Specialty rooms can fill your heart's desire

Remember when people prepared food in the kitchen, sat in the dining room for family meals, then retreated to the living room to read the newspaper or watch TV? Main rooms in the home had a designated purpose.

With today's more casual lifestyles, flex space, bonus rooms or multipurpose rooms - whatever you want to call them - make an appearance in new homes. This flexible space is offered outside of the great room, a large gathering area that has often replaced the formal, walled-off dining and living rooms.

Today, kids might grab a snack at the kitchen island, run on the treadmill in the exercise room on the lower level, and then dive into their homework at a tech niche in the loft.

Today, homebuilders feature the flex space concept because it's - well, flexible - allowing buyers to determine how they will use the space. Homes reflect flex space in different areas of the home, depending on the floor plan and size of the house.

Many buyers expect flex space in their new homes, and builders strive to meet their needs. They also offer buyers the option of customizing homes to their specifications.

At Shodeen Homes, every community offers a floor plan with flex space, but every floor plan doesn't offer it, said Anna Harmon, director of marketing. "We work with all our buyers to determine what their needs are and offer customization to make a home exactly what they want.

"People have taken a fourth or fifth bedroom and repurposed it. It's so individual; we've seen it all. A room can do double duty, for example, morph from a hobby room to a guest bedroom."

Toll Brothers also offers buyers the option to modify its floor plans. "If we don't have exactly what the buyer wants, we will go to work and make it happen," said Trisha Houser, sales manager for the builder. "People want space outside the main living area to escape and focus on what is important to them."

While location of flex space depends on the floor plan, Toll Brothers has seen homebuyers use it from top to bottom - outfitting an upstairs bonus room as a family room, using space on the main level for an office, and turning basement space into a custom hockey rink.

Kid space

Often homebuyers set up flex rooms as a place for kids or teenagers to have their own space. It might function as a playroom - a happy place with colorful decor where kids can get out the Play Doh or set up the train set. Or it might be a private space for teenagers to call their own where they can hang out with friends, order pizza and watch sports.

M/I Homes offers a bonus room in all its floor plans that homebuyers often designate as space for kids or teenagers to hang out, said Cheryl Bonk, vice president of sales and marketing. "This is a popular feature for us."

A few years ago, Shodeen Homes went up into the attic space for a customer who used the room for their children, Harmon said. "It makes a unique area for kids because of the angles."

Toll Brothers also sees value up in the attic. In its Fairways collection at Bowes Creek Country Club, two of the plans offer a finished attic option. "In our model, it's furnished as a playroom, and we explain to buyers that it could morph for sleepovers in middle school, then be transformed for teenagers to hang out in high school," Houser said. "The room can change with the family's needs through life's stages."

A bonus room on the main level could also allow room for a family as it grows. For example, it could be a home office, or work hub while younger kids are in school and then turn into a college pad when kids are home from college and want their own space.

Shodeen Homes also offers space above the garage that could be a great, fully equipped home gym, yoga studio or game room with billiards, poker and table tennis tables, or even arcade games or shuffleboard.

K. Hovnanian Homes offers plans with a loft or den, which in model homes is occasionally decorated and furnished as a home office.

The space can be used as a first-floor bedroom for an in-law suite or a long-term visitor, which is a common request, said Brian Murphy, area vice president for the builder.

"Buyers like the bedroom and bath on the first floor. That's been in demand," Murphy said. And the formal living room people used to use a few times a year has evolved into more informal family rooms, great rooms or spaces buyers want. "Buyers like to have their kids in a room adjacent to where they're working," Murphy said.

Family space

William Ryan Homes features the loft as flex space in many of its two-story floor plans. Similar to use of the lower level, many buyers use the space as a family room, game room or they can add a bedroom, said Jennifer Mencias, director of sales for the builder. Toll Brothers' customers often choose to have loft space on the upper level in lieu of the two-story, open family room to make the most of the home's square footage.

At M/I Homes, planning centers are big in its single-family homes. "It's a nice area near the main living area of the home where mom can do all the things that come with running a home," Bonk said. William Ryan Homes also integrates a planning center into its floor plans conveniently situated off the back entry.

Also, William Ryan Homes features its signature 16-by-12-foot morning room in its floor plans, which has been well received by homebuyers. People have used the space to extend the kitchen, create a playroom, a TV room or office space.

Mud rooms have long been a signature feature for William Ryan Homes, and many buyers appreciate having the space off the garage entry. A mud room can be more than a utilitarian space. It can be a kid-friendly, cheery space with fun wallpaper and flooring.

"We offer a true mud room that's not combined with a laundry room as all our laundry rooms are on the second level," Mencias said.

Mud rooms are also big at Toll Brothers "They're larger and more useful now with lockers and built-in cabinetry," Houser said.

With an uptick in multigenerational living, Shodeen buyers are asking for in-law suites for a parent coming in either temporarily or permanently, Harmon said. "Our Donovan sales model at Mill Creek works well with that even though we don't specifically market it for that purpose. With a first-floor master, buyers can turn the den into a full bath."