Residential Home Design Fundamentals: Explained

When people hear "residential home design," most jump straight to kitchens, tile, and paint colors. I get it. Those are the fun parts. But after twenty-five years of designing homes in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, I can tell you that the projects people love living in five or ten years later rarely because of the finishes. They love them because someone thought carefully about how the house actually works.

That's what residential home design really is. Not decoration. Not style. It's the architecture underneath: how rooms connect, where the light comes from, whether the hallway feels right or whether you're bumping into walls every morning with a cup of coffee.

What Residential Home Design Actually Covers

There's a common misunderstanding that an architect mostly picks how things look. The reality is that residential home design is closer to problem-solving. We're figuring out how a family moves through their day inside a specific building on a specific piece of land.

Some of the questions I work through on every project: Where does the morning sun hit this lot, and how do we use that? If both parents work from home, where do they go? Is the kitchen going to feel cut off, or does it connect naturally to where people gather? What happens in ten years when the kids are teenagers, and everyone needs more privacy?

The Basics That Never Change

Trends come and go. Open concept was everything for a while. Now people are realizing that a house with no walls is also a house with no quiet. What stays constant are a few fundamentals I come back to on every project.

Layout is the biggest one. A floor plan has to make sense for the people living in it. Rooms need to be the right size, not just on paper but with furniture in them. There has to be enough storage, which almost everyone underestimates. And circulation, the way you physically walk through the house, should feel obvious. If you have to explain the floor plan to someone, something is off.

Light matters enormously, especially here. Chicago winters are long. A house oriented the wrong way on its lot can feel dark for months. I spend a lot of time thinking about where windows go, how high they sit, and what they'll frame at different times of day. It costs nothing extra if you plan for it.

Scale is the other one people don't talk about enough. A nine-foot ceiling feels generous in a bedroom. That same ceiling in a narrow hallway feels like a canyon. Proportion affects comfort more than most finishes ever will.

How People Actually Use Their Homes Now

A lot of the residential home design work I do now involves figuring out how to give people both togetherness and separation within the same house. Open floor plans can be great, but they can also mean someone on a conference call is competing with someone making lunch. The answer isn't to go back to small, closed rooms. It's to be smarter about where walls exist and how sound travels through the space.

I also talk to almost every client about aging in place, even when they're young. Wider doorways, a bedroom on the main level, a bathroom that could handle a grab bar someday without a full renovation. None of this changes how the house looks today. But it saves a fortune later.

What the Process Looks Like

At Studio Carney Architecture, residential home design starts long before we draw anything. First is a feasibility and site analysis: what does zoning allow, what are the setbacks, are there easements or neighbor sight-line issues? This step alone has saved clients from spending months designing something that was never going to get permitted.

From there, we develop concepts, explore options, and refine. Then we produce construction documents, the detailed drawings that contractors actually build from. During construction, we stay involved to make sure what gets built matches what was designed.

The whole process, including construction, typically runs about a year, sometimes longer. It's not fast, but the projects that skip steps are the ones that end up with change orders and surprises on site.

Chicago Is Its Own Animal

My work spans Urban projects and residential commissions throughout the region, from the North Shore and Naperville to Lake Villa and Crystal Lake, as well as closer to home in Barrington, Hoffman Estates, and Palatine. Each setting presents its own distinct design challenges.

Out in the suburbs, larger lots let you think about how the house sits in the landscape, how indoor and outdoor spaces connect. But you still have local codes, homeowner's associations, and the same Midwest weather.

Snow loads, freeze-thaw cycles, and temperature swings of eighty degrees between January and July. If the design doesn't account for this climate, maintenance becomes a second job.

Mistakes I See Regularly

After twenty-five years, certain patterns keep showing up. Not because people make bad decisions, but because some things are genuinely hard to think through when you've never built a house before.

The most common one is designing for resale instead of for yourself. I understand the instinct. It's a big investment and you want to protect it. But what usually happens is the house ends up feeling like a model unit. Neutral everything, no personality, rooms that photograph well but don't quite work for the way your family actually lives. A well-designed home that fits its owners holds its value just fine.

Storage is another one, and it's almost universal. Nobody walks into their first design meeting excited about closet planning. But six months after moving in, it's the thing they notice most. Coats, sports equipment, cleaning supplies, the stuff that accumulates in any household. I build more storage into plans than most clients initially ask for, and I have never once had someone tell me it was too much.

I also see people give too much weight to whatever's popular right now. I won't name specifics because it changes every couple of years, and that's exactly the point. A kitchen that chases a trend can feel dated by the time the countertop warranty expires. I'd rather put the budget toward proportions that feel right and materials that age well. Those decisions pay off for decades.

The last one is probably the most expensive to get wrong. People design for who they are today and forget that life changes. A couple becomes a family. A spare bedroom becomes a home office that never converts back. A parent needs to move in. When residential home design accounts for that kind of change from the beginning, it's minor. When it doesn't, you're looking at a renovation five or seven years into a house that should have had another twenty years before anyone touched it.

Why This Matters Enough to Hire an Architect

Hiring an architect isn't about making things prettier. It's about making sure the budget, the structure, the building codes, and the contractor's scope all line up before construction starts. When that alignment happens early, projects run more smoothly. When it doesn't, the problems show up as change orders, delays, and difficult conversations.

I've seen it go both ways. The difference between a well-planned project and one that was rushed into construction is enormous.

If you're thinking about a new build, a renovation, or an addition, schedule a call with Studio Carney Architecture. A conversation early on can save a lot of time and money later.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is residential home design?

It's the architectural planning of how a home is laid out, structured, and organized. Less about decoration, more about how the building actually works day to day.

Why does it matter?

Because fixing a bad layout after construction is expensive, and living with one is frustrating. Getting it right up front affects everything from daily comfort to long-term value.

How is it different in Chicago?

Zoning here is complex; lots are often tight. An architect who works locally understands what the code requires and what the permitting process actually looks like.

How long does the process take?

Several months to over a year, depending on the scope and how long the municipality takes to review permits. Rushing it rarely saves time in the end.

Do I really need an architect?

For most new construction and major renovations in Chicago, yes. Beyond the permitting requirement, it's the best way to make sure your project is coordinated, compliant, and built the way you intended.