Everything big enough for tall people (over 6 foot)
A drain in the kitchen floor
A porch type thing (like on Australian houses) that goes all the way round the house … the “overhang” on it would have a ‘cage’ made of chicken wire and that would be where my cats would get their outdoor time.
A small dressing room - like a walk-in closet, wait a minute that would be a walk-in closet …
A windowless room where the TV and pooter are (cut down on the screen reflections)
A hidden room under the eves of the house
A secret passageway from the kitchen to the bedroom (for midnight munchie fits)
A drive[way] that goes all the way round the house, so you can park according to where you are going - like the back for unloading the shopping, or the front if you are just coming home from somewhere
A laundry room that has access to an outdoor drying area and can be used as an indoor drying area in bad weather
Solar panels and water reclamation facilities
One wall in every room ('cept the kitchen and bathrooms) to have storage box-like shelves (for all my bits and bobs)
I’d build a circular house with:
An atrium - a fully enclosed courtyard; the windows of the house would be so arranged that there would be no way to see right through to the atrium from outside the house. Ideally it would also be equipped with a transparent removable motorised roof (so that it could still be used in winter or when it is raining).
A tower - the main part of the house would all be on a single floor, but on the north side (so as not to overshadow the atrium) there would be a tower rising to a first and second floor - it would be big enough for a reasonable sized dining room, would have sufficient windows for a good, panoramic view and would be equipped with a dumb waiter; the kitchen would be at the base of the tower.
I think I’ve got my dreams in order now. Let’s take a look at flodnak’s fantasy house, now, shall we?
We can enter through the garage, which has one basic feature so many garages seem to lack: there’s enough room to pull a car in and open all four doors. Across the back there is a workbench and space for the usual things (lawn mower, bikes), plus purpose-built storage for skis and sleds. I cannot understand how a country of winter sports enthusiasts can ignore this issue so completely, but they dooo…
We enter the house through the mudroom, which also has a door directly to the outside and serves as the way family and good friends enter the house. The mudroom has lots of hooks for coats and backpacks, wall-mounted baskets for small things, and shelves for shoes and boots. There’s a long bench where you can sit down to put your shoes on if you want to; underneath are compartments for storage, hats and mittens during the summer and outdoor toys in the winter. The floor of the mudroom is tile, with heating coils below.
From the mudroom we can go into the pantry, which has shelves for things we want to store at room temperature, a cold pantry for things we want to keep chilled, and a full-sized upright freezer. Or we can go into the utility room, where the water heater keeps the mops and whatnot company. Oh no, no vacuum cleaner - just the hoses, we decided to go with a central system. But I’d recommend going straight on into the spacious kitchen.
The kitchen at my real-world home is much too small, but otherwise quite nice. So I’ve copied many of the features from there into the realm of my imagination, like an induction cooktop, heated floor, and big deep drawers for storing pots and pans. The cabinets are honey-stained pine, and the backsplashes lilac-blue Italian tiles. But it’s, well, bigger. It includes a full double sink, two ovens, and enough space in a bay window for a round table for everyday dining. The windows here have those narrow wood blinds in the space between the double panes. Near the table there’s a door out to a covered patio, with its own table and chairs and a gas grill hiding behind a stone wall.
The living room doesn’t have too many special features. It does, however, have a wall of built-in shelves of various heights. The tall ones hold our favorite books; the low ones are deeper and hold LPs, CDs, videos and DVDs. The stereo components sit on top of it. Oh, and it does hold one little surprise. See that door there? That opens to reveal a small fridge, just big enough to hold beer, soda, or wine for our guests, and some snacks. And of course the cabinet next to it contains glasses and plates for entertaining. Sure, help yourself! This end of the room functions as the dining room.
This door opens to the game room. Not very big, but it gives the kids a place to entertain friends who come to play chess or foozball or ping-pong. They just take what they want to play with out of the closet and put it on the table. The cozy old couch and small TV give them a place to play the X-box, too. And it’s a fold-out couch so guests can sleep over comfortably. Let’s go upstairs.
