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Consider Making Your Custom House a Transitional Home

If you’re in the market for a new house and you’re considering getting one custom built, you should consider getting a transitional home. However, many people don’t know what a transitional home is or what the benefits of owning one are. Heidan Construction, one of Toronto’s leading construction companies, is here to tell you a bit more about what makes transitional homes special. 

Best of Both Worlds

To start off, let’s talk about what exactly a transitional home is. A transitional home is meant to be an in-between for old and new styles. That can mean a lot of things, but the general idea is that the outside will look traditional and the inside will look modern – or however else you want it to look.

This combination of styles is incredibly handy for those of us interested in trying out newer design styles without making our house an eyesore in a traditional neighborhood. Plus, some of us like those traditional exteriors. Tudor houses, anyone?

Old Look, New Building

The reason why transitional custom homes are better than the alternatives is because they’re new. There are a lot of old houses in the GTA; why not just gut one of them and make the inside modern? The answer to this one is simple: old buildings have problems.

While old buildings may look great, they don’t always function great. Thus, here are some traditional features of old houses:

  • Sound traveling more than desired from thin walls
  • The house wasting electricity on heating because of poor insulation
  • Aged plumbing that makes the water taste like metal or that leaves trace amounts of lead in the water
  • Rodent problems due to cracks in the foundation and other such indiscrepancies

Because transitional homes are built new, you can have that traditional exterior with all of the advancements made in modern times. Get the best insulation on the market, all new plumbing, quality interior walls, and a house that’s prepared to keep you in and the natural world out.

A Unique Transitional Home

The best part about getting a custom transitional home is that its completely unique to you. Furthermore, when using an old house in good condition, you’re limited to the existing structure. A custom transitional home allows you to work with our design team and come up with a design that feels right for you.

That can mean anything you want it to. Figuring out where you’d most like the bedrooms to be, making the bathroom as big as you like, turning the gables into a loft, open concept design, or anything else is completely up to you. We will design the entire home around you and your needs. That’s much preferred to trying to fit your needs into an existing space.

If you’re interested in a custom transitional home or want to explore other home-building options, give us a call. We look forward to working with you and making your custom home-building experience a great one.

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Why Hiring Heidan Makes Construction Simple

If you’re planning to hire out for a construction project, you’ll want to choose a company that does what you need and no less. Unfortunately, finding a company that will meet and exceed your expectations these days can be tricky. There are so many companies competing with one and other and it’s difficult to tell who the best choice is. We’re taking some time today to go over what it is that makes Heidan the best choice for construction. How does hiring Heidan make construction simple? Here’s how:

We Listen

One of the most important things a construction company can do is listen to what their client needs. A construction company who doesn’t listen – really listen – to the needs and vision of their client will end up serving a finished product that falls short of success.

We take the time to listen to our clients and really get to know and understand what they need. When you hire Heidan, you can trust that we will give you a finished product that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.

We Work Hard

Listening to a client’s needs is important, but won’t be enough all by itself. What makes a good construction company is taking the information they have and really putting it to use. There are two main parts to this. 

For one, we at Heidan take the understanding of what you need and we make it happen. The ability to make sure things actually get done, and in a timely manner, is not something every construction company possesses. 

The second thing is the knowledge to do it well. Knowing what a client wants and putting in the effort to make it happen is only helpful if you know your stuff. Heidan has nearly 20 years of experience in the industry. Over these two decades, we’ve been building our clients buildings they can be proud of.

We Communicate

Something that we take pride in at Heidan is our communication abilities. Many construction companies will get to work and do the whole job without consulting with their clients. It’s important to us at Heidan to check in and make sure our clients are happy with the choices we’re making. We also put an emphasis on friendliness, communicating with clients in a way that feels natural and comfortable. 

We Tie Loose Ends in Construction

Perhaps one of the things that makes us truly stand out from other companies is our ability to tie up loose ends. A lot of companies finish a building and leave behind a mess for the owners to clean up. At Heidan, we firmly believe that it is part of our job to leave you with a turn-key property. There will be no trash, no nails, no scrap wood, and no other kind of mess left behind for you to deal with. It isn’t your job to clean up after us.

If you’re interested in choosing Heidan Construction for your next project, give us a call. We look forward to setting up a consultation. If you have any questions, we’re more than happy to help answer them.

