Most people focus on the environmental friendliness of materials and the quality of construction during home renovation, thinking such a renovation is qualified. However, they overlook the equally important human-centered design. In the end, they often spend a lot of money but end up with a poorly renovated house that is inconvenient to use everywhere—this is "paying the price for poor design."
Let’s take a look at which regrets can be avoided.
If you don’t consider your usage habits and future soft furnishings before moving in, you’ll find that there are never enough sockets, and you have to use extension cords everywhere; the locations where switches and sockets are installed are blocked by furniture and electrical appliances, making them unusable; there are no dual-control switches, so you have to get up to turn off the light at the door even when you’re ready to sleep; in an otherwise beautiful home renovation, the entryway switches, thermostats, and other devices are irregular in size, making the aesthetic appeal plummet.
Therefore, during the plumbing and electrical positioning phase of a new home renovation, even if you don’t understand renovation, you should be present on-site. You can first ask the workers to mark all plumbing and electrical positions on the wall based on their experience, then adjust them according to your own life experience and usage habits. It’s best to have all family members come to the site to check again—if there’s anything inappropriate, it can still be adjusted. At this point, the plumbing and electrical work done by the workers according to the adjusted plan will fully comply with the family’s living habits after moving in, making usage more convenient and human-centered.
Although fully enclosed entryway cabinets seem to increase storage space, they don’t add much. On the contrary, it’s very troublesome to take things every day, and they don’t conform to the living habit of wanting to put down things in your hands as soon as you enter the house, causing inconvenience in life.
If you design the entryway cabinet in an "80-20 split" format—meaning 80% closed space and 20% open space—this design achieves "hiding some items and displaying others" for the entryway cabinet, resulting in a better overall visual effect. Most importantly, with this design, you can create open areas in the middle and bottom of the entryway cabinet. The middle open area can hold small items such as bags and keys, while the bottom open area is used to place daily slippers, keeping the entryway cabinet neater. Alternatively, you can install a shoe-changing stool in the open area to make daily shoe changes more convenient.
In many cases, kitchen wall cabinets are designed to fit the common specifications of range hoods, so their width often causes taller people to bump their heads.
To solve this problem, you can switch to a side-suction range hood in the kitchen. This way, the wall cabinets won’t be affected by the range hood, eliminating the risk of head bumps, and there will be no impact on usage. Alternatively, when making the cabinet countertops and installing the range hood, design the dimensions based on the homeowner’s height.
A wet-dry partition in the bathroom is a great design, but for bathrooms, floor drains should be reserved next to the shower area, toilet, and sink. Because the installation of the wet-dry partition and shower screen actually creates three separate floor spaces in the bathroom, it’s only natural to equip each with a floor drain for drainage, which makes life more convenient.
In real life, due to long-term exposure to humidity and open windows, venetian blinds accumulate a lot of dust and are difficult to clean. Additionally, the edges of the blinds are sharp, and you might accidentally cut your hands while cleaning.
Instead, you can use modern roll-up shades in the bathroom. They also provide waterproof and light-blocking functions, but these roll-up shades are very easy to clean—just take them down and rinse them with water to make them clean, which is simple and convenient.
Although open cabinets look nice, they collect a lot of dust. Even if you clean them every day, dust still lingers.
For cabinet design, it’s acceptable to add some open spaces locally, but you should follow the "80-20 split" principle—20% open area and 80% closed space. This combination is both beautiful and dust-resistant, making cleaning easier.
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