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Contrary to popular belief, dining rooms are making a comeback in modern hones. 73% of responses in the Home Buyer Reference survey of January 2017 viewed the dining room as “essential or desirable” (National Association of Home Builders).

Why the resurgence in popularity? Well, these may be some of the reasons:

Family oasis in a hectic lifestyle

It’s tough living in modern life sometimes. It’s not so much that modern life is more difficult than life in the past. It can’t be with the sheer amount of technology around us to make our lives easier. It’s just that we’re so occupied by that technology sometimes that we lose sight of ourselves and one another.

It’s most apparent during mealtimes. Ever since the introduction of TV dinners in the 1950s, family meals have slowly descended into an everyone-for-themselves rush to a flickering screen.

Bringing back the dining room is one way to step back from the brink. The beauty of a dining room is that, by design, its only purpose is gathering everyone around to sit down for a meal. There are no TV screens or computer monitors or distractions of any other kind. It’s just the family, friends, food, and the conversation in front of you. It gives everyone a chance to re-learn how to focus on the present and how to be mindful to one another.

No matter how busy everyone’s schedules are, it’s nice to know there’s a constant like family dinners in the dining room to depend on.

Healthier eating

A study done in 2013 concluded that not paying attention to your meal may add to weight gain. Howard LeWine, M.D., of Harvard Health Publications elaborates more in that article: “For example, after you start eating, it takes 20 minutes or so before the brain begins to start sending out ‘I’m full’ or ‘I’m not hungry anymore’ signals that turn off appetite. If you are hurrying or not paying attention, it’s easy to take in many more calories than you need in 20 minutes.”

So when you have everyone taking meals in the distraction-free environment of a dining room, you’re promoting a healthier eating habit. You can even take it a step further by asking everyone to leave their cell phones at the entrance of the dining room. That’s crucial in this day and age when people focus so much on waiting for the next notification ping on their phones to arrive.

Clear separation of activity zones

While open-concept plans are meant to increase opportunities for family interaction, they’ve also diminished the amount of personal space everyone occasionally needs. How many times have you felt like you had nowhere to go except your bedroom because one of your family members were entertaining guests in the mega kitchen-living-room space?

A dining room allows them to chat long into the night while you can still relax in front of the living room TV in the evening. You can actually have some personal time without feeling trapped.

Fashion statement in the middle of your home

People used to dismiss dining rooms because they pictured a stuffy room with hardwood monstrosities you can’t wait to be excused from. But what if it doesn’t have to be that way?

In the open-concept areas, your interior decoration choices are limited because everything has to blend in together. In an enclosed dining room though, it can be its own little world.

You can make it as eccentric in style as you want. In fact, that’s how you can break free of the stereotypical dining room image. Here is the room where you can let your personal style shine while making it both modern and cozy. It’ll certainly be a conversation piece when you’re entertaining guests.

All this doesn’t mean the dining room can only be used for family meals. Feel free to give it another purpose during the day! Just make sure you can quickly reset it back to a dining room when dinner’s ready.

Running a business is very labour-intensive and green initiatives are often the last thing on management’s mind. But if you’re investing in your office renovation already, take the opportunity to put in place these green initiatives to make your office stand out as an environmentally conscious one:

Leafy building roof

A leafy building roof offers many green benefits, unlike a leaky building roof. There’s a lot of unused space on a building rooftop. What if you can turn that space into a natural insulator and air purifier that prolongs the life of your roof?

That’s what a green roof can do for your office building. The plants on the roof also retain rainwater, much of which would have run off to add more stress to the sewer system. What’s more, a green roof create a safe haven for birds that often have limited habitat options in the city. This will turn your rooftop into a tranquil spot for staff breaks or meetings. You can even start a community vegetable garden up there for your employees.

Energy-efficient office machines

The office machines are what make your business hum along so you’ll make a big difference with energy-efficient ones. A good place to start is to only purchase and install office machines with the ENERGY STAR symbol. From there, you can optimize the settings for maximum power-saving without hindering your office operations. When possible, get multifunction machines to cut electricity consumption.

Paperless filing system

Let’s face it, most documents don’t really need to be printed out. With the ease of cloud storage and decreasing costs of high-capacity servers these days, everything can be secured electronically. Set up a central knowledge management system where all company documents – from meeting agendas to office policies – can be stored digitally and organized by folders or tags. You can either build your own system or use a ready-made corporate one designed for this very purpose. Research the pros and cons of each product and find the one that best suits your business needs.

Have your staff share documents by linking to the original copy on the knowledge management system, rather than attaching copies to emails. This will lower the temptation to print out the attachments and also makes sure that everyone always gets the most up-to-date version of the document. If people absolutely have to print something, make double-sided printing the default setting on all computers and office machines.

One more thing: emails are actually not very efficient in carrying out discussions. They clog up server space and create more temptations for printing. Instead, use a chat system like Slack to get input from staff. If you don’t want to use a third-party app, you can build your own secure system or use a different proprietary software hosted on your own servers.

Ban single-use disposable products

Single-serve coffee machines are notorious for the incredible amount of waste they produce with those coffee pods. The only reason they’re popular is that they provide flavoured cups of coffee that are slightly better tasting than the regular coffee. But what if you stock your coffee room with the good stuff instead? Pretty sure your staff will enjoy fair-trade organic coffee from a batch brewer just as much, if not more. And you’re doing your part for the world with your coffee bean choice!

