July 15, 2008

Home Design Plans - Ways To get Your Own Home Design Plans

Filed under: Home Design — smvpune @ 11:02 am

If you are looking for custom made home design plans, then many publishers have thier own publications, which contain a variety of home design plans that cater to a variety of situations.

Many times special publications are printed with blue prints for a a particular type of building type such as

1) Independent bungalows
2) Homes on sloping grounds
3) Apartment plans
4) Single or multi-storied home buildings
5) Farm houses / cottages.
6) Log homes

These home design plans can be further categorized by number of rooms such as single bedroom, double bedroom, etc. These home plans are crated by professional architectural firms that are experience in designing and executing home buildings for a quite number of years.

Thus finding out home design plans is easy once you know what you are looking for. However sometimes it is possible that even after going through all the home design plans in the books, that you are not satisfied with their style of designs and overall architectural theme. In that case you will have to hire a professional architect to do the job for you.

Amazon.com is one of the biggest marketplaces for all sorts of books. Click Here to view their entire catalogue of home plan books.

Learn more about home design and other home decorating principles at my website

July 13, 2008

Energy Efficient Home Design

Filed under: Home Design — smvpune @ 3:47 am

Every home building requires satisfactory functioning of building services so that the occupants of the home can live a luxurious life. If all the services are working in proper condition, then only one can enjoy a pleasant stay in the building.

Normally there are many services that are running simultaneously in a home building. Some of these services are

1) Plumbing system
2) Electric supply
3) Drainage system
4) Air conditioning
5) Security systems

All these systems are a necessary component of every habitable architectural space. There are many ways to make a home building energy efficient by using simple techniques. Let’s have a look at a few examples and see how easy it is to go for energy efficient home design.

Example 1>

Let’s say that you have a backyard garden around your home and the home plot has a slope towards front yard. That mean the backyard level is higher than the front yard level as compared to the road level.

Now it is a wise decision to build a small water tank in the front margin of the home. This could be a sunken tank so that it does not appear as a visual obstruction. This water tank can be used to collect extra rainwater, which flows naturally towards front yard because of the pull of gravity.

This will serve two purposes. You will save electricity by not using a pump. Secondly you can use a system called as “rain water harvesting” to recycle the rainwater and reuse for toilets and other drainage purposes.

Example 2>

Let’s say that your master bedroom is facing the direct, which receives direct sunlight. In that case you can plant tall trees on the edge so that they cut off direct harsh sunlight. This will greatly reduce your need of using an air-conditioner cutting off your electricity bill.

Another way of cutting direct sunlight is to design the windows in an inclined manner so that the sides of the windows  (like a bay window) cut off most of the sunlight and instead can shadows on the adjacent wall to keep the external wall surface cooler.

These were just two small examples of what can be done to adopt an energy efficient home design solution. Many more options can be easily designed if enough attention is given at the actual site details of the home building.

Learn more about various aspects of home design at my website.

July 10, 2008

Exterior Home Design Ideas

Filed under: Home Design — smvpune @ 8:28 am

When it comes to designing a home building every architect takes into consideration not just interior spaces but the exterior surrounding areas of the plot as well. This is because every architectural building whether it is a home building or any other building type such as a commercial complex always has s relation to outside environment.

This is where exterior home design ideas come into picture. To clearly explain the importance of exterior home design let’s take an example of a home building where a family of four will live.

The family includes husband, wife and two kids along with Grandfather and Grandmother. They own two cars and of the two kids one has an MTB (Mountain Terrain Bike) and the other one is a teenager who owns a Motorcycle. All these vehicles must have their own parking space. So the architects design their own parking spaces adjacent to each other. Location of these parking lots plays an important part in entire home design. When the husband parks the car where he enters the home must be thought befor placing the positions of the parking lots.

Now grandfather loves gardening and likes to watch the garden from interiors when he’s having Tea at the dining table. So the position of the garden with respect to the entire home plan plays a major role too.

So it is quite clear that any independent home plan has two aspects attached to it, the interiors and the exteriors. The lifestyles if the people who will be using the home play a major role in how the architect handles the positioning of different spaces while design the home plan.

Exterior home design may include planning of various spaces as well as external appearance of the building as well. Some of the design elements where the architect may provide extra attention can be put together as follows.

1) Garden design and its position as per the requirement of the design
2) Pathways and driveways
3) Front yard and backyard landscaping gardens
4) Treatment on the external walls of the home building such as cladding.
5) Treatments on the roof of the building
6) Size and shape of the roof itself. Size and shape of the roof can dramatically alter the home design appearance.
7) External home design color schemes.
8) External lighting design.
9) Planning of building services such as drainage, electricity, water supply, HVAC, etc.
10) External elevation treatments such as “bay window” creation or erecting non-structural walls for the sake of visual balance. Such kind of treatment is sometimes used in areas where temperatures are extremely high so they cast shadows on the adjacent wall surfaces to keep the surface cool.

Thus external home design ideas depend entirely and change as per the home plan and particular requirements of every home building.

To learn more about home design visit my website.