Five ways to add wow factor to your self-build home

Building a house is like designing a custom car, we all want to show it off. And when you talk about the wow factor, you want your guests to be inspired, surprised, and even stunned when they first enter your new home. There are many unique ideas to make a home stand out from the crowd, but to save you some time with sifting through Pinterest, we have designed a list of five ways to add wow factor to your self-build home.

Increase the height

When you want to add some wow factor to your self-build, increasing the size or height of certain spaces can make a big difference. Most rooms will have a standard ceiling height of 2.4m, but if you’re feeling confident, why not raise these to 3m high? These higher ceilings are common in Georgian-style houses and can really open up a room, visually and physically. Some people may see a bigger space as an opportunity to add more stuff, but building a bigger space to create a more minimalist look can also be as effective.

Other ideas include drop floors and double height spaces, but you need to make sure not to make a space too tall or too wide. Doing this can sometimes make the space less aesthetically pleasing to the eye, so be careful about how big you want to go.

Use construction to your advantage

Rather than viewing the construction of your house as something to cover up, revealing the structure can become an interior design element, killing two birds with one stone. Let’s say you want to build your roof out of oak wood, just expose the trusses for a jaw-dropping ceiling effect. Or an exposed brick wall is another great option for some extra structural wow-factor. This may be more of a growing trend, but we love the fact that a somewhat “ordinary” feature can become a real focal point of a home.

Think Like A Child

Let your creative juices flow, think outside the box, see through the eyes of a child, we could carry on with inspirational phrases but you get the idea. There are so many unique concepts to add a bit of fun to your home, whether you have kids or if you’re just a child trapped in an adult’s body. Here’s a few for you;

- A spiral staircase surrounded by a slide from top to bottom

- A hammock over the stairs to keep your friends hanging around

- A kitchen table that transforms into a pool table or table tennis table, perfect for a post-dinner game to make room for dessert

- Hanging chairs around a dining table

- An indoor treehouse

- Magnetic walls that you can draw on and erase

The list is endless, but most of these examples help to make an ordinary space or object just a bit more fun. And they don’t need to take over a room either, they can be more hidden or subtle to add a little youthful touch.

Mood Lighting

It’s date night and you’ve cooked up your signature coconut curry. Before sitting down, you subtly use your phone to change the lighting in the dining room to a more romantic setting. This is a somewhat stereotypical example of mood lighting but with an automated smart home system, the ability to control the mood via your phone adds some extra wow factor to the experience.

You can have different settings for different occasions; movie night, party vibes, reading a book, a creative space, deadlines to meet etc. All of which can also include different colours of light, such as a red hue for romance, or a blue hue for relaxation. And through an automated system, each room can be controlled independently, allowing for complete peace of mind. This also applies to more than just lighting, as more and more aspects of our homes gain the ability to connect to the internet, the options for smart technology and adding some extra wow-factor to your home are exploding.

Combine Heavy and Light Material

External structures play a large visual part in the overall look of your home, and by combining a visually heavy material with a visually light material, a powerful effect is born. For example, heavy masonry combined with a light timber cladding can form a somewhat delicate feel to the house, as if the masonry is cradling the timber. This contrast is very simple but can really add some wow factor to the appearance of your self-build.

The combination of heavy and light materials can also be used internally for subtle interior design elements. Let’s say you install a marble kitchen top and connect a round rotating table made from recycled dark wood at the end of it. This can create an interesting contrast between the old and the new.

All of the above ideas are a combination of external features and interior design elements because what your house looks like on the outside is just as important as what it looks like on the inside. We hope these concepts can aid you in creating some amazing living spaces, and just remember that there is nothing holding you back from designing something that has never been done before. This is the exciting part of the journey, so embrace your creativity and see what you can do with the wow factor.