Where To Splurge When Building A Luxury Custom Home
No doubt you've spent a great deal of thought on how you might customize your current living space to better fit your needs. Maybe you wish you had more pantry space in the kitchen, an open living plan, or a fireplace in the den. Because you think you know what you want, you might think building your own custom home would be a breeze. But making decisions is usually much more complicated, especially when you're asked to pick between two equally exciting options. One of the challenges of building a custom home is deciding where to splurge and where to cut costs. Here are a few things that really deserve a little splurging.
Land
There's a reason that the old real estate mantra location, location, location is as relevant today as it ever was. No house, no matter how great, can make up for a bad location. You should put as much thought, if not more, into where you choose to build the house as you would on the house itself. If your idea is to build a custom luxury home, you should consider acreage estates. You have more control over the comfort of your location long-term if you can surround your home with land you own. Experts recommend keeping your land purchase to about 25% of your budget, but if you're willing to splurge on a great property, consider where you might have to slash costs elsewhere.
Heating Systems
When your friends take you on a tour of their new home, it's usually something like an outdoor hot tub or an entertainment room that they choose to show off. You'd be surprised if they took you to the utility closet. But despite the lack of glamour, a highly-efficient and cost-effective heating and cooling system is worth bragging about and definitely worth splurging on. Radiant heating or geothermal systems are pricier options than traditional HVAC systems, but they will work more efficiently for less. Radiant heating is a system that's installed underneath the flooring of your home so heat radiates upward more efficiently. The average cost of materials is about $6 per square foot. A geothermal heating system uses a pump to transfer underground heat from the natural warmth of the earth into your home.
Lighting
Again, lighting doesn't seem like a glamorous feature, but it affects the entire mood and ambience of your home. You can't really show it off as an obvious centerpiece, but it will show itself off by creating an unbeatable atmosphere in your home. Lighting is everything. Consider installing a state-of-the-art lighting system that you can control at the touch of a button. You can customize these systems so that you can turn off what you want to when you want to. You can even program it to automatically switch to certain lighting programs at different times of the day. Auto-motion sensors can take care of areas in the home where energy gets wasted because lights are left on in places like hallways, entryways, the backyard, flood lights, etc. The average cost to install one of these systems is between about $2,900 and $3,500.
Smart Home System
While you are considering automated systems, why not install a system that takes care of everything, not just the lights? A whole-home automation system, or smart home system, can be programmed to run your lighting system, alarm and security system, HVAC system, appliances, internet access, a whole-home Bluetooth wireless system, a sound system, and even your irrigation system. The average cost of a smart home system is between $1,000 and $4,000 per room.
Contact a custom luxury home builder near you to learn more.
Share