Is Your Neighborhood Backward? 5 Signs It Might Be.

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Destination Homes' mission is to build exceptional homes in lasting communities. Working with world-class architects & skilled trade partners, Destination Homes aims continually to be a product leader in community design & residential architecture. There are a few things in life that are better backward - like The Beatles songs that reveal cryptic messages when played back, or roller coasters that get just a little scarier when they lurch into reverse. And don't forget the excellent benefits you give your quads when you (carefully) do a little backward running. But do you know what's not better backward? Your neighborhood. If you're not sure how topsy-turvy your own community might be, we'll give you a few tell-tale signs.

The cars (and garages) are the stars of the show
Have you ever seen a house that seems to be "all garage?" Not overly appealing, right? Your neighborhood may have been designed poorly (dare we say backwardly?) if your cars seem to be getting better architectural treatment than your family. Giant garages that monopolize your home's curb appeal and commandeer your lawn space with their oversized driveways are not designed with family living in mind. Your home should be taking center stage - not your garage (that prima donna)

It cuts you off from your community

Picket fences are nostalgic and picturesque. But if you've got a monstrosity of a gate that's turning your Craftsman-style home into a medieval fortress, you may be living in a poorly designed community. Privacy is always a bonus, but you should also feel connected with the community that surrounds you. This includes a better view than the wood planks that make up your mile-high fence. Don't get me wrong, a fence serves its purpose but shouldn't keep you from enjoying what's around you. It also means that your home should be facing the world of the living, not a concrete barrier, frontage road or other unsightly "feature."

You feel like you're living in "Mario Kart"
It's one thing for your kids to encounter crazy traffic with Mario and Luigi on the Wii, it's quite another for them to have to deal with this in front of your home. High-volume roads with intersections tend to make your sanctuary a little, well, less than idyllic.
Communities built on heavily trafficked roads are not designed with homeowners and their families in mind. Families want safety at the forefront of their neighborhood planning. Besides safety, many could use fewer barriers to hurdle to when the desire strikes to visit neighbors, get to church, or go to the local park.

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Your walkways and trails are "hidden" treasures

Like many people, you're probably thrilled that your community offers walking trails (and your dog likely digs this feature, too). But if your trails are hidden, dimly lit or overgrown, that's a sign that your community likely wasn't designed as well as it could have been. Hidden trails pose not only a safety risk, but they also prevent you from connecting with your community when you take that daily walk (although Fido might enjoy his privacy).

You feel disconnected from the community
There are a lot of benefits to living on an island (mid-morning swim anyone?), but if you're looking to be part of a community, you don't want to feel like your home is centrally located in the Boondocks. Your neighborhood should be designed in a way that connects resident families to their surroundings by strategically designing the homes around parks, community centers and other amenities. After all, the layout of any neighborhood just might be the key to connecting community members naturally.

Design Dilemma?

You have finally taken that leap, by purchasing your new home. You picture the type of flooring, countertops, cabinets, the color of the walls and now you and your spouse are finally at the design appointment.  The question of what type of kitchen cabinet would you like comes up and you want traditional and your spouse prefers modern.  How do you go about compromising so everyone feels satisfied with the choice?

In our Design Center, our Interior Designers, Malia Warburton and Andera West, witness many homeowners wrestling with these decisions.  When couples come together to pick out the design features of their new home, our designers generally find that one person is more involved in the process than the other.  Occasionally, couples will leave the room to discuss certain items or on rare occasions they will debate the choices right there in the design appointment.  Often when these debates happen it is in the form of play banter and teasing, which helps soften the situation even though it is a huge investment. 

Each spouse has their own items that are really important to them, and they are okay with letting the other spouse make other decisions.  When couples have discussed the options ahead of time and communicated them to one another than the design appointments tend to go smoothly.  Here are some tips from our designers that might help you when you are picking out your new home’s design features:

·      Be clear with one another about the budget available for design options

·      Limit distractions, best as possible, during the design appointment (kids, cell phones, etc…)

·      Search for inspiration beforehand (Pinterest, Houzz, Better Homes & Gardens)

·      Bring photos of what you like

·      Determine how you’d like your home to show off your personality as well as cater to family needs.

·      Set a time prior to your official design appointment to browse options in the design center.

·      Take a walk through the model home just to design gather ideas.

·      Create a list of must haves and wants.  Prioritize each list.

