You’ve secured the perfect lot, dotted with mature oak and maple trees. You can already picture a lush bed of grass in the backyard stretching beyond the south-facing balcony that’s perfect for enjoying early morning coffees and a late-night glass of chardonnay. But how big is that balcony and the Okanagan custom home behind it going to be?

As custom home designers with decades of experience, we know how to help you scale up or scale down your dream home into a build that meets your needs.

Here are our four tips to help you determine the perfect size for your Okanagan custom home.

1. Think about your current home

Have you caught yourself thinking about how you’d improve your current home? Take note of the things that you like in your current home and the things you’d love to change. These detailed notes are a great starting point for designing your custom home.

When you start to dream of the possibilities in your custom home, ask yourself:

• Is your current home spacious enough? Is it too big?
• Is the yard maintenance too much? Or would you prefer to spend more time maintaining the property?
• Does your current home meet your needs now? What about your future needs? Do you have plans to grow your family? Are your children getting ready to move out? Do you have an elderly parent that you may want to care for at home?

These questions can help you determine the ideal size of your Okanagan custom home.

2. Make the most of your favourite living spaces

Do you dream of Sunday mornings in an expansive master bedroom and ensuite overlooking the lake? How important is storage for your skiing and snowboarding equipment? When deciding on the size of your Okanagan custom home, it’s important to consider how you use your favourite living spaces.

To help you get started, the National Association of Home Builders released a study about the amount of space that you should allocate to each room in your home. On average, the study found:

• The master bedroom takes up 11 percent of the space in your home
• Other bedrooms come in around 17 percent of the total space
• The master bathroom takes up 6 percent of the layout
• The kitchen and dining space target roughly 20 percent of the space
• A laundry room functions best when it takes up about 4 percent of the home
• And the other living spaces (like the family or living room, office space, and entryway) takes up the remaining 42 percent

3. Consider your lifestyle

Your lifestyle is one of the biggest contributors to designing and sizing your perfect Okanagan custom home. If you work from home, you’ll want an office with inspiring views, plenty of space, and easy access to other amenities in your home.

If you love spending time in the gym, you could set aside some space for a fully equipped home gym. Love to cook? A full-sized gourmet kitchen is a great investment.

Your home is your sanctuary. Designing an Okanagan custom home that matches your lifestyle is the best way to create a home that you love.

4. Master the layout

Once you’ve created a list of all your must-haves, it’s time to hire a professional designer that can turn your building dreams into reality.

At LesBellamy design Group, we take your considerations and turn them into an Okanagan custom home that’s perfectly sized and suited to your lifestyle.