Luxury isn't a price point but in the details. A luxurious home pays attention to the small touches and breaks free of the generic. With careful interior design and architecture choices, the homeowner creates a one-of-a-kind experience that reflects their refined personal taste and style.
If you are looking to upgrade your home to create a sense of luxury, we can help you figure out where to start. No matter where you choose to focus your energy, remember to pay attention to the details. An old, vintage family heirloom can be as luxurious as a new table purchased from a high-end designer if it is treated with the same level of attentiveness.
Make your home feel more luxurious by:
Repainting the exterior
How things look is important, and when it comes to the impression your home makes, it starts with the outside. A luxurious home implies cleanliness and care from the first moment you see it, whether passing on the street or pulling into the drive.
Make the exterior look new! Updating the paint freshens the entire look of your home. In some cases, your home's exterior color palette could be making it look dated. Choosing new exterior colors with a contemporary color scheme can elevate a home's style. When selecting exterior paint, always lean on quality brands for a better finish and durability.
However, if it is not possible to repaint, such as due to the materials used on the home's exterior, you can still refresh the look with pressure washing. This will remove years of accumulated dirt, pollen, and mildew while erasing any wall stains from water drainage. It's amazing how pressure washing can revitalize the exterior surfaces of a home.
Refresh your landscaping
The luxury feel begins with the curb appeal and outdoors. A fresh, well-maintained landscape implicitly suggests this is a home cared for and maintained.
With the help of some bright seasonal flowers and lush garden beds, you can create curb appeal. Trim back any trees, pressure-wash stone paver walls, and repaint any fencing. If you're keen to create an environmentally friendly landscape that can withstand Fort Worth's intense seasonal changes, use drought-tolerant and native plants. Consider using perennial plants to reduce the amount of yearly labor in maintaining your landscaping. Keep up with regular mulching.
The lighting around your landscape and outdoor garden contribute to the luxury impression. A home needs well-lit pathways, patio lighting, and front entrances. The fixtures contribute to the style of the home, so select a contemporary fixture that matches the design scheme.
Cleanliness and symmetry are hallmarks of luxury landscaping. Even when taking inspiration from wild English gardens, there are still defined areas in the gardening. Add paver or stone garden walls or pathways to create a sense of organization in the landscape. These finishing touches add a sense of symmetry to the garden area.
Add a Paver Drive
A paver drive is welcoming and luxurious, a well-known upgrade from standard concrete or asphalt driveway. They're also easier to maintain compared to concrete surfaces and will last for many years. The different shapes and styles enable you to select a unique pattern that distinguishes your home from the others in the neighborhood.
When selecting a suitable paver for your house, keep in mind:
- What type of driveway do you want to recreate: There are a lot of paver material choices, such as limestone, rubber, flagstone, bluestone travertine, plastic, and marble. Before you make a choice, you should carefully research the options.
- What are the goals of a paver drive: Some paver installationshave better water drainage, while others require more maintenance. For instance, brick easily wears down, whereas authentic bluestone is hard to find and costs more.
- What is most important to you:The various options you have with a paver driveway mean you'll need to weigh factors like eco-friendliness, curb appeal, cost, durability, and maintenance.
Paver drives are far more impressionable to the eyes than regular concrete, helping elevate your home's curb appeal and exterior impression.
Use only high-end hardware
High-end hardware is one way to give your home luxurious finishing touches. Again, this is about the details. Swapping these small components elevates a home from generic to luxurious.
While these small details may not immediately stand out to your visitors or home buyers, they help form a cohesive impression that this residence is not ordinary. Doorknobs are a perfect example of areas people notice. Switching to a customized handle in your front entrance, kitchen, or guest bathroom, adds that small touch that elevates the interior style.
Upgrade the hardware in different areas of your home. For example, a brass-plated door handle, gold-plated faucets, or vintage cabinet locker heads. Today's designers have knobs and handles that match every personal sense of style, from the minimalist to the ornate.
Add layering to the interior design
A layered look creates a sumptuous environment, appealing to the senses in unexpected ways. Layering can be accomplished through color choices, patterns, and textures. The main goal is to add dimension and character to a room. One designer described it as "making inviting and memorable environments" through unexpected pairing.
How can you add layers to a room?
- Layer to with textures. Start with the floor and move upward. Carefully select a textured woven or faux fur rug, add a plush throw blanket over a sofa arm, include textured throw pillows, and hang wall art with a textured look. You can also try textured wallpaper to add more dimension to the room.
- Layer objects, like carefully chosen books reflecting your interests and travels. Add candles, sculptures, antiques, or family objects.
- Layer with colors, selecting a palette that matches the feeling you'd like to create. For a relaxing space, start with calming neutrals and build from there.
- Play with patterns. Add a blanket with a Native American pattern and contrast it with other geometric patterns, such as in the rug or a striped chair. Be careful not to overdo the patterns; compliment the pieces with natural elements.
- Mix the old and the new. Take a vintage buffet and add a new, marbled top. Hang a decorative chandelier and place modern furniture underneath.
The key to pulling off layering without it looking cluttering is to find a unifying element. For instance, if you're playing with patterns, stay within the same color palette.
Pay attention to lighting
Not every room needs an ornate chandelier, but a luxurious home does work to create well-lit spaces using thoughtfully chosen lighting. When it comes to choosing lighting for the various areas in your home, consider factors like:
- Personal style. Select lighting fixtures that match the interior design you've chosen.
- Uniqueness. One-of-a-kind crafted lamps and scones add that sense of exclusivity.
- Finishes. Metallic finishes have a more luxurious feel to them, as do fine crystal or gold leaf embellishments.
- Scale. Not every lighting element needs a grand, oversized light fixture, but it may be appropriate in your entrance, the stairwell, or the dining room. Cathedral or lifted ceilings are especially appropriate for a carefully chosen lighting piece with dimension and uniqueness.
The first place guests will see of your home is the foyer. Start the luxury impression here with carefully chosen lighting. The second will be the gathering places in the house, such as the living room or kitchen.
Luxurious homes play up natural light, but in smaller spaces, that may not be possible. Balance the room with mirrors that can make small, dark spaces feel larger and brighter.
Neutral color palettes are the best
Go for a neutral color palette in your interior design style. Neutral colors serve as a balance and control for pops of color and help create a luxury statement. They are easy to adapt to various personal styles and tastes, should you decide to sell your home in the future. Layering neutrals in a monochromatic scheme can look and feel high-end.
Neutral doesn't always mean shying away from bolder choices, like black. One contemporary home design trend is the use of black in kitchens, such as all-black cabinetry or black tiling.
Invest more in statement pieces
If you decide to invest in art, make sure to choose statement pieces. These are unique, eye-catching pieces that draw the eye in. Your statement piece should reflect your taste and style. It doesn't have to be wall art but could be a sculpture, ornate sofa, or patterned rug. Statement pieces have something special about them, such as scale, color, or pattern.
Statement art pieces enable you to build your furniture choices around the piece. Alternatively, you could selectively use furniture that feels like a statement piece and properly layer around it.
Create space
One of the easiest ways to make your home feel more luxurious is by opening the spaces. Whether you achieve this through decluttering, rearranging, or investing in clever storage depends on your personal situation and the use of the room. Luxurious homes feel spacious, and how you choose to arrange the furniture and the scale of pieces used to decorate it contributes to that feeling.
Another idea to create space is to replace your doors to blend the outdoors with indoors. If you replace windows with traditional patio doors, it can make a room appear larger and add more natural light into a space.
Imitate architectural details
Many homes built in the Fort Worth suburbs were built from a few sets of the same architectural plans. Luxury homes are unique because they have personalized and customized building plans. You can imitate architectural details to differentiate your home and create a luxury look. Upgrade your exterior porch or stair railings with new spindles. Pay attention to the look of your columns and along the roof. Enhance the look with corbels, if appropriate.
On the interior, you can add faux wainscotting or built-in shelving. Add ceiling beams or ceiling plates that draw the eye upward. Other unique details can be added, like paneled walls and crown molding.
Creating luxury in your home
As you can see, luxury is about noticing the small elements of your home to create an experience. The details in your home come together to create an exclusive feeling not found in anyone else's home. Small changes, like swapping builder-installed cabinetry knobs to cleaning the exterior brick, can make a difference in how your home feels and looks. For more ideas on how to elevate your home, consult with the Chicotsky Real Estate Group.
