FIXTURES & FINISHES
A home for life
Mike Lord of Stiltz explains why more and more self-builders are choosing to future-proof their homes by including a ‘homelift’
B
uilding your dream home can be a fantastically rewarding process. This is why, according to studies by the National Custom & Self Build Association, around seven million people every year research or plan how to build a home.
THE ‘FOREVER’ HOME
For many – once the self-build is complete – the new house quickly becomes their ‘forever home’. As they have no intention of moving again, they explore ways of future-proofing their properties. A self-build is a sizeable financial and emotional investment, so pivotal to its success is ensuring that the house continues to address a number of practical and functional needs, throughout the whole of its owners’ lives. Factoring in features which enable future-proofing at an early stage is essential in this type of project, to allow the end product to be a multi-functional, fully accessible living environment. This avoids downsizing or making adaptations later on in life.
A ‘MEANINGFUL’ SELF-BUILD
Aside from the initial ground work of finding land, securing planning permission and getting services to site,
january/february 2019
the majority of self-builders do tend to be much more involved in the creative process, than the laying of individual bricks. They are often interested in how the finished result will help achieve their personal goals.
Thinking about what is most important to them, playing to their strengths, and setting small but achievable goals is just the beginning. Designing a house to respond favourably to the changing climates of an entire lifetime is often a great challenge, but it will also be a colossal benefit once the project is completed.
THE HOMELIFT – THE NEW HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME
One increasingly popular way of creating a home which offers its occupants complete freedom and independence across the ages, is by incorporating a ‘homelift.’ This defies the ageing process, as your home is fit for purpose whatever your life circumstances. The relatively new concept of having a ‘real’ lift in the home – as opposed to a traditional old-fashioned stairlift – has been around for about a decade, with manufacturers offering various types of homelifts from traction to hydraulic and vacuum lifts – but these all came at a
financial as well as aesthetic cost. Thanks to advances in technology, the new generation of homelifts are now much more affordable, and provide homeowners with a way of significantly enhancing their lifestyle opportunities as well as adding value to their home. Modern homelifts look great too. Gone are the days of square, boxy lifts, which looked more suited to a hospital ward than your living room. Today’s homelifts, right from the drawing board, are designed to work indoors, blending in with your home and lifestyle. Design has been considered and explored at the research and development stage, and there is much focus on customer satisfaction in terms of the final product being visually desirable, as well offering an alternative way to move around the home.
Some manufacturers have
concentrated their efforts on making a homelift range complement the décor of the house, rather than seeming alien to its surroundings. Lift companies are realising that there is now high demand for a finished product which not only ‘does the job’ but is also stylish and attractive in its own right. The beauty of one of these new generation homelifts is that they can be
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