Yes, I know this is somewhat related to a thread I just started. I can’t help but be excited at the prospect of owning a home.
Anyway, I’m curious – say you’ve got enough money to build the home of your dreams. Not that you’re super rich where you’re going to build a bowling alley in your basement or anything like that, but where you have the ability to add features you’ve seen in other people’s houses that you have drooled over and decided you must have if you get the chance?
I will, of course, go first. I’ve got two:
[ol]
[li]A built-in barbecue[/li]We rarely cooked outside, even when we had a little bbq to do it on, and I hardly cook at all. But everytime I see or visit someone’s house where the BBQ is actually built-in, where it incorporates a table and such, I just think that I’d never do anything BUT cook on it if I had one myself.
[li]A jacuzzi tub[/li]With the exception of one place I’ve lived, I’ve never really had the option of bathing. It’s one of the first things I get excited about when we travel and stay in a hotel. Having a jacuzzi tub would make the post-work wind down soooo much fun. Or so I imagine.
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What about you guys? What the hell – I’ll even allow the bowling alley in the basement if you want it.
Dedicated library/reading room complete with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and rolling ladders. Big picture window on one side for plenty of natural light and a fireplace for the evenings. The Mrs. can have the rest of the house and half of the outdoors if I can have a library.
Clean dishes kept in one. As they get dirty, they are transferred to the other. Once the other is full, run till clean then start transferring the other direction as dishes are dirtied.
Of course have more dishes than that for big parties, the odd dish to cook etc, but overall a time saver.
Wasnt my idea but the creater of Dilbert, Scott Adams
Tons of built-in bookcases. A shower without a window in it. An enormous bathtub. My dream kitchen, with really good appliances and sufficient work and storage space. A furnace I never have to actually touch.
Not very imaginiative, I know. But as an apartment-dweller, these are the things I fantasize about.
*A nice kitchen: It doesn’t need to have super premium brands or anything but I’d love to have a gas oven, a decent fridge and cabinet & counter space for gadgetry with some left over for prep. I’d also like nice flooring-wood or slate and nice countertops.
*A really nice bathroom: I interviewed at a big firm’s outpost in Minneapolis and they put me up at this hotel that had the most amazing bathroom with a sauna shower. I’m not keen on tubs-what I really want is a goodsized shower with a built in stone bench. The gigantic luxury hotel bathrooms usually keep the tub separate and have a closed off toilet area, so that would be nice too. But I really want that shower with bench-having the seperate nice tub is just for resale purposes.
Secret passages and hidden rooms galore, spiral staircases throughout, the classic library, a full blown commerical grade bar in the basement, a 50 acre lake outside stocked with bass, and one of those awesome collectors garages with the speckled floor and chrome and diamond plate toolchests everywhere with spotlights to shine on the cars.
My wife and I just finished building a house and my “must have” was an oversized 3 car garage. I plan to get a bass boat and an ATV or two so I needed extra room, but for once I wanted a garage I could work in without having to move cars in and out or clear a space on my workbench. I am really looking forward to my new garage…
The three things that I always wanted in a house as a kid were a pool, an indoor conservatory full of plants and a library straight out of a Victorian novel like ol’Gaffer described above (although it has to be storming out over the moors at all times in mine). I forgot all about it and after we bought this house I realized that I had gotten 2 out of 3, but the details weren’t quite the same. My pool is a boring cement rectangle put in during the 40s and my ‘conservatory’ is an old attached carport that someone remodeled into a sunroom with a big stone fireplace in one wall. I have lots of built in shelves but I can’t fit a library with a rolling ladder in anywhere. This place has better views than my fantasies did, though.
I can think of all sorts of features that an old house like this doesn’t have but I don’t really want any of them, and the ones that I do want my partner will get around to eventually as he works his way through the project list. I like it this way. Someday I would like to have the opposite of what Diana wants, though - a floor to ceiling glass wall in the shower with frosted blocks below shoulder level and a skylight. There’s nothing behind us but our own woods and the natural light and scenery would be nice.
Library space with built-in bookcases. The shelves themselves will be adjustable.
a screened-in porch, large
a kitchen with a combo of regular cabinets (to hide the messy stuff) and glass-doored cabinets (to show off glassware and china)
a slate floor in the kitchen
a CRAZY elaborate tiled bathroom, with separate tub (large) and shower stall (also large)
skylight in the bathroom - I am not a huge fan of skylights in terms of decor, but they are a MIRACLE in the bathroom because you can see every tiny thing so any bathroom I have must have one
a good garbage hutch outside that is both secure from raccoons and other visitors and also easy to keep clean.
laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms, not in the basement
a lot of wood that is high quality
despite my large porch and large bathroom wishes, in general my dream house is not very big because I have no interest in cleaning a very big house.
I sort of have a gym in the basement but once again the details are off. It’s more like a carpeted, dark, dingy cellar with an exercise bike and an old weight machine in it and a TV to watch exercise videos on, surrounded by luggage and storage boxes. It’s like working out in a dungeon but it keeps the stuff out of the way and I can work out whenever I want to without disturbing anyone.
The Big-Ass Garage is on my husband’s wish list. Back when we were thinking about moving to New Mexico, I was scoping property on line and found a place with a small airplane hangar. I think he popped a woody over that one.
Me? A gym, a studio, a shower and wood floors. Oh…and more picture windows and I’d like skylights, too. And it all has to be on one level.
Underfloor heating and a dedicated library. Beats having two or three bookshelves in every room.
The underfloor heating wouldn’t get much of a look in at the moment (it’s going to be 40degrees today) so I’d also require double brick (not brick veneer) and ducted air conditioning.
My partner wasn’t willing to wait for a big-ass garage to materialize so his first project was to build a big-ass woodshop that you could fit 2 garages in. He filled that up with tools so now he works on his truck parked outside. I have to lobby for gym space in the dungeon where the little-ass electronics workshop is located as it was. His tools expand to fill all available space.
I realize that this isn’t anywhere near as exotic as most people, but my must-haves in the houses I looked at were:
– master bedroom at the back of the house (don’t want the street noise or looky-loos)
– lots of natural light in the rooms I’d be living in
– a fireplace
– an attached garage
– a cook’s kitchen
I don’t really like new construction (it feels kind of cold to me), so I also wanted a house with character. The house that I ended up with is pretty much as close to my dream house as I think I’ll ever get, even though it’s missing two of my five “must-haves.”
