When you have a young family, you want to have a house that will adapt to your growing family for years to come. Whether buying a home or home building for yourself, consider these features that will accommodate you, your spouse, and your kids over time.
Let’s Start With Location
There are a few key aspects of a home’s location to pay attention to when you have kids or plan to in the near future:
- Traffic safety. Are there plenty of sidewalks and yard space for children to play on? How busy is the road–will it be safe for them to ride bikes and scooters? Before buying, get a good idea of the neighborhood’s traffic flow and walkability. Planned communities developed by production builders are generally great for street safety since community planners carefully consider that when designing a neighborhood.
- School zoning. If you plan to send your kids to public school, check the ratings of the schools zoned for each district to which you consider moving. Your realtor can help you determine which school your lot is zoned for since the zones sometimes aren’t clear. These statistics are easily found online and can significantly impact your kids’ education. Understanding the ratings can help you plan for the future – for instance, if the elementary and middle schools are great, but the high school has a poor rating, you can plan to send your kids to a private high school and start saving for that expense early.
Considering Layout When Home Building
The layout of your home affects the flow of your daily life. A good layout can make life easier; one that doesn’t suit your needs can be frustrating.
- Floor plan. Young parents want to see their kids at all times so they can easily monitor their play while doing things like cooking or cleaning. Open floor plans and lots of windows make it possible to keep an eye on your little ones from almost any vantage point on the lower level, whether they are inside or outside.
- Number of bedrooms. Depending on how many children you plan to have, you may want to look for more than the standard three bedrooms. After all, with one room for you and your partner and one room as a guest bedroom, that leaves you with just one room for a nursery. You quickly run out of space for other activities–a home office, a workout area, a game room, etc. If you plan to have a couple of kids, consider a house with four or five bedrooms.
- Storage. You need a house with as much storage as you can get when planning for kids. Not only are there extra clothes and toys, but you also need to plan for extra pantry and fridge space, garage space, and toiletries space.
Convenience and Cleanliness
Kids come with a lot of mess, but your home can work for you to keep it minimized. A mudroom gives you a small, easy-to-clean space for everyone in your family to drop their dirty clothes and muddy shoes before the grime gets tracked through the rest of the house. If you can afford it, you might consider two laundry rooms – one in the mudroom to drop dirty clothes into and one upstairs so that you don’t have to lug loads of laundry downstairs and back up to the bedrooms.
West Coast Design Build Florida is an expert team of home design and installation experts, specializing in bathrooms, kitchens, and outdoor areas.