·      Budget necessary time for the appointment.  Don’t let yourself feel rushed to make decisions.

Last of all it goes without saying that patience and a sense of humor help in this process. In those moments when you are feeling frustrated during the design appointment and struggling to find common ground, we recommend reading a

fun little article that might help turn your appointment around.

A Little Olympic Fun

Last Tuesday during our company huddle Destination Homes decided to have a bit of fun, Olympic style.  Weber County Ice Sheet and instructors Tim Irish, Ben Womack and Erwin Weil welcomed us at their ice rink to teach everyone about the fun sport of curling.

The morning started at 9:00 a.m. with the team getting used to sliding on the ice, which is more difficult that it appears to be.  The curlers in the Olympics really have to hone 

some strength and finesse skills to do this sport and then to have the smarts to outwit the competition.  Curling is often called ‘Chess on Ice’.  This couldn’t be truer, but of course it didn’t seem a whole lot like chess until we got the hang of throwing the rock and sweeping.

Curling is a lot more of a work out than anyone would have expected.  It takes attention and balance to not fall on the ice and sweeping in front of the rocks works both your arms and legs.  Thankfully, our instructors, Tim, Ben and Erwin were very good at teaching us the safety ins and outs on the ice and we only had a minimal amount of slipping and falling.

It didn’t take long for the competitive spirit to rise and while most of the games weren’t layered with intense strategy we had some exciting tie breaking shootouts.  By the end of our session on the ice the team at Destination Homes were hungry and extremely grateful that Aaron from Academy found us in Ogden and brought cinnamon rolls the size of small planets with him.

Curling is a great team sport. Everyone has specific and very important responsibilities. Success is enjoyed only when everyone works together and performs at a high level.

What To Do When Its Cold.

Its that time of year again.  The Christmas trees have been taken down, the presents are unwrapped and put away, the decadent food is gone and life is ordinary again. After all of the fun activities that the holidays brought us, the remaining months of winter can be a let down.  Don’t get too down; here is a list with some of our favorite winter activities that are close to home, easy to do and inexpensive.

If you haven't taken the drive up to Midway, UT to see the Midway Ice Castles it needs to be at the top of your list.  It is a beautiful outdoor display with tunnels, caverns and archways made by hand with 20,000,000 pounds of ice.  At night the castles are illuminated in beautiful hues of blue, green and red.  Just remember to dress nice and warm!

If you have little ones under foot you know how difficult it can be during the winter months when they are inside for most of the day.  Try this little bit of fun we found on Pinterest, spray paint the snow.  Take some old plastic spray bottles fill them up with water and place food coloring in each one.  The snow becomes their canvas and it’s instant fun in a bottle.

 All of us have memories of being in our snow boots with our mittens and hats on, running out to play in the snow.  Many of us built forts or built snowmen.  These are still fun traditions to start with your own family and a great way to get some time outside.  The best part after a day of playing in the snow is having a cup of hot chocolate in your home sweet home.  Hope you enjoy the last few months of winter!

Denim & Diamonds

Friday night, January 10^th Destination Homes joined homebuilders from across the Wasatch Front at Rio Tinto Stadium to take part in the Home Builders of Excellence Awards, ‘Denim & Diamonds’. As the theme title suggests, these were Denim and Diamonds a plenty in attendance.

The pre-dinner mingle allowed guests to visit and enjoy some delicious cheeses and breads from the hors d’oeuvres table while seeing builders’ work on display easels and television monitors in all sorts of categories ranging from home features to advertising campaigns.

While enjoying a delicious buffet-style dinner, the program commenced for the evening. New HBA officers were introduced and former officers were honored.  Kennecott Land’s Ty McCutcheon was sworn in as the new Utah HBA president. Andrew Wittenberg took control of the microphone soon there after to address the awards we were all curious to find out about, but only after flashing some of his own EMMY’s.

The evening was a great opportunity to see many of our peers be recognized for quality home building.  We were thrilled to be a part of this elite group when they announced ‘Destination Homes’ to receive four awards:

• Best Overall Advertising Campaign – “Hill Farms Grand Opening Community Launch”
• Best of State – Custom Kitchen Design “The Iron Chef”
• Best Television or Radio Commercial – “Hill Farms Pandora Ad"
• Marketing Director of the Year – “Ryan Snarr”

What a wonderful way to begin 2014; by bringing home some awards recognizing our teams’ hard work in 2013!