The bedrooms aren’t particularly fancy, but fella bilong missus flodnak sure is proud of the LAN connections in every room. This room was designed as a bedroom, but we split it up into a his and hers office. The fella’s got the larger half, because he has so many books to store on the custom-built shelves as well as all his hardware, but this side of the partition is all mine.
Here’s the bathroom. We have such a puny bathroom in the real-world Casaflodnak that it’s fun to escape here, to a separate shower stall, a real linen closet and plenty of counter space. The heated floor is a major plus, too. Next to it is the laundry and crafts room. The cabinets hold all my craft stuff as well as the vacuum hoses and other upstairs cleaning supplies, and here’s my sewing machine. And this is clever - I can pull out the ironing board when I need it, and then fold it back into the cabinet and it’s out of the way when I don’t want it. No, heavens, I don’t like to iron, but if you sew, you gotta press. All this counter space sure comes in handy when I’m folding laundry, too.
Hope you’ve enjoyed your tour. Y’all come back now, ya hear?
You guys have a lot of good ideas that I may steal. 
I had no idea that laundry chutes were considered a fire hazard though. I wonder what that makes the square hole in the floor of my friends’ closet, that leads directly to the basement?
One of the outbuildings associated with my house would be the “music bunker”. Imagine a two-room building, sunk into a hillside, with thick non-parallel rammed-earth/concrete walls and an earth-covered roof. There is one door to the outer room, which has windows on the sun side and contains a AV mixing board and other music-studio equipment. There is a thick insulated window and door to the inner room, which is fitted out to be a performance and music-recording space.
With the thick walls and roof, you can crank the music as loud as you want and no-one will be bothered. And when you are recording, you can’t hear anything from outside. Proper solar-heated design means no HVAC drone.
And it can be built for around CAD 20,000 not counting the land! I know people who have built houses like this, and I plan to build one if I can find the land.
Great for parties and when you have the band over!
i’m an architect, and the house we’re working on currently has a couple cool features that are actually quite easy to do.
pass-through mailbox:
basically it’s like a book drop at a library. there’s a nice letter drop on the exterior, and the mail drops into a collection box on the inside. the wall is pretty thick, so the collection box is almost flush with the inside wall.
fiber cement siding:
the look of wood, but much less hassle. actually, to us modernists, it looks better than wood. no warping, no grain. paints up nice, and supposedly keeps the first coat for upwards of 10 years.
big-ass kitchen island:
8’-8" x 5’-6". i would kill for that.
laundry room on second floor:
we always put the laundry room up with the bedrooms. it’s just common sense.
dimmers on EVERYTHING:
you can’t imagine how great this is until you live with it. no switches, all programmable dimmers. not cheap, but worth it.
easy-access entertainment center:
the built in entertainment center is backed up to a closet. closet has a door in the back that opens up to the tv, etc. no more fumbling around blind behind your tv and receiver.
cool steel stairs:
hard to explain, but the stairs are built from 6x6" steel tubes, steel angles, and walnut treads. not something you see every day. nice and airy, as well.
huge windows:
i hate big houses with tons of tinly little windows. so we went with commercial aluminum windows on this job. we have a couple walls that are comprised totally of windows, and most windows are around 7’ tall.
dressing room:
we put built in storage along one wall, and hanging rods on the other. the room is 13’x11’, ALL storage. it’s integrated with the master bath as well. now the owners don;t need any dressers in the bedroom, which can now be smaller since it’s only housing a bed and a small seating area.
secret compartments:
due to a late plumbing change, we ended up with some redundant chases. so we had 3’x2’ walled-in areas in the bathrooms. so we had the contractor use half of it for linen storage, and put a false door in the back for a hidey-hole.
If ithe house were two-storey, I’d want a fireman’s pole. Whee! Not terribly practical, no.
More on Laundry Chutes: They are also hazardous to the family cat. My brother was a rotten kid! The cat didn’t get hurt, but he was darn mad.
I’d really like to have open air central courtyard area that dogs and cats (and I) could romp in privately and safely.
I’d have an upside-down room. The floor would be bare white with an inverted ceiling fan as a table. The ceiling would be carpeted with lightweight replicas of furniture hanging from the ceiling. An entertainment center (upside-down) would house a right-sided TV & stereo for entertainment. For actual seating I’m thinking of white beanbag chairs, but that area is open for debate. The door would be finagled so that it opens normally, but from the inside it looks upside down.