While you’re at it, eliminate styrofoam/paper cups from your office. Provide re-usable water bottles/cups for all your staff instead. You can even have them all printed with your company logo to reinforce your company image.

Recycling and compost program

First, check if your city already has a municipal recycling and/or compost program you can register your office for. If not, find out if there are any companies in town that will regularly collect recycling and/or compost from your office. Compost collecting companies are usually hard to find though. Use the compost for your green roof if you have one set up.

Organized carpooling or public transit benefits

Instead of everyone driving to work on their own and adding to the city’s carbon emissions, take the lead on organizing a carpooling system. Another option is to encourage public transit use by offering public transit tickets or passes to your staff.

Green committee

Finally, set up a “Green Committee” in your office that can look after managing all the above initiatives as well as coming up with new ideas to make your office eco-friendly.

So you’ve got the party started with Part 1 of this series already. Remember that your whole goal is to create an unforgettable experience for your guests from start to finish.

Now it’s time to introduce the main acts and headliners to close out the show:

Covered dining patio

Nothing beats dining out in the open with the sunlight all around you and the breeze in your hair. It’s even more appetizing when you bring fine dining outdoors. Set out a full-length banquet table and chairs on the patio, ready to host dinner parties. And with a roof over top, you’ll get the intimacy for dinners and deep conversations to stretch long into the night. Make sure the tables and chairs are of weather-resistant materials like teak, wicker, or cast iron. As for the upholstery fabrics, here’s your chance to start the colour accent scheme you want in the backyard.

Outdoor kitchen and bar

Well, if you’re going to have a fancy meal out on the patio, why not prepare the meal outside, too? And we’re not talking about just a BBQ grill here. Go all out and put in a full kitchen with a gas-powered stove and grill. Bonus points for a pizza oven, too! Hook up plumbing to the outdoor kitchen so that you can have a working sink. Heck, might as well throw in a mini-fridge to hold fresh ingredients as you’re cooking.

For food preparation, install a durable countertop. Build in extra storage in the base cabinets to hold utensils and dishes. Right next to it all should be a bar counter complete with a wine cooler, icemaker, and glasses.

The best part about having a full outdoor kitchen and bar? You can keep playing host to your guests without having to run back inside to check on the food all the time.

Keep the party going

After dinner, it’s great to be able to step away from the table and chat somewhere else over drinks. This is where a gazebo or pavilion would come in handy. Your guests can then continue enjoying the night air at a new hangout spot. Light up the area with some lantern ambience or strung lights. You can also have a sunken firepit patio nearby for those who want to stay warm. And for those with happy feet, an audio system and projector screen at the gazebo/pavilion will get a dance party pumping far into the night.

These rear additions allow you to throw an epic party. But don’t forget they’re also for you. They’ll encourage you to make more excuses to relax there on your down times. You can do a lot more in life with frequent breaks.

But let’s go back to your guests as they slowly call it a night with weary but contented smiles on their faces. Who can forget a party like that? You’ll stay on top of their minds for a long time. And when opportunities come knocking, it’ll be your door they come to first.

The life of royals is within your grasp. Your luxury custom home is much more than the culmination of the dream home designs spinning in your head ever since you were little. It’s also an investment in your social stature. At this level, your social stature becomes the new capital for you to pursue new opportunities. And it all starts with entertaining guests at your new lavish digs.

The interior of your home is your guests’ first exposure to your inner circle. The most memorable parties though are always the ones held in the backyard. Besides, when the season of hot summer evenings begin, who can resist spending time outdoors?

Luxury homes should be designed to take people on a curated journey that shows off all the best parts of the house. Your guests may already be impressed with the interior. You just have to build up their anticipation for what’s to come next when they see your backyard.

This is Part 1 of how you can leave a lasting impression on your guests, from the moment they enter the backyard to the moment they say good night:

Terraced natural landscaping

If you have a backyard that’s on a slope, this is a great way to create levels for different activities. The trend is to make all the features part of the natural environment with organic flow from one area to the next. This involves using natural materials as much as possible. Like wood or rugged stone finishes on backyard structures and low walls. Or paving pathways with flagstone. It also means following the curve of the land and minimizing sharp angles whenever you can. By doing so, you can even subtly work your preferred progression of activities into the design of your backyard.

You can still get the same effect even with a flat backyard. All you have to do is slightly raise the levels of certain zones to give off a terraced impression. If you prefer to keep everything on the same level though, then just make the pathways between more distinct.

Sectioned pool

Pools are one of the must-have backyard features that will add to your home value. Rather than the ordinary rectangular pool though, go with an irregularly shaped one that has custom sections. Inset spas and tanning ledges are popular pool sections in addition to the main swimming zone. If space is too limited for a long enough pool to swim laps, install counterflow jets at one end for endless swimming in place. You can also separate the sections at different heights and connect them with waterfall curtains.

Staying with the natural landscape theme, blend the pool with its surroundings with a vanishing edge. A vanishing edge also fits nicely in a minimalist design. That way, you get the optical illusion of the pool popping out of a travertine, Italian marble, or coral stone pool surround.

It’s already a good start to the party with your guests admiring the landscaping and splashing in the pool. But that’s only the first half! Stay awhile for Part 2.