Clients Are Asking To Find Ways To Work With Less Water, While Also Including More Showerheads In Deluxe Master Bathroom Showers.

Media rooms? Out. Versatile game rooms? In.

Sprawling square footage? Out. Compact as well as efficient? In.

As Dallas peers into 2012, 5 custom-home builders share their feelings of what trends are taking off here and which ones are fading away.

There is much common ground.

Clients are asking to find ways to use less water, while also including more showerheads in luxurious master bathroom showers and jacuzzi. They're asking for eco-friendly features that can be expensive more up front but provide long-term financial savings, such as tankless water heaters. And they're asking for a more minimalist, clean-line seem.

Don Craighead Homes

Don Craighead regarding Don Craighead Homes sees a new trend toward smaller properties. Many clients now request a home in the 3,500- in order to 4,000-square-foot range; a few years ago, they may have gone for 6,000 in order to 7,000 square feet.

“They're simply scared to commit on the level they were before,” Craighead claims.

For Craighead, building green will be picking up steam.

“I've been marketing it for about three years,” he says. “They're interested in it, even though they realize it's going to cost more.”

Such consumers envision energy and normal water costs going up and are looking for longer-term savings. They are requesting apply foam insulation and tankless water heaters.

Meanwhile, clients are even now wanting top-of-the-line appliances, lighting fixtures along with plumbing fixtures - simply in a more compact and energy-efficient home.

While the Mediterranean look will be “still pretty hot,” Craighead is seeing more straight lines along with contemporary features.

What's gone the wayside? For Craighead's clients, oahu is the media room. Most choose instead to hang a huge flat-screen Television above the fireplace or on the wall of a great room.

Sierra Residences

To Teresa Fransik of Sierra Homes, the most important current trend is also downsizing.

“We're getting into that era of the not-so-big house, where clients are building not variety but quality,” Fransik says. “The established term is a ‘jewel box' - tiny but tricked out.”

Her firm, a green-home building company that operates within concerning 50 miles of Fredericksburg, hasn't really built large properties because of her focus on energy efficiency. But in the last 5 years or so, the norm of desired square footage has declined coming from about 3,000 or 3,500 square feet to about 2,500.

Her company is asking for super energy-efficient homes, along with rainwater collection systems, upcoming solar connections and whole-house upturn protection.

“They're looking at the possibility in the future of trying to make certain they're guarded against rising energy expenses, brown-outs, reduction in water supplies. Those ideas are starting to be important,” Fransik claims.

They are choosing low-flow water accessories and dual-flush toilets; other eco-friendly elements such as low-VOC (volatile organic chemical substance) paint and sealants are often normal now and “not as strange as they were 10 years ago.”

For flooring, carpet is otherwise engaged; hardwood, concrete and tile are in.

As for design, easy and basic is the desired seem, she says. “They're not requesting a lot of interior trim details. There's not a lot of glitz along with glamour.”

Mike Hollaway

While home size is coming down a little bit, Paul Hollaway of Mike Hollaway Custom Residences sees clients asking for more appeal within the square footage; for example, they could steer those same dollars in to better appliances or more tile work.

Clients are willing to set up more money for quality glass windows and foam insulation due to energy efficiency. They are shelling out for gourmet kitchens and backyard living areas that include cooktops, those that smoke, fireplaces, under-counter refrigerators, icemakers and integrative features and pools as reported tagza.com.