The Here, Now and Future of Smart Homes

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 …

Why Having a Community Garden Can Be a Good Thing

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 …

ICI Homes Featured in St. Augustine Record – Home Designs for Aging in Place

Don Wilford, Northeast Florida division president of ICI Homes, said with the Baby Boomer generation so active in the new home market, it’s important for builders to give them options to suit their needs now and into the future. Those options can range from something as significant as an elevator to something as simple as a walk-in shower.

Have Info, Will Buy: Millennials’ Influence on Homebuilding Industry

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, …

Things You Can Do in Today’s Smart Homes

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 …

What Millennials Seek in a Home Buying Experience, Part II

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 …

What Millennials Seek in a Home Buying Experience, Part I

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 …

Not a Fad: Community Gardening a Modern Tradition

If you’re settling into a new custom Florida home and would like to get your hands dirty — but not in your own backyard — consider becoming part of a community garden. Here’s why: Florida homeowners tend to have swimming pools, hot tubs, summer kitchens, patios and terraces in their …

Behind the Walls in Today’s Smart Homes

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 …

Pluses and Minuses of Community Gardens, Part II

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 …

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