Get an inside look at each of the 2013 Fine Homebuilding HOUSES Award winners including the best new home, best remodel, best energy-smart home, best small home, best retirement home, and our editor’s choice.
Follow the links below for a free video and photo gallery for each of the houses (plus an online-members-only feature article).
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Editor’s Choice: |
Best Retirement Home: |
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Best Energy-Smart Home: |
Best Small Home: |
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Best Remodel: |
Best New Home: |
Fine Homebuilding Recommended Products
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Handy Heat Gun
Reliable Crimp Connectors
Affordable IR Camera
Lots of windows and an open floor plan make our 2013 Best Small Home award winner seem much larger than 800 sq.ft.
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The design of the best retirement home has many features that are certain to help keep older people at home instead of in a "home" as they age. Unfortunatly, in my opinion it does have an achilles heel: concrete floors. The risk of serious injury from falls is a factor that is ignored at the inhabitants peril, especailly falls on a concrete or very other very unyielding surface. I say this from experience personal experience: my 84 year old father fell in an area with a concrete floor in his house in December, breaking his femur. Due to balance problems he had fallen many times without serious injury on other surfaces in the retirement home he designed .Now he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. If I was designing a retirement home I would avoid concrete and tile. Area rugs are a definite trip hazard on any surface and carpet can be a trip hazard too, though at least both these pad the landing. On reflection I think that cork over a plywood subfloor would probably be ideal. Wood, Linoleum or other resilient materials on top of the same would probably be good choices too.