Choosing the right façade
As the element that makes the first impression, a façade is not only an important part of the overall feel of your home – it can affect your home’s value, as well.
With choosing a façade being such a crucial decision when building your dream home, we spoke to Arden’s Product Development Manager, Mitch Onley, to help understand what to look for in a façade.
“First and foremost, you should consider your own taste and style. A façade should be an expression of yourself and should tie in with the interior,” says Mitch.
So, if your interiors and décor have a more contemporary feel, then a modern façade for your exterior will tie the home together. If you’re building a more traditional or Hamptons-style home, on the other hand, you may want to carry this through to your façade.
Your façade can also create different moods for your home, through your material and colour choices.
“Our Nova façade features a warm, natural, timber-style cladding, which lightens the mood and gives a more laidback feel to the home. On the other hand, the Keimora facade, with its dark contrasting colours, can bring a sense of style and make the home feel more sophisticated.”
It’s also important to consider the streetscape that your façade will sit within, says Mitch.
“For example, if you’re building in an area with a coastal setting, it could be good to consider selecting a façade with a coastal feel featuring components such as painted cement sheet cladding, gables or skillion roofline.”
“Whereas, if you’re building in an established inner city suburb, you may consider a more traditional façade featuring weatherboards. You could also go for a modern looking home to stand out in the street, including some newer materials such as aluminium window shrouds or COLORBOND® steel standing seam cladding.”
If you’re building in a masterplanned community or estate, there may also be design covenants from the developer that determine what kind of façade you can build. Mitch recommends choosing a façade that complements the overall streetscape – but this doesn’t mean that it has to be the same as the surrounding houses.
“You may want to ensure that your home isn’t too similar. Often a consideration that a lot of our clients take into account is to ensure that their façade stands out.”
While your façade will in some ways be determined by the floorplan you choose, Arden Homes’ facades are intentionally designed to give homeowners maximum flexibility to choose the façade and floorplan they like best.
“We don’t like to restrict our clients by making it so only certain facades can be adapted to certain plans. We pride ourselves on our design flexibility and because of that, our designs all have similar setbacks from the front of the home to the garage.”
You can explore our current range of facades listed on any of our home designs here – and Mitch hints that there are more additions in the pipeline.
“We’re always looking to enhance our facades and our offering to make the home stand out from the crowd. We have some new facades currently under development that will be featured on our upcoming display homes, and we think these will well and truly make us stand out from the competition.”
Watch this space!