The heart of any custom home build as luxury home builders knows, is the kitchen and entertaining area, and a further welcoming extension of these areas is the alfresco area. The alfresco area has become increasingly popular in a prestige home build and is certainly almost always on top of our client’s wish list for their knock down rebuild.
You may be planning on building in a Whitehorse City Council suburb such as; Blackburn or Box Hill South, or a City of Boroondara suburb such as; Canterbury, Glen Iris or Camberwell. Regardless of location, we all love getting outdoors and to have an extra space to socialise and relax in, in any type of weather is highly sought after and almost considered a non-negotiable by a prestige home builder!
The term alfresco, is an Italian word and is roughly defined as ‘in the open air’. It conjures up feelings of relaxation, festivities and a party like atmosphere.
What should a building designer include in an alfresco for their clients? Well, the choices are endless and of course depend on what each client feels are important. Such considerations include how often the space will be enjoyed and if year-round use is desired or just use in the warmer months. We will present some factors you should take into consideration for your alfresco in your custom home build.
An outdoor kitchen
This can be as simple as a BBQ, to a fully equipped kitchen and everything in between. Our building designer has included plumbed gas barbeques, rangehoods (usually an essential in an undercover area) pizza ovens, smokers, sinks and bar fridges.
Lighting
This is an important consideration as lighting is often not thought of in the early stages of the design process. The use of dimmer switches on your down lights in the alfresco area is crucial to provide a softer glow as the sun sets on your festivities. Good lighting around your BBQ and bench areas are helpful for food preparation and cooking. A nice finishing touch can be adding fairy lights in your alfresco area.
Weather-proofing the space
If your desire is to spend all year round outside in your alfresco, you will find adding touches like a ceiling fan for the warmer months and hardwired heating strips for the cooler months will be most appreciated. An outdoor fireplace certainly creates a beautiful ambience in the space when the temperature drops. Another consideration is the use of ziptrack blinds to ensure more warmth stays in, in winter and the mosquitos and the rain are kept out during summer.
Connection of the indoors with the outdoors
Our building designer will work with you to ensure there is a seamless flow and connection from indoors to outdoors. This can be achieved with the use of bifold or stacking doors, allowing a feeling of being in the one living space. A kitchen servery window, in the form of a bi-fold window can be a welcome addition to add to the design of your alfresco to allow for ease when entertaining in the alfresco area from the kitchen and allow for stress free entertaining
Aesthetics
The ceiling of the alfresco being constructed as part of the main roof structure is a very polished and sophisticated look and allows for protection from the elements. This can be taken one step further with the presence of a raked ceiling which can have quite the impact with the welcome addition of VJ panelling to create a focal point to the area, particularly in a hamptons style home. This also helps create an oversized and luxurious feel to your custom home build.
Orientation
A distinct advantage of using a custom home builder, is the ability to ensure you get the most out of your alfresco based on the orientation of your backyard, working around barriers to relaxed living such as the westerly afternoon sun.
All this planning and early discussion with your custom home builder will ensure the alfresco area that you have always dreamt about for your luxury home build, will now become a reality. Please contact us here if you wish to discuss your knock down rebuild project with us.
