Having multiple generations of your family share the same home has a number of benefits, such as providing support for your elderly family members as they age and helping adult children save money on rental costs. Unfortunately, homes often aren't designed to have multiple generations living there at the same time, and having too many family members in your home can make it feel crowded. Some of your family members will also want more privacy.

One way that you can solve these problems is to design and build a custom home that's meant to support multiple generations of a family living there. To learn three benefits of building a custom home that your whole family can share, read on.

1. You Have More Flexibility Compared to Adding to Your Current Home

When you design and build a custom home from scratch, you can move into a larger living space that can accommodate all of your family members without having to build an addition to your current home. Building an addition to your current home is an effective way to increase its livable space, but it's an expensive and lengthy process. Depending on the layout of your home's exterior, it may also be impossible to put the addition where you want it to go. Designing a custom home gives you much more flexibility to design your larger living space the way that you desire.

2. You Can Add Private Living Areas

Designing a custom home to support multiple generations of your family living there also lets you add privacy features. This is important, for example, if you have an adult child who moved back home to save money on rent. They'll want a lot of privacy. When you design a custom home, you can include a private living area like a basement apartment with its own exterior entry door. Additions like these are much easier to make when you're designing a home from the ground up rather than trying to modify your current home.

3. You Can Support Aging in Place for Your Elderly Parents

Building a custom home also allows you to add features that support aging in place, which is important if you have elderly family members living in your home. Placing a master suite on the first floor when you build the home means that they won't have to climb up and down the stairs to go to bed, keeping them safe. You can also add features like handrails in the bathroom to make it easier for them to use if their mobility declines. Designing a custom home and adding features that make it easy to age in place helps keep elderly family members living in their own homes instead of at an assisted living facility or nursing home.

If you think that a custom home is right for your family, contact a custom home builder in your area to get started. A custom home builder can put you in touch with a designer and an architect that will help you come up with the perfect house design to support your entire family, including private living areas. With a custom home, you'll all be able to live comfortably together without the living space feeling too crowded.

Contact a local custom home builder to learn more.