This whackadoo decade saw a dramatic shift in the way people live. One of the areas where this cultural shift has most clearly expressed itself is in home design. The place you decide to call home is one of the most important decisions you make in your life for a ton of reasons. This article will compare and contrast two very different approaches to life in the 21st century. 

Mini Living

Do you want to challenge the status quo? Do you call yourself a minimalist? How do you feel about pushing your comfort zone? Maybe a tiny home would jibe with your style.

The micro living trend began with the death of the conventional American dream. Big houses with white picket fences just feel pasé in 2020—downright tone-deaf if you consider the energy and pollution consequences of a world where everybody owns a 5000 square foot home. It’s a real home design trend at the moment!

Modernism and Bauhaus

One of the death knells for this particular dream was an art movement in architecture called Bauhaus. Along with Art Deco and a couple other modernist innovations, Bauhaus architecture dismantled the long-held belief that good architecture should be flashy and complex. As with most modernist buildings, constructions made in the Bauhaus style are strictly minimalistic. 

Modernist buildings tend to use geometric shapes and convey cleanliness.

Tiny Houses

According to the Huffington Post, the average tiny house costs just $23,000 in the USA. Abroad you can find wonderful stuff too. The Syshaus Residence in Sao Paolo is a winner for fans of bamboo architecture.

Owners of tiny homes are big supporters of environmental causes. The best of these projects use innovations and technology to optimize the limited resources of a tiny home. They are often made from biodegradable materials or otherwise integrate locally sourced materials that will minimize the property’s carbon footprint.

They can be created at lightening speed. Including the planning phase, a Syshaus Residence only takes a few months to build.

But are tiny houses a good investment? The objective answer is that they can be certainly be an efficient one. Say, for example, you wanted to divide two rooms in a tiny home. One efficient solution could be curtains or screens. Did you know Japanese homes in the 2nd century had walls made of translucent paper? These foldable walls allowed for versatility, efficiency, and beauty. 

Van Life

The van life cost range varies. The biggest cost issues you will have to deal with are how much work you are willing to do yourself and how much work you are willing to pay others for.

Customizing a normal van can cost as little as $8,000. The van can be about $5,000 and the customization job can be about $3,000 if you want good quality, but are working with a tight budget. If you look, you actually will be able to find vehicles for less than this, but we recommend you don’t dip under this threshold. 

Van life involves actually living in your jalopy. You can’t afford mistakes that can end up getting you helplessly stuck by the side of some desert. 

Extended Homes

Are you an investor? Do you know any good contractors who can fix up your properties? A different way of living involves adding or renovating an existing home with an expansion. This can add huge value to your property and can create a much more luxurious life.

As Elon Musk brings his thousands of employees to Texas in a very public move away from the traditional stronghold of tech in Silicon Valley, real estate in the Lone Star state is exploding.

Investors are flooding into cities like Austin and Houston as companies like Apple pour billions into the regional economy. The movement away from the West is exacerbated by rocketing prices out there along with strict ordinances regarding covid and the gig economy. 

If you are an investor looking for a city to lay down some blueprints, this might be the time to look into Texas and North Carolina. For home renovators, the biggest issue is finding the right team to build out your vision. This can go wrong in so many different ways. 

HVAC

When doing demolition work in your home, be mindful of the home’s HVAC system. HVAC stands for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. All modern buildings have to incorporate this system in the original blueprints. The HVAC system provides the same critical function for a building that our lungs provide for our body. 

Air conditioning and heating units are generally placed just outside the home. The most common place to run into them in residences is outdoor storage spaces tucked into the house.

What do you wish for if you could have your home design ideas put into life? I would love to know in the comments below, or on social media: @mummyconstant.

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