What Edmonton wants in a home
Monday, January 18th, 2010
Lori and Cliff Burlingame, holding blueprints of their home, are owners of Silvercliff Homes. Behind them are family members, some of whom now work for the company
Photograph by: Brian Gavriloff, The Journal, Freelance
More space leads wish list given to custom builders
Build it — with creature comforts — and they will use it.
That’s what one Edmonton-area home builder has noticed as buyers in the greater Edmonton region are opting for more luxury-like features in today’s new homes.
What are buyers looking for? In short, more space.
And here’s how they’re using it: There’s virtually a bathroom for every bedroom, they’re adding more than just the one traditional walk-in closet, they’re selecting a variety of home entertainment settings — rooms uniquely designed for fun and games — and they’re selecting imaginative ways to camouflage kitchen storage.
“A lot of our homes are being built around entertaining,” says Cliff Burlingame, who along with his wife Lori runs Silvercliff Homes, an Edmonton-area custom home builder. “That’s the lifestyle now. There are games rooms, home theatres, larger living rooms and larger, open-concept kitchens where they can entertain more.”
But while the number of bedrooms remains roughly the same compared with homes they’ve constructed before, one trend Silvercliff is noticing is that extra closet space is a hot item, as are additional bathrooms — and this includes average-size family homes, not just the executive homes, they build.
“A lot of them are doing walk-in closets in all the bedrooms; that is quite a big thing,” says Lori. “We haven’t really noticed more bedrooms; if anything, there’s more bathrooms being attached to the kids’ bedrooms.”
It’s all a far cry from what the Burlingames have noticed in years past, where houses they worked on — renovations formed a larger part of their work back then — weren’t as distinctive when it came to upgrades as they are today.
The couple have home building in their blood — Cliff has been in construction for more than 30 years, while Lori handles the interior design end of the business as she has from Day 1. They believe in a personal approach, walking their clients through the building process to provide a home — be it a starter or an executive model — that meets the buyer’s desires. As the contractor, they organize and supervise the project, simply charging a fee for their involvement. As for the materials involved, they pass on their builder pricing — with no markups — to their clients.
Popular features
“Back in the ’90s it wasn’t like it is now,” says Lori. “Today, it’s more upscale and more money is being spent; they’re doing the extras like more expensive fixtures and upgrading cabinets. The kitchens have more gadgets; there’s lots of little niches for espresso machines and instant hot water taps and every home has a garburator now — in the ’90s, it was just more in upper-end homes.”
That, however, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to customizing homes for current buyers, be they young or old.
“If they’re not happy, we’re not happy,” says Cliff, who now counts his son Chase and daughters Brandi and Paige as part of the Silvercliff team.
Other popular new-home items include forced walkouts, double bathrooms and elaborate coffered ceilings, examples of which can be found in the Burlingames’ current home on the southwestern outskirts of Edmonton, in Leduc County.
Their custom-designed bungalow offers 2,430 square feet on the main floor and another 2,430 square feet in the fully finished basement, which Cliff notes is also a prevalent trend.
“A lot of people want finished basements,” says Cliff. “It all depends on affordability, but it’s a popular item.”
On the main level, the Burlingames’ home has formal and informal living spaces that are defined by various ceiling types, from barrel to cross-beam to coffered, all with diverse lighting effects.
The kitchen features a massive centre island with a country-style sink, raised eating bar and lower baking centre, and is also home to an intriguingly huge hidden pantry. At first glance, no one would ever know that part of the custom cabinetry is actually a cleverly hidden door that opens to a massive out-of-sight pantry.
Just off from the kitchen is a home office, but this one comes with a distinctive and useful Silvercliff twist.
“Probably 80 per cent of our clients nowadays have some sort of home-based business or work, so we tend to have offices in almost all of our houses,” Cliff says. “But we like to build the office so it can be converted from a study into a bedroom.”
He says this is quite useful as a family’s needs can change over the years.
Silvercliff creates this dual-purpose room by recessing a pocket in the wall to accommodate part of the buyer’s office furniture, be it bookcases or a shelving unit. Initially, the recessed area takes on a customized look once the office furniture is in place. When it’s time to convert, the furniture is removed and there is minimal construction to transform that portion into a closet by finishing it off with a set of double doors.
Downstairs, the Burlingames have incorporated a forced walkout. As opposed to traditional walkouts where lots are sloped, Silvercliff is able to include a walkout on traditional flat lots with a typical below ground basement.
By erecting six-foot concrete walls to keep the dirt from falling inward, they’re able to create an area where you can walk out of from the basement onto a patio, which then has a number of steps upwards to reach ground level.
“We’re basically putting retaining walls around your walkout area,” says Cliff. “And because of the retaining walls, it gives you a lot more privacy.”
The double bathroom, meanwhile, is something that originally just made sense for Cliff and Lori, who came up with the idea to make it easier to live with three kids growing up. In actuality, the double bathroom is really one bathroom but divided into two areas by a locking door. On one side, there are double sinks while on the other side of the door, there’s a bathtub, shower and the toilet, allowing more than one of the now grown up kids to use the bathroom at a time.
“It’s become really popular and now we build it all the time. It’s really ideal,” Cliff says. “One can be showering and one can be putting on makeup and they’re in two different rooms but in one spot.”
In fact, the features in their house, including the dramatic and comfortable home theatre and the separate games room with its pool table and hockey memorabilia, are so in demand that three other clients want Silvercliff to build them the exact same house, just in different locations.
On average, Silvercliff likes to limit the number of homes it builds to about half a dozen a year. This, says Cliff, makes it easier to focus on the quality and workmanship of the homes they construct.
