How Improving Your Home and Garden can Improve Your Life

Posted on: 13 November 2014

If you are having a luxury home built, it doesn't have to be made of entirely new elements. If you love old architecture or antiques, consider having some reclaimed elements designed into your home. Reclaimed elements add unique style to your home, and they are environmentally friendly because they are essentially a recycled product. Here are some ideas to consider:

Reclaimed Timber

Reclaimed timber from old homes or buildings gives a beautiful accent to a new home, and if you know where it's from, it adds a story to your home as well. You can add floors made of reclaimed timber or ask your designer to add high vaulted ceilings and line them with antique timber beams. Reclaimed timber adds a warm, comforting feel to your home.

Stained Glass

If you can find old stained glass windows from a torn-down church or old government building, they too add a beautiful and unique touch to your home. Imagine sunlight streaming through the coloured glass and the beautiful designs of a stained glass window at the top of a two-story foyer, or imagine looking through a wall of stained glass out over a garden. Even adding stained glass to your front door or in the panes of interior French doors adds a colourful touch to your home.

Stone

With reclaimed stone from a field or natural area, you can have a beautiful fireplace in the middle of your home or an interior stone wall. You can make this special by choosing stones from your grandparents farm or from along a road or beach where you took your first walk with your husband or wife.

Window Frames

The exterior walls of your home can be designed to hold reclaimed window frames. Alternatively, you can add reclaimed window frames to interior doors or between rooms, or you can use them decoratively as wall hangings, mirror frames or picture frames after the home has been completed.

Reclaimed Brick

Reclaimed brick can be used much like stone to create fireplaces or walls in your home. It can also be used to create walkways or patios, or it can be applied to the exterior of your home. Old bricks are also a beautiful accent to landscaping around a pond, along the sides of a soaking tub or as planters. If your old primary school or another special brick building is being demolished, contact the owners to see if you can have some of the old bricks.  

Metal

Metal can easily be recycled, and if you opt to have metal elements added to your home, look for metal manufacturers who use recycled metals in their manufacturing process. Whether you add a tin roof or modernistic steel beams along your ceiling, using recycled metals is a sustainable idea.

For more information and advice, contact a company such as Grollo Homes.