How to create a home to weather all seasons
From cosy corners that can easily convert in the warmer months, to turning up the heat in the winter for adaptable, outdoor entertaining, let’s make your home enjoyable all year long!
It’s all in the design
Let’s start with the most important tip, the design. It’s best to work with your builder to find a design you like that also reflects the climate of the area. For colder climates like Victoria, smaller spaces and low ceilings can help keep the warmth in and keep the cold air out. While for warmer climates like Queensland, it’s better to opt for higher ceilings for added ventilation and an open-plan space for a breeze to flow through, helping to keep your new home cooler in summer.
However, with all great design, anything is possible. So, if you love the look of higher ceilings but live in a cool area, it doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all. There are ways around it and a skilled builder can help you use window alignments, insulation and heating or cooling options to your advantage. This means you can still live in the house of your dreams while staying warm in winter and cool in summer.
Work with styling
Styling may sound like an art form, but with a few ideas up your sleeve, it’s easy to transform a space all year round. Take for example, a study nook or a window ledge. This can easily be styled with a jewel tone or cool toned rug, a fluffy blanket, a few pillows and a good book, for a cosy reading nook in the winter. The same area can then be transformed with a woven rug and light-coloured pillows in the summer for a Hamptons-style-sitting area, or a little nook to simply enjoy a coffee or smoothie in the morning. It’s the same area, just re-imagined!
Get crafty with outdoor entertaining
We all love a summer BBQ in the great outdoors, they are almost embedded in our DNA! But what about an all-year round outdoor area? In winter, you can still enjoy your outdoor entertainment space by using a portable gas heater or installing outdoor blinds. Gas heaters are an easy way to enjoy the great outdoors in the cooler months and outdoor blinds are a great go-to for keeping warmth in. Plus, depending on your choice, outdoor blinds can even help keep insects and the rain out during summer, which really is a win-win.
Consider blinds
Both blinds and shutters trap the heat in, so they’re a great way to keep your home cosy in winter and cool in summer. In warm weather, blinds can be used to block out the sun and in winter they can prevent heat from escaping, plus they can be installed almost anywhere (both internally and externally). Best of all, they don’t need to be expensive. There’s a wide range of affordable yet stylish blinds and shutters on the market.
We’re big fans of fans
Fans are an easy and affordable way to keep your home (and its residents) happy all year-round. Not only will they help save on energy costs, but they also create less emissions than an air conditioner – on average, an air conditioner can generate up to 70 per cent more emissions than a fan, so you’ll be helping the environment and your hip pocket.
You might have noticed some fans have two settings for winter and summer, but how does it work? A fan can make a room feel up to 8 degrees cooler in summer, because it pushes air down and creates a wind-chill, by spinning anti-clockwise. While in winter, a fan will spin clockwise which does the opposite and pushes the air up, this distributes the heat and makes it warmer.
Heating up the bathroom
Stepping out of the shower during winter can be a hard feat, and while rugs can help soften the blow, it’s worth checking out your options. A heat lamp exhaust fan is a great way to extract the stream from the shower but keep some warmth in the bathroom during those cool months. A skilled electrician can wire them up in the bathroom and they sit flush in the ceiling with your lights, so they won’t be an eye-sore either! This option, along with a regular exhaust fan for summer, is a great way to enjoy even the smallest room of the house all year round.
These are just a few of the ways you can build a house that’ll weather all seasons, all year round. We work collaboratively with leading builders to help you create the home of your dreams. For more information or to enquire and get started on your brand-new home, reach out to us here.