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Interesting Design Choices that Improve Productivity

There’s a lot more to design than you might think. The design of the building you’re in can change everything from the way you work, to the way you feel, to the way you move. Heidan Construction is here today to talk about how design choice can improve productivity levels. Here’s how it happens:

Color Matters

One of the first things that can affect your behavior in design is color. Color is a surprisingly effective tool to alter people’s behavior. That doesn’t mean you can control people’s individual actions, but you can certainly control their attitudes, even just a little bit. That’s because color has a profound effect on the human brain. Our brains associate different colors with different needs and moods. If you take the effects of different colors into account when designing a workspace, you can optimize work in each area – even different types of work.

  • Calming blues can help lower stress. If you’ve ever been stressed about work, you know how stifling it can be. Being stressed about work can actually make working harder. That’s why choosing calming blue tones for high-stress work environments can keep employees calmer, happier, and more productive.
  • Bright oranges boost energy levels. This true of both orange and red. They actually can raise stress, but in a good way. A small amount of stress is what encourages people to speed up and put more energy into their work. It gives the illusion of pressure, just enough that the brain kicks things into high gear. For physically active or fast-paced work, these bright, warm colors can really do the trick.
  • Middle-tone greens can be a happy medium. Soft, earth greens help keep the balance between calm and productive. This is a great color for clinics, medical offices, and even home offices.

Improve Productivity with Lighting

The next thing that boosts productivity is lighting. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to feel sleepy in a room with dim, warm lighting? That’s because this subtle, warm lighting is similar to the hour before dusk. Our bodies equate it with the setting of the sun and the end of the day. It signals to us that it’s time to sleep.

On the other hand, bright, clear light does a great job waking us up. Have you ever sat outside when the sun rises? Perhaps you’ve had to get up at the crack of dawn to go to work? You might have noticed that the morning sunlight is bright and somewhat cold in color. That is the exact reason why bright lamps or overhead lights with little warmth to them tend to wake us up. They aren’t the coziest lights, but they sure are good at tricking our brains into staying awake.

If you want to talk to experts in the field about how you can incorporate these design choices into your next build project, give us a call. Heidan Construction looks forward to helping you make your next work space as functional as possible.

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Make Your Medical Office Design Truly Unique

Taking your medical career to the next step by building your own office is a big deal. Not only is it the first step in moving forward in your career, it’s an investment that can define your success for the next decade or longer. Therefore, making sure you’re hiring the right company for the job is an important part of the planning process. Here’s why you can trust in Heidan to get the job done right.

Unique Medical Office Design

One of the ways you can keep patients coming back is by having a unique medical office design. So many medical offices repeat the same mistakes or make the same unfortunate design choices. You can break free of that mould and do something different and improved with your medical office. What’s worth making unique about a medical office? Here are a few things we think are worth consideration.

Open Concept

While some parts of a medical office do need to be separate from the rest, we’ve found an open concept medical office is actually preferred by clients. That’s because open concept designs:

  • Are more accessible to people with mobility aids
  • Give more breathing room to those with anxiety about visiting a doctor
  • Have less wall surfaces for spreading bacteria
  • Allow freer movement
  • Are easier to navigate

Open concept medical offices minimize dividing walls between waiting areas, hallways, and built-in pharmacies. The overall experience of an open concept medical office is one of ease. Entering the office, you can find where you need to go just by looking around. There’s no need to follow a bunch of signs down various hallways or get directions from a receptionist. Clients being able to find their own way is always going to set them at ease and make them feel more comfortable in their environment.

Plus, open concept medical offices make it easier for people with wheelchairs or walkers to move around. Too often, medical offices are made small and cozy. This can be comfortable for some people, but those with mobility aids may find there’s nowhere to park their chair or have trouble getting past coffee tables with their walker. Plus, those who struggle with anxiety may feel claustrophobic in a small space.

Softer Environment

While putting some consideration into the psychology of colors may be worth your time, you should also consider the comfort of other aspects of design. Medical offices often overlook the importance of angles and shapes in design. If you want your medical office to feel inviting and safe, and actually be inviting and safe, introduce curves and such into the design. Curved edges are safer for kids and, psychologically, feel safer to everyone.

