How do you create a luxurious home?

What does luxury mean? And is it a worthwhile goal in your project?

Learn more about defining luxury in a luxurious home.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 349, and in it, I’m going to discuss a topic that is, I believe, often the promoted ‘thing’ out there through glossy mags and social media: ‘How to create a luxurious home’. And because it seems to be promoted so heavily, by inference, it seems that it’s supposed to be one of the goals when creating your ideal home.

However, I have found that the definition of ‘luxury’ can have MANY connotations.

Not always positive either. And it can be so relative and subjective in how it’s interpreted, that this supposed pursuit of a luxurious home as the dream being sold to us can be really fraught. And I wanted to dive into this more.

I also thought that this would be an interesting way to discuss some learnings from a recent trip my family and I made to Japan. Over the Christmas / New Year break of 2024 / 2025, we spent a month there. It was my first time there, and so many things jumped out at me, but the first was this:

In a city such as Tokyo that is amongst the most densely populated in the world, luxury can’t come from space, or stuff. So how is it being created instead, when this constraint exists.

That led to A LOT of thinking, exploration and observation about this concept of luxury. How we define it, how we pursue it, and how we incorporate it into our ideal homes, wherever we’re located.

So, let’s jump into talking about luxury. What it is, what it represents to you, and how to create a luxurious home.

As I mentioned in the introduction, my family and I spent a month travelling through Japan across December 2024 and January 2025. As I record this, my kids are 17, 15 and 13. So, a family of 5 with three teens!

Japan has been on our bucket list for a long time, and I’d talked to my husband in early 2024 about spending Christmas there, but then a bunch of personal stuff happened over the year that made it difficult to plan a trip away. So, the whole idea got put on the back-burner.

Then, once we got clear of it all, and I had this dawning thought that my eldest is about to start his last year at school in 2025 and we may not get many opportunities to do a big trip together like this, I jumped into action. So, this whole holiday got booked and planned through late October and November. 

I’m not great at planning holidays a long way out anyway, so this worked fine for me. However, it was going to be the first overseas trip in over a decade for our whole family – the last one was a much shorter trip to Fiji when the kids were tiny. It was also going to be the first chance for 2 of my 3 kids to experience snow. And with a month away, it would be the longest holiday we’ve ever had together. So, it was definitely going to be an adventure.

And an adventure it was. Before I jump into the actual discussions for this podcast, I’ll quickly share our itinerary, because I was sharing stories on my socials whilst we were away, and I got lots of questions about where we were.

So, we flew in and out of Osaka. It’s easier from where I live in Northern NSW, and I liked the idea it was not as intense a city as Tokyo to arrive in, especially for my kids who’ve grown up in a regional area and think Sydney is a busy city.

These were the places we travelled:

• Osaka
• Nara
• Tokyo
• Yudenaka (which was just an overnight to experience snow and see the snow monkeys)
• Kyoto
• Hiroshima
• Okayama
• And back to Osaka

We had some day trips to Kanazawa, Miyajima Island, Naoshima Island (or Art Island as it’s known), Kurashiki and Kobe.

So we got to see quite a lot in the month away. 

Now, I want to get into what this episode is actually about, which is about creating your luxurious home. So, I’ll talk more about my travel experience as we go, but needless to say, we had an amazing time. My favourite part of the trip was the 5 of us getting to spend that much time together, especially at this point in my kids’ lives. 

Of course, it was not without its challenges and arguments. We were often in really confined spaces and spending A LOT of time together, and my kids are pretty different from each other and have individual interests and hobbies. 

But all in all, I was amazed at seeing things through their eyes. We walked between 15,000 and 25,000 steps a day, we ate so much amazing food, we saw some incredible things, had some really beautiful moments and enjoyable experiences, and we all got pushed out of our comfort zones at one point or another. 

OK, let’s jump into this discussion about luxury! 

And I’ll include my observations from my Japan travels as we go. (And here is the image of the wet room that I talk about in the episode).

Let me ask you first: When I say “do you want to create a luxurious home?” … what is your first response?

I asked this on my social media and wow, the responses were varied. 

It was clear that there are some negative connotations with the word ‘luxury’. 

The definition of luxury can be “something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary”, or “an indulgence in something that provides pleasure, satisfaction, or ease”.

Simply by definition alone, there’s nothing evil or wrong about it. Luxury is such a subjective term, and even the definition of luxury is full of subjective terms. What some see as an indulgence would be considered a necessity by someone else. 

However, I find that it can be a super loaded term. Sometimes with negative connotations, or judgement about the measure of it.

Because I think, for some, the idea of luxury is that it comes at the cost or expense of something or someone else. That someone is taking more than their fair share. 

Whilst for others, luxury is defined as comfort or feeling or quality. 

So, when I asked on my socials what the first thing that jumped to mind when I asked “Do you want to create a luxurious home” … I got a HUGE range of responses.

Some of the answers I got were:

• How it feels to be in the space: calm, light, relaxing
• a sense of space and good light
• open space, high end / quality finishes, tall ceilings, multiple zones
• window size
• small and well-designed
• airflow, natural light and a big kitchen
• comfortable, reflecting our values, not oversized, natural aesthetic, the chance to choose what we love

And then other answers I got were:

• not in the conventional, shiny way
• keeping up with the Jones’s
• unnecessary 
• lots of money needed
• monstrous
• things I can’t afford
• out of reach products
• sounds expensive

And two replies, which I feel summarise the extremes at which we view ‘luxury’ and its connotations were:

• No, luxurious for me has connotations of excess resources and wasted wealth, and
• No, but I want to build a good / high quality home which in itself can be a luxury

Isn’t it fascinating? Just the differences with which we view this term and what it represents.

Someone even said “Right now, our house is such a dump that having a dishwasher will feel like a luxury!” That I can definitely identify with!!

So, where do you sit in this idea of what luxury is, and what it represents. Are you thinking …

> yes, of course I do … or
> no, I want a comfortable home, not a luxurious one … or
> maybe, but I don’t want it to be a showy home … or
> maybe, but not sure if we can afford it … or
> no, we don’t need any fuss, we just want simple … or
> yes, but not over the top 

Is luxury simply about creating comfort and convenience?

And how comfortable or convenient does something have to be, before it swings from necessary to surplus?

Now, let’s dive in!

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

RESOURCES:

Creating spaciousness in 3 Ways >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/spaciousness/

Designing your home with enoughness in mind, with Jane Hilliard from Designful >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-designing-your-home-using-enoughness-jane-hilliard-designful/

Design a home for how you want to feel in it everyday, with Clare >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-design-a-home-for-how-you-want-to-feel/

How to design a family home that works now, and always – 7 tips to get it right >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/how-to-design-a-family-home/

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program, HOME METHOD >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/

Learn more about how to get started on your home design, whoever you’re working with >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/happy-home-design

Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan