before you plan for extras. Maybe you spend more time in the kitchen throughout the day. Maybe you like to spend time in the walk-in closet, bathroom, or living room.
As you start to analyze how and when you will use these spaces in your home, you can start to prioritize a budget for the comfort level and use of each space. If you spend more time in the kitchen cooking, or doing dishes at the end of the day, you might want to consider a higher-end background music system in the kitchen and dining room areas.
If you spend more time in the closet or bathroom trying on clothes and accessories, you might want to prioritize motorized shades and a lighted or entertainment mirror. If you’re the kind of person that spends more time watching movies, sports or TV, you’re going to want to prioritize a more comfortable lighting setup with great surround sound and a large display. Whether you spend more time inside, outside, downstairs or in the kitchen, taking stock of the usage of each space will help you better prioritize your budget and efforts.
In short, prioritizing will help you organize your wants and needs in each space within the bounds of your budget and lifestyle.
Budget for What Matters
One of the most practical ways to ensure that you can make each space as comfortable and easy to use as possible, is to budget for the things that matter most. If you want a great space with great lighting and sound you need to budget for it. One of the greatest advantages to budgeting for things like lighting and sound is that it can all play into the financing of the project. Instead of taking a large punch separate from your home build project, you can factor technology and comfort into your mortgage payments because it is all part of the same project.
Forming a budget can seem daunting. Some people might not know where to start. This is a crucial time to talk to a technology integrator like AIS. Conveniently we have a budget calculator on our website that can help establish a budget range so you can further organize your priorities in the project.
During our consultation phase, we will work with you to form a budget that factors in your wants, needs, priorities so we can plan the perfect design for each space.
Design What Matters
Now that you have a budget, and you’ve prioritized what matters most to you for each space, we can help design the system to meet all those needs. Within the discussed budget, our system design team will factor in what matters the most to you in each space to create wiring maps, device layouts, WiFi heat mapping, audio coverage and more so we can more easily bring your plans to life when we carry out the install.
Failing to design the technology into your home will result in more future expenses for additions, higher labor costs as a result of poor planning, a less functional home and spaces that struggle to meet your expectations. A well-designed system will create a great roadmap for success for the rest of the project. Building a comfortable home with a poorly designed system or a non-existent system design is like trying to navigate a dense forest without any kind of map, compass or directions. Sure, it’s possible, but the result will be much more frustrating in the present and in the future.
Conclusion
To sum things up, if you want to build a home full of comfortable spaces, you need to factor in the satisfaction of more than just the sense of sight. Though a room with beautiful features does make you feel pretty good, you will never reach the level of comfort that will improve life at home without touching on the other important senses such as hearing.
Our ultimate goal is to help each of our clients to live a more comfortable life at home. We do this by improving how each room satisfies important human senses like sight and hearing. With our creative solutions you can enjoy improved lighting, higher quality background music and easy-to-use control of the features that matter most to you.
At AIS, we can help you turn any project into a comfortable finished product. Through our high-quality audio, video and lighting solutions, you can enjoy a home that not only looks good, but feels good too! Contact us today or use our budget calculator to get the process started.
