Kit Homes
February 26, 2009
By Lauren Cooke
When you think Prefab housing, what comes to mind? It might be masses of identical quick and cheap houses established after the second world war. It might also be strange, modernist and largely impractical prefab’s designed as concepts by Architects. One thing you are unlikely to think of, however, is a fully functional, attractive and modern house.
The prefab buildings of today – more accurately referred to as kit, modular, manufactured or panelised homes – are a different story to the desperate temporary measures of the 20th Century. They are spacious, customisable entities, designed for real living and quick installation. Even better, Kit homes are often cheaper than building a home from scratch, or even buying on the normal market.
One up-and-coming Australian company has added a new mood to the kit home market. Kit Homes markets a number of designs, all of which you can customise your needs, whether land size, bedroom numbers or more. This sounds great – you can even do the work yourself, dependant on your local laws and regulations. So, let’s have a close look at the designs themselves.
Our favourite design is “KODI” – it avoids that easily noticeable “prefab” style that links bungalows, post-war buildings and pod homes inexplicably together. No, instead, this house looks like it is actually a house, actually a home. It comes with 3 bedrooms, your own dedicated theatre room, and a lovely open plan lounge diner. What I am most impressed with is the fact that owning a kit home no longer means sacrificing luxuries – here you can have a garage and the options of interesting architectural features including balconies and bays.
On the market for the UK and Ireland are a range of homes from Hebridean Homes. These houses are sold in kit form from as little as £33,000 for a two bedroom unit and £70,000 for a four bedroom unit.
The houses themselves come in range of modern finishes and can either be rendered on the exterior or clad in cedar or Larch wooden boards. What makes these homes particularly useful from the kit home perspective is that the pack comes as either a SIP (structurally insulated panel ) system, or, for the traditionalists or those with limited site access, a traditional timber framed system. The pack includes walls, floors and a full external shell and allows for modification of the interiors and those all important decorative details.
This new concept., available at http://www.kithomes.net.au has redefined by ideas of kit homes. From something undesirable, out of date and unmarketable, they have suddenly become a rather sexy and practicable alternative to conventional houses - let’s get these homes home !
Click Launch Gallery to see a project by Hebridean Homes.
UK kit home options include:
http://www.hebrideanhomes.com/
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