Small upgrades can go a long way toward enhancing the look and feel of your home. If you’re interested in elevating your home’s style with a more luxurious ambiance, there are several ways that you can achieve this. These ten tricks will take your interior up a notch, making it a more comfortable space to live in and more valuable property should the time come to sell.

Upgraded Flooring

interior design - design elementsHigh-quality flooring will enhance your home’s appearance in an instant. If you’re not concerned about cost, marble, and mosaic ceramic tiles are among the most elegant options. For something that feels a bit warmer, hardwood flooring is a timeless choice. Consider reclaimed hardwood for floors with real character. Terracotta tiles offer another warm, homey option with a rustic touch. For added luxury, consider installing heated floors in areas you typically tread on with bare feet, such as the bathroom and bedroom.

Freestanding Tub and Separate Shower

Separating your tub and shower creates the feel of an upscale spa. It allows you to specifically cater to both bathing and showering experiences. A deep soaking tub is perfect for long periods of relaxation, and you can add thoughtful details such as handy shelving for a book or beverage, a reachable towel rack, or a skylight to combine good illumination with privacy.

Enhance your shower with rainfall showerheads, body jets, and LED mood lighting. You can even turn a glass shower stall into a steam room with the addition of built-in seating and a slightly sloped ceiling to keep condensation from escaping.

Acoustic Panels

Acoustic panels instantly improve your home theater by enhancing sound quality. Sound waves bounce off hard surfaces, creating an unpleasant reverberation that muddies your listening experience. Acoustic panels absorb sound waves to minimize echo and create a cleaner sound. A few well-placed panels will make a big difference when situated at points where sound bounces. You don’t want to cover the entire room in these panels, though, or you’ll dampen the sound too much. Wall-to-wall acoustic panels are only appropriate for spaces such as libraries where you don’t want any sound reflection at all.

High-End Countertops

Upgrade your kitchen countertops, and you can elevate this space in an instant. Granite is among the most popular choices for luxury counters. It’s heat resistant, hard, and available in thousands of colors, so you can find the perfect match for your decor. Engineered quartz is another popular option. This material is non-porous, durable, and easy to care for. If you’re interested in a more industrial look, cement countertops are gaining popularity in modern home designs.

Large Windows

If your home has beautiful views, dramatic, large-scale windows are the best way to maximize this feature. Huge windows or glass walls instantly make a room feel more spacious. These windows can also improve your home’s energy efficiency by letting the warm sun in on cool days. Install custom window coverings so you can easily adjust the natural light as needed. Remote-controlled shades are easy to open and close no matter how tall your windows are.

Decorative Crown Molding

Decorative crown molding is a small touch with a big impact. It’s easy to overlook this feature when you’re first designing a space, but take one step into a room with dramatically detailed molding and you’ll see that it makes an instant impression. You can create a luxury living room in an instant if you add elegant crown molding around the perimeter.

Concealed Kitchen Storage

One of the best ways to make a space feel more luxurious is to keep it neat. Nothing ruins the ambiance of a room more than clutter, so make it easy to keep things tidy by installing cunningly concealed storage throughout the kitchen. Consider the many features that typically sit on a countertop, and create tailored alternatives that keep essentials handy yet hidden. Build a knife block into a kitchen drawer, tuck a pull-out pan rack in a cabinet, or place tip-out trays beneath the sink for hidden sponge storage.

Use swing-out shelves so you can comfortably reach the back of corner cabinets. Tuck a tall, skinny spice rack into the empty space beside your fridge. Give every item its own proper place, and you’ll find it easier to keep your kitchen clean.

Custom Closets

Install custom closets throughout your home to contain your belongings in the most organized manner possible. A feature-packed bedroom closet instantly enhances your living space. Consider elements such as a built-in shoe rack, tie rack, and jewelry organizer, as well as item-specific shelves. A built-in hamper holds dirty clothes out of sight, while a fold-out ironing board can help you keep wrinkles out of your walk-in closet.

Consider adding custom closets in other parts of your home as well. The area beneath the stairs, under a window seat, or behind the laundry room door can become an excellent solution to the question of where you can sneakily stow items to keep the house neat.

Integrated Technology

Smart home features can help you integrate every aspect of your house for one-touch control from a single app. Elements such as smart thermostats, lights, locks, security cameras, and appliances are all designed to make your life easier. Make sure all your installations work with the same virtual assistant, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, or Google Assistant, and you can enjoy voice control over many of your electrics via one integrated system. 

Energy Efficiency Upgrades

Minimizing energy use is important for many modern homeowners. Keep your home as green as possible with luxury features such as energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting. Storm windows and exterior awnings can minimize heat loss or keep the temperature cool for lower utility bills and greater comfort. Smart shades can automatically adjust to appropriately block light for the greatest energy efficiency throughout the day. These types of green features are luxury investments that will pay you back over time.

You can include many of these luxury home features in your home’s original construction when you opt for a custom build. Contact Steiner Homes to learn more about the custom features available for your new house, and you can create an elegant living space from day one.

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