Incorporating a wellness feature into your luxury home is a wise investment. The basement storage room that you throw odds and ends in, or the basement suite that no one ever uses, or, the empty “craft room” that no one ever does crafts in because your children are grown and you’re too busy to sew—these unused spaces are all opportunities to create a wellness room.
Creating a wellness room may not even be necessary; simply adding a wellness feature (such as heated floors in your bathroom) could be the perfect way to increase property value while also increasing your level of comfort and happiness.
How Is Adding a Wellness Feature to my Luxury Home Beneficial?
If you are planning on selling your luxury home, adding a wellness feature to your place could help you edge out competitors in a softening high-end market, therefore helping you propose a better sale price and attract buyers.
On the other hand, if you are looking to buy your forever home, purchasing a luxury home with a wellness feature already included (or a luxury home that has the capacity for a wellness feature) has the potential to sustain or enhance your well-being. When one is content and comfortable at home, they are likely thriving everywhere else. Happy home—happy life.
Below are some wellness feature ideas that can improve your mental health and increase your home’s resale value.
In-Home Yoga Studio or Meditation Room
A yoga studio or meditation room at home promotes good health, and, it’s convenient. If you’re a busy parent or constantly bogged down by work, getting to a gym or yoga studio to exercise or meditate can be challenging. Having a yoga or meditation room in the comfort of your own home will increase the likelihood that you’ll have a regular yoga and meditation practice.
Practicing yoga and meditation regularly has numerous mental and physical benefits such as reduction of stress and anxiety, management of chronic conditions and improved fitness and breathing capacity.
Ultimately, having an in-home yoga studio or meditation room encourages a regular yoga/meditation practice and can help you tune out the demands of this busy world.
What are some space recommendations?
- 10×10 ft (fits 2 people)
- Wood Floors
- Lighting (soft wall sconces that direct light upwards installed with a dimmer)
- For meditation enhancement, indirect lighting built into the crown mounding to offer softer light during meditative sessions
- Small Storage Space
- Minimalistic in nature
- Optional infrared heat panels
Radiant Floor Heating in Luxury Homes
If you just think about how awful it is to step out of your shower, bath, or bed onto a cold floor, you’ll understand why radiant floor heating has become a popular wellness feature in luxury homes.
Radiant floor heating systems are made up of heat-conducting mats with electrical wires that are installed under your floor. Using thermal heat transfer, heated floors warm up a room from the ground up and deliver an even distribution of heat to keep you and any objects in the room at a comfortable temperature. Heated flooring systems can be installed under all kinds of flooring including – ceramic tile, stone tile, wood, laminate, carpet and vinyl.
There are many therapeutic benefits to radiant floor heating that promote optimal well-being. Fluctuations in temperature can be bothersome to many, especially to those with health issues. Heated floors let you maintain and enjoy a comfortable environment. Due to the even distribution of heat, heated floors also let you maintain that same level of comfort with your thermostat set to a lower temperature.
Improved air quality is another benefit of this heating system. What you might not know is forced air and baseboard heating systems can worsen indoor air quality. For instance, forced air systems involve vents that can blow dust and volatile particles around your home. Additionally, both forced air and baseboard systems involve very hot surfaces, which can burn these particles and circulate them around. Since heated floors provide heat from the floor up, they don’t transfer dust or toxins into your air or dry it out.
Lastly, radiant floor heating operates in silence. Radiant floor heating produces no swooshing or creaking sounds from radiators, fans, air ducts or pumps. If you have young kids, you can really appreciate the saying, “silence is golden”.
Steam Shower and Mood Lighting
Potential buyers, upon learning of a steam shower on the property, will instantly picture themselves arriving home at the end of a stressful day to find an oasis of calm within their new home.
The steam shower also promotes health and wellness. Steam showers are known to help the body release toxins, purify the skin, promote restful sleep, alleviate allergy and asthma symptoms and aid aching muscles and joints.
Another wellness feature you can incorporate into your home environment (that pairs well with a relaxing steam shower) is mood lighting. Mood lighting decreases depression, reduces cravings, and improves sleeping patterns.
Indoor Zen Garden
Having an indoor zen garden as a wellness feature in your home produces many benefits. Indoor zen gardens are known to relieve stress and anxiety, improve mindfulness, increase self-reflection, enhance creativity, and complement the ambiance and aesthetic of any home décor.
A zen garden is a composed landscape that has been stylized through an arrangement of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water. By having plants inside the home (in a custom-made arena such as a zen garden), airborne dust and carbon dioxide levels decrease significantly, allowing for a fresh flow of oxygen throughout the home.
If your indoor zen garden is not near natural lighting, you may need to install incandescent lights to keep the plans thriving.
Which Wellness Feature Should I Invest In?
If you’re planning on staying in the home you’re in now, or, have been looking at homes on the market that showcase an array of different wellness features, the decision is ultimately up to you. Ask yourself: Which wellness feature will I benefit most from? Which features would my family most likely use or enjoy?
However, if you’re interested in selling wellness real estate by incorporating wellness features into your home, speak with a local real estate agent about what features make buyers tick in the area. Certain features will help add value to your home and may decrease your days on the market.