9 Ways To Make Your Home Blend Into Your Community

Building a new home not only means meeting your desires but also meeting a larger social context. Your house should transition seamlessly with other houses in the community. Even if it's different, it shouldn't look like the odd one out. A house that sticks out of the rest will attract unwanted attention, which isn't what a homeowner would want, considering your home is your personal space and everyone requires some privacy.

Making your home blend into your community is significant in maintaining the desired privacy. The recent trends in the house designs are made to reflect a more communal environment. There isn't much pressure to blend your house into the community in rural areas where there are no blocks of houses and apartments. However, your style matters in residential streets and city estates, and it should blend with the community.

Blending Your Home To Community

If you've noticed, different communities and residential streets have a particular style and design in their construction. When property developers and homeowners choose to develop a new property in the area, they may be required to follow the same style and design.

However, developers aren't entirely expected to follow the design except in national heritage areas. Fitting your home seamlessly into the community is still a wise thing to do regardless of whether or not, you’re required to. So, it's something worth considering.

How To Make Your Home Blend

There are different ways you can use when making your house fit into the surroundings. You can start when building your house or decide to change during renovations. This article explores the different ways that you can do so:

Hire Quality Property Builders

You need to let quality developers build your home. Even when purchasing a home instead of building one, you still need to assess how the builders blended it into the environment. Several builders like Willing Property, for instance, will acquire and build homes in highly desirable neighborhoods.
The property developers look at how the home will look on-site and how it'll look in the neighborhood. Therefore, when constructing the home, they'll consider the need to blend into the community instead of building a house that looks distinct and attracts unwanted attention.

Utilize Community Character

Communities always take inspiration from a particular style, and they live with it for several years. Adapting changes in the building style isn't easy, and therefore, bringing a sudden change in the building style will likely attract unwanted attention.

So, builders and homeowners should first understand the history of the community that they're going to build. They can observe the design and the structures of the buildings around the neighborhood and use them as inspiration for the new constructions. The new home shouldn't necessarily be the same as the other existing structures but instead resonate with the community's height, materials, form, and lifestyle.

Adjust Exterior Cladding Material

Exterior cladding can vary from timberwork, stones, or a combination of different materials. Even if it's rare, your home could have a distinct cladding that makes it unique from the others, hence drawing attention.
You can avoid this by replacing the exterior cladding materials to match the ones in your community. Another option includes adjusting the materials so that it transitions well with exteriors in the neighborhood.

Bring Nature Into Your Compound

If you're building in a community that embraces nature, then the best way to blend with them is by respecting the green space around your home and bringing a more natural environment into yours. First, you can start by building your home upwards instead of outwards so that you avoid compromising or reducing the green space in your home.

Secondly, you can embrace green living in your home by planting trees, gardens, or using plant fences. By default, the nature in your home will blend in with that in the community. Even if your home is distinct from the rest, nature will take the attention of the house by providing a seamless transition.

Appy Streetscape

Buildings and gardens should facilitate interactions among community members, and the streetscape principle helps to achieve this. The principle states that houses should be designed to face streets, parks, or an open space instead of facing another house. For example, a story home with a balcony facing another home's living room could cause conflict.

When building a new home in a new neighborhood, you should follow the existing streetscape design in the area. Some streetscaping ideas include locating the window in a strategic place for passive surveillance to help increase security. You can also use low front fencing to make the streetscape more pleasant. If the community already has a historical streetscaping character, such as the fencing, you can use stone walls or modern materials that resemble older furnishing in the area.

Understand Local Building Laws

Local building laws may require the new building to maintain the local character to protect the community's heritage. The laws range from fencing regulations to and height of buildings. Basic guidelines are made to ensure new buildings will blend in with other structures in the community.
Builders are required to be knowledgeable about the building codes before they can build any house. In some instances where the community is a state heritage area, builders may face stricter conditions on the building codes before getting permits and licenses.

Make Homes Mix-Use Structures

Homeowners can also make their houses mix-use properties to invite more people into it or lend them for public spaces. You can make the front section of your house into a café or an office. The rooms can act as a social venue for the community to interact.

If you have a multi-story house, you can use the ground floor as a public space. The top floors can still serve as your home. By creating space where people in your community can come and socialize, your home blends in naturally.

Use Indoor And Outdoor Living

A seamless transition and little barriers between your indoor and outdoor spaces can help your house blend with the surrounding. You can use a sliding door on the front door or open kitchen to get easy access and visibility.
Utilizing indoor and outdoor spaces can maximize socialization as you can entertain friends and family. Having additional entertainment areas such as courts, swimming pools, or outdoor dining areas will look inviting. Consequently, your house will be community-friendly and blends in well.

Tweak Existing Designs To Meet Your Style

Developers and homeowners may have a predetermined design for their homes. However, these designs may not blend well with the community, so they may abandon them. In such cases, it's wise to talk to a reliable architect about balancing your personal preference and the community's character.
For instance, if your roofing design is distinct from the community's design, you can choose to blend with the community style. Then, you'll tweak the color of the roof and other small features, such as the roofing material, to meet your personal preference. This way, you blend into the community by maintaining the design but exploring your style through the materials and colors.

Importance Of Blending Your House To The Community

As earlier stated, developers aren’t entirely required to build properties that blend into the community. But blending in has so many benefits, as stated below:

Maintain Privacy

One purpose of a home is to keep the occupants secure and ensure they enjoy privacy. Therefore, you don’t want a home that can attract unwanted attention from passers-by. Your home shouldn’t be too distinct from the other houses in your neighborhood. Even when incorporating personal style, you should make it transition well with the surrounding. As a result, you can easily maintain your privacy at home.

Live Harmoniously With Neighbors

When you follow the streetscape principle when building a home, you ensure no conflict arising with neighbors. Your balcony and home should face the street or any open space instead of facing your neighbor's house. It can help to eliminate intrusion from the privacy of others and avoid causing disagreements.

Moreover, friendly streetscaping creates social spaces such as streets that foster socialization and gathering between neighbors. As a result, the community around there’ll get to know each other and build stronger relationships.

Maintain Community Heritage

Some communities draw inspiration from traditional designs when constructing houses. This practice as much as possible is preserved, and change might not always be an option for them. The design is a community heritage to them, and they wouldn't want to lose it. Therefore, any new house that's constructed in the region should also maintain the tradition.

Conclusion

Building a home in a community is a very critical decision that you have to make. Not only do you explore your taste and style, but also you need to be aware of your surroundings. Your home should transition well with those around it to not look out of place or attract unwanted attention.
The tips discussed above, such as following local building laws and understanding the community character, will help you develop a house that fits it. Also, working with reliable property developers will do the trick. Blending in has many benefits that homeowners will experience.

Author’s Bio

Derrick Lance is an enthusiast in designing ways and in this blog, he shares how you can make your home fit into the community while still maintaining personal style. During his free time, he loves to travel and help homeowners spruce their homes.