If you’re looking for professionals who you can count on to make your medical office a success, Heidan Construction is the group for you. We’re experienced in the field of medical office design and can guarantee you’ll be happy with the results of our hard work.

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Bring Family Time to Life with a Family Room Addition

If your kids are growing older, you may find that you don’t do much together anymore. Part of that may be that their interests have changed over the years. Instead of wanting to go outside or play with the toys they enjoyed when they were younger, they’ve developed new hobbies. Many of these hobbies are probably media-based. The solution to spending time with your family as they get older is having the space to enjoy media and interactive games together. Therefore, a family room addition might be just the thing for you.

Games

Having a game night every week or two is a great way to bring the family together. It gives you a chance to learn new things about each other while having a bit of fun too. 

Board games and card games are a timeless classic. Even if your family isn’t fond of older ones, you’ll be glad to know there are new ones being made all the time. Checking around online, you’re bound to find something you all like.

Video games are also more and more accessible with the years. Even if newer consoles aren’t very affordable, you can buy less recent ones for cheap online. Parents who play games with their kids are actually proven to have a better relationship with them. It’s a great way to bond with each other and opens the door to communication.

Movies and TV

Watching movies together has always been a great way to spend time together. That’s because they give you a couple hours to enjoy something with the family, eat snacks, and enjoy time together. However, what’s even better is enjoying TV shows together. Even if you don’t have cable, streaming services allow you to watch shows easily for an affordable price each month. The cool thing about ongoing TV shows is that it gives you something to talk about with your teens between episodes. Even teens who don’t open up easily won’t mind discussing something you’ve watched together.

Make It Happen

When you’re trying to plan for family night, you may run into a roadblock when you consider your existing living space. For a lot of people, the living room isn’t the ideal space for relaxing, as it’s saved mostly for hosting. If you’re looking to have a space dedicated to leisure time, it’s time to consider a family room addition.

Having a space where you can keep your TV, game consoles, computers, or shelves full of board games is important. You need somewhere to keep all of these things where they’re accessible and don’t need to be hidden away every time you have someone over for coffee.

Heidan Construction can make a living room addition a reality for you, giving you the space you need to enjoy family time again. No matter what you end up doing together as a family, the most important thing is that you have room to be yourselves.

Give us a call if you have questions about our services or are interested in setting up an appointment.

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Design Build Contractors Make Commercial Construction Easy

If you’re in need of a new office from which to work, you’ll need someone to help you bring it to life. Knowing what you want is great, but it’s only the first step of many to actually getting the building you need. Heidan Construction is the next step. Why should you hire Heidan when Toronto has such variety in construction companies? We’re leaders in the industry and we’re also design build contractors. Here’s all you need to know about why design build contractors are the number one choice for commercial construction.

What are They?

If you’ve never heard of design build contractors before, you’re in for a treat. Design build contractors are contractors who do all the work to build a new building from the first stage to the final stage. That means concepts, blueprints, permits, construction, and polishing are all done by us.

Save Time

Hiring a design build contractor is incredibly important when hiring out for commercial construction. Why? It saves you an invaluable amount of time and energy. If you don’t hire design build contractors, you have to do all the in-between work yourself. 

  • First you have to go to a designer and work with them to figure out what kind of space you want, then put it into a floorplan. 
  • You’ll then have to part ways with them, taking your blueprint with you on your way to finding a location. Finding the right location where you can legally build a building of the size and purpose you have in mind is work better left to professionals. 
  • Then, you have to find a construction company. You give your blueprint to a team of contractors who have never seen it before and trust them to get the job done right.

Wouldn’t it be easier to get it all done in one place? All you have to do when you hire design build contractors is help us to understand the kind of space you’re looking for and we’ll design your new office and have it built for you. No busy-work from you is necessary.

Quality Results

When you have a team of contractors build from a blueprint they’ve never seen before, the chances are the building will look fine. But, it might not be the personalized office you were hoping it would be. There could be things done differently than you expected. It’s hard to get exactly what you want from a design when you barely know the people building it and they aren’t very familiar with you or your needs.

When you hire design build contractors, we do every part of the process. That means we’re intimately familiar with what you need out of our services. Our team knows you and knows the design and will give you exactly what you asked for.

If you need a team of design build contractors for your new commercial construction project, give us a call at Heidan Construction. We look forward to making your future endeavors that much easier.