Articles in the ICI Spotlight category are also featured on the ICI Homes home page.
Intrigued about a smart home? Do you want your new custom Florida home to be equipped with the latest remote-controlled, digital and electronic capabilities? Smart homes are one of the hottest trends in the home-building industry, but like any trend, they come with many options, cautions and positives. The technology …
Interested in founding a community garden or becoming involved in an existing one? It’s a great way to meet neighbors and new friends, plus grow your own salad ingredients! But the community-garden concept is more layered than the actual gardening aspect — although that’s the reason most of us love …
Over the last 100-plus years, each generation of U.S. home buyers has exhibited specific preferences and behaviors when buying and selling their homes. Millennials — generally thought of as folks who reached early adulthood in the early 2000s — are no different. Like Baby Boomers and Generation X-ers before them, …
So you’ve decided to go all-in with a new custom smart home, and you want to automate it like the alternate reality of your favorite science-fiction novel. Just think — inanimate objects will spring into action at the sound of your voice while a robot pours your morning coffee. We …
In Part I of our series on what Millennials seek in a home-buying experience, we discussed some non-interpersonal aspects of how this generation tends to pursue their daily lives and business. If you need a reminder, Millennials are the youngest major generation in the U.S. They achieved early adulthood in …
Are you a prospective Millennial home buyer or know someone who is? In the U.S., Millennials are today’s youngest signature generation. Their spending power, cultural influence and priorities are impacting how many industries conduct business nowadays, and the home-building industry is no different. Millennials, by definition, are those who began …
Since more of us than you’d think might have difficulty figuring out why we should want to remotely activate our washing machine via a command from our smart phone, let’s take a look behind the scenes at what makes smart homes, well, smart. We see you, all you folks who …
In Part I of our series on the pluses and minuses of community gardens, we discussed the positive reasons to participate in such an endeavor. The good far outweighs the bad, as referenced in a recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. But, since nothing’s …
If community gardens are so popular across the United States, why wouldn’t your community want one? The short answer is, yes, you probably would. Benefits do seem to outweigh negatives. But in what appears to be an unblinking examination of the popular national trend, three researchers from the Johns Hopkins …
Let’s talk about smart homes. Having one can make everyday life just a little — or a lot — easier and more efficient, especially for busy homeowners. Confirming via a mobile-phone app that indeed, you turned off the iron, can be a sweet thing as you rush to the airport. …