Updating Your Custom Home to Change with your Family: Part 2 of Reinventing Space in your Custom-Built Home
As explored in the Re-inventing Space in your Custom-Built Home blog two weeks earlier, keeping the “custom” in a custom-built home dictates updates to grow and change along with the needs of the homeowners and family. One beautiful lakefront home built nearly 13 years earlier to the homeowners’ then specifications has seen two complimentary updates over the last 2 years to keep the house current with their changing family lifestyle. As their two children outgrew a playroom and the family desired more flexibility and sophistication than their basic finished basement amenities afforded, they completely transformed their lowest level to a lake-accessible, entertainer’s dream.
Their next project was a little trickier, as their teenage son and daughter needed more private living space than their initial Jack-and-Jill traditional bathroom provided. Additionally, they had underestimated storage and closet space for teenage children. The challenge was to carve out space within the confines of the existing 2nd level floor-plan, which would allow for an additional bathroom and more spacious and functional closets in the bedrooms. This is where Colby Construction Custom Home Builder’s expertise was invaluable, collaborating with the homeowners’ vision to creatively reimagine the existing space, identifying both underutilized and “dead” spaces. The result was exceptional, in step with the design and décor of this well-planned home, and sure to address any future space and privacy needs of their children.
Prior to the re-design, the teens each had their own vanity and sink, the daughter’s adjacent to her room and the son’s across the hall, which then opened into a joint shower/toilet area. They separated the Jack & Jill bath by sealing off the entrance from the son’s vanity and eliminating the doorway from the daughter’s vanity, refreshing the existing bathroom to create a spacious, en-suite bathroom for the daughter.
In addition, shelves and drawers were introduced in her new private bathroom opposite the vanity, serving as a dresser and bathroom storage by carving into her bedroom closet.
The son’s bathroom incorporated his existing vanity space and took over two underutilized hall closets. Additionally, the “dead” space of a dormer was used to create a closet in his new bathroom.
With little extra effort beyond the necessary construction of the re-design, the homeowners thoughtfully personalized the bathrooms with tile, lighting and colors to reflect the different personality and preference of each child.
The last challenge of this redesign was to expand the daughter’s closet, which was already undersized for teenage clothes and then suffered a reduction with the space allotment for the bathroom’s storage. The solution was to reclaim space from above the garage that served as underutilized attic space. The door at the end of the closet provides easier access than the prior design to the remaining attic space. The end result was a spacious walk-in closet with double the storage/clothes capacity of her original closet.
Families embarking on a custom home project typically encounter at least a few lifestyle changes over the years that create challenges with the originally imagined spaces. Custom home builders are excellent consultants on how to keep your custom home “custom” throughout the years. Homeowners should not be intimidated from additional projects on their dream home, but be energized to create new ways to reimagine their home, adapting to the changing lifestyles of cherished family and future uses.