Roslin places real value on fireplaces
From setting a romantic mood to establishing an architectural focal point, nothing warms a home quite like the old fashioned fireplace. Originally used for cooking and heat in single-family homes, the fireplace became somewhat obsolete with the advent of mechanized stoves and heaters. Still visually appealing, fireplaces remained in many American homes as a romantic artifact.
Today, the fireplace has become a highly functional feature in many new homes that not only enhances aesthetic appeal, but also can increase potential resale value as well. The fireplace has become so popular with today's buyers that Roslin Homes, offers a wide variety of optional fireplaces in each of its highly customizable single-family residences.
"Nearly 100 percent of all our home buyers expressed the desire to have at least one fireplace somewhere in their new residences," says Bill Ryan, president and founder of Roslin Homes.
Ryan says the fireplace also plays an important role in a home's design, inside and out.
"The fireplace enhances a room's appearance by creating a central focal point and accentuating various features," Ryan emphasized. "For instance, tall columns emanating from the fireplace can emphasize the room's height and volume space, while on the outside, tall chimney columns give a home additional depth and character."
Roslin home buyers may select the look of their fireplace to satisfy their individual tastes. Options such as full masonry, brick, stone, ceramic, marble and slate facings, and drywall detailing allow buyers to choose a design to match virtually any style room. Different shapes, sizes and designs, such as two-sided corner or three-sided styles allow the fireplace to be positioned in various areas of the room. Details such as keeping the hearth flush with the room's carpeting create the impression of greater floor space.
Some fireplace features are as practical as they are attractive. A fireplace made of metal prefabricate is highly efficient in bringing heat back directly to the room. Other features such as detailed glass doors lend a touch of elegance while keeping in backdrafts.
Additionally, fireplaces have a direct influence on room design in many of Roslin's homes.
"We design our family rooms around the possibilities of how the fireplace can relate to such prominent features as entertainment centers, plasma TV's, furniture, etc.," Ryan adds.
Other options available to Roslin home buyers are the choice of natural wood-burning or gas-burning fireplaces. All of Roslin's wood-burning fireplaces have gas starters that allow owners to dispense with kindling and light the logs quickly and easily. Gas-burning fireplaces with artificial logs are perfect for homeowners who enjoy the sight of a warm fire but do not want to take the time to light logs, or clean and maintain flues.
Ryan says wood-burning fireplaces are the most popular choice among Roslin home buyers because many people enjoy the crackling sounds and smells that natural wood emits.
Whatever style fireplace Roslin buyers select for their new homes, they can count on an improvement to their rooms and an enhanced feeling of warmth that somehow heaters and radiators cannot provide.
To get a feel for the impact fireplaces can have on a home, Roslin Homes has two professionally decorated model homes open at The Sanctuary of Bull Valley, the builder's first single-family home community in Woodstock. Built midst the Bull Valley Golf Course, mature woods and protected wetlands, the environmentally sensitive Roslin Reserve at the Sanctuary of Bull Valley community will offer 85 homes with optional three-car garages, wood siding, and cedar shake roofs. Roslin's homes, which have the look of a custom home but without the custom price are base priced from $368,990 to $429,990 and provide 2,725 to 3,943 square feet of living space.
With the opening of the 3,409 square foot two-story Sonoma and the 3,697 square-foot Greenvale models, buyers now have the opportunity to walk through these stunningly decorated homes and get a feel for the type, style and quality of homes offered in Roslin Reserve at The Sanctuary of Bull Valley.
Designed as a community with larger lots set along a land preservation area, 70 percent of the quarter- to half-acre home sites will back open green space. Within the environmentally sensitive community, which won an award in 2005 from the EPA for Conservation and Landscaping, homeowners will be pleased with each home site's privacy.
Roslin Reserve's elegant entry monument at the Sanctuary of Bull Valley is located approximately two miles east of U.S. Highway 47 (a.k.a. Eastwood Drive), on the north side of McConnell Road, which intersects Route 47 about a half mile north of the State Highway 14. For more information about Roslin Reserve at the Sanctuary of Bull Valley, or to set up an appointment, call (630) 242-2940 or visit www.roslinhomes.com. Roslin Homes' sales center is open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.