Your vacation home is meant to serve as a getaway from the pressures of daily life and enjoy peace, activities, family and friends. The key to finding that serenity is creating a space that supports how you want to live there. Designing for functionality and style is just as important in your vacation abode as it is in your primary home.
Designing A Vacation Home: FLOW
The way you live in your vacation home may be drastically different than your everyday space. Planning for how you and your guests will function in the space will make being there much less stressful. Will there be a lot of time spent outdoors doing activities? Design a landing spot oriented around managing the associated equipment. Will you be entertaining large crowds in your kitchen? Design an area for guests to congregate out of the way of the cook. Planning to host friends or family sleepovers? Design sleeping spaces that can flex for large and small crowds alike. Creating a vacation home that supports your lifestyle will allow everyone, including you, to enjoy their time there.
Designing A Vacation Home: WEAR AND TEAR
Many times vacation homes serve as entertainment spaces for wet or muddy people who do not necessarily enter through the main door. Pool, lake or beach home? Plan for seating that will not be affected by wet butts. Ski home? Create a landing area that manages tracked-in snow. Farm home? Design your floors to hide dirt and mud. Typically, you will be there for a weekend or a week or two at a time. Who wants to worry about upkeep and maintenance? Choosing materials that support your planned activities will allow you to enjoy your space practically worry free.
There are many specialty fabrics that resist stains and can stand up to heavy use. Unlike the traditional fabric finishes we are all used to, these materials are either made with a hearty fiber or have a treatment that is applied that binds at a molecular level to resist water and stains. With this new technology, there is no need for your couch, bar stools or dining chairs to be trashed after the first year!
Appropriate flooring material is particularly essential in a vacation home where outdoor activities are central to the experience. For the most part, we suggest avoiding hardwood floors unless you plan to place hearty rugs on them. Hiding dirt and managing water are usually two essentials in vacation home flooring. If tile is deemed the best solution, it may be necessary to consider slip-resistant varieties to keep wet feet on the ground.
Designing A Vacation Home: EXPRESS YOUR STYLE IN A DIFFERENT WAY
Think of your vacation home as an opportunity to do something different! It may be that you admire another interior design style, or your vacation home is in a new area that supports a different look. An interior designer can serve as an advisor to help you stay true to your personal style while expressing it in a different way.
Designing A Vacation Home: RESOURCES
Vacation homes are usually far from the interior design resources you are accustomed to. At Hoskins Interior Design, we have assisted many clients with creating another home from a distance. We have experience working from photos or plans and at finding quality service providers from afar. This first-hand knowledge of what it takes to design a far-away home allows us to be efficient with our time and help ensure our clients get the service and quality they expect the first time.
It is particularly easy to help our existing clients design vacation homes because we already know what is important to them. We save time by being able to skip the “getting to know you” part and delving right into the project. We recently helped a Zionsville client design their Florida home. Their furniture and materials did not need to be the quality we used in their primary home. Working from pictures and floor plans, we were able to help them choose the design elements that would support that style and how they wanted to live in their new space. We were then able to locate a local receiver in Florida who offered white-glove delivery services. They inspected each item as it arrived and held everything we ordered until we were ready for delivery, rather than delivering each piece as it arrived. The process was more efficient for our clients, saving them a lot of hassle.
It’s funny how some people are committed to involving an interior designer in the development of their main home but forego those services for their vacation home. The same value an expert in design lends to your family home project is still needed to make any other houses serve your needs. Ensuring that you invest your budget well, include the functionality that suits how you live, and create a style that reflects you and your family, are important in every home you own. You are making the same kinds of choices when designing a vacation home, though they may be different in budget, wear and tear needs and expected lifestyle. It is always smart to make good decisions, saving you time and protecting your investment!
If you are considering buying or building a vacation home, remember there is no need to handle that large project on your own. An interior designer local to you that has experience working from a distance can make the experience less stressful and ensure you end up with a home you love. Questions? Send us an email or give us a call at 317.253.8986.