For something more practical, I love the idea of sliding pocket doors. I’d put them everywhere to save on space.
Myself, of course! 
personally, my dream for the next house is an outdoor shower (not too practical in the midwest, though) and a bathroom that has one entire glass wall looking out into the woods. call me crazy, but i’d love to gaze out into the wilderness as i do bathroom stuff. modesty? screw that. if someone really wants to watch me naked, hey, i’m flattered.
i don’t think i’d hesitate to use a laundry chute. in a standard residence, there are so many holes for fire to move through, i doubt a chute would have any added affect. we’ve worked on hotels with chutes, and they have strict fire code guidelines. but in that case, we’re talking 6-10 storey hotels with stairs enclosed with shaft walls, fire doors, concrete construction… anything that penetrates the floor plate is fire-rated. a house is a tinderbox in comparison.
[ul]
[li]One stained glass window, in the study. Motif–a bunch of grapes. Style: Arts & Crafts Movement.[/li][li]Wrought Iron Spiral staircase to the second floor.[/li][li]Deck extending from the second floor. Support pillars to look rustic. Mounted block & tackle affair to haul furniture up to second floor, due to spiral staircase. [/li][li]Firepole, next to spiral stairs.[/li][li]Interior decorations: Half hunting lodge, half Arts & Crafts Movement.[/li][li]Faux mounted heads over the mantle. To include Alien Grey, Loch Ness Monster, Winnie The Pooh, & a Dinosaur.[/li][li]Buckstove, instead of open fireplace.[/li][li]Area under overhanging deck to be paved in brick, as a patio.[/li][li]Small apartment over the garage, to rent to college kids.[/li][li]Lots of bookshelves.[/li][li]World, US, State & Local Maps, laminated to the walls in the study.[/li][li]Separate room to be the library.[/li][li]A hidden compartment for valuables.[/li][li]A secret panic room, hidden.[/li][li]A good basement, and attic.[/li][li]A utility sink in the garage.[/li][li]Wide windowsills, for plants & cats.[/li][li]An underground Command bunker, where Eva & I can make a last stand against the advancing Allies…sorry, not my list, can’t imagine how that got in here. 
[/li][/ul]
Reality–I’m a State employee, & I will be lucky if I’m not living in a cardboard box when I get too old to work. 
This is easy. All the things I should have thought of when I had my house built 9 years ago:
A pan uder the water heater which empties into a floor drain.
For the kitchen, pocket doors instead of regular swinging doors.
A larger garage with a small bathroom and stall shower. That way I wouldn’t have to walk to the other end of the house when I’m filthy from yardwork to take a shower.
More insulation in the walls.
A central vacuum system.
And finally…
A urinal in the master bathroom. You may scoff at this idea, ladies, but I’ll bet the guys would be all for it. It’s neater, uses less watre, and solves the ol’ morning wood conundrum.
the concept of pocket doors are cool, but unless you’re willing to pay a fortune they’ll come back to haunt you.
in modern pocket doors, the frames are paper-thin, and they tend to warp. so your door is never level. which means the door will wither never stay open or closed. and i’ve learned that contracotrs HATE them.
i had some 100 year-old ones in a house i rented, and those things were amazing. they were probably 4’x8’x2", solid oak, and were super-smooth. i bet they weighed 150 pounds each, at least. they just don’t make them like they used to…
sorry to squash your dream.
Refrigerator at arm height
Dishwasher at arm height; separate heavy-duty pots-and-pans dishwasher, both with drying/polishing option and robotic dishes-in-cabinet-placing attachment.
Robotic laundering-drying-ironing-putting-in-cabinet appliance with laundry insertion slot on the top.
Indoor swimming pool, 5 m x 3 m, 2 m deep, with variable-speed voice controlled flow pump, so I can swim indefinitely long distances.
Slide to the ground floor (like on playgrounds but adapted to my more mature posterior).
Generous cable conduits for everything that the future may bring in wiring needs.
Time-controlled bed tilter that tilts the bed by 90 degrees and is not resettable until evening.
A handicap-accessible kitchen, with 3 counter heights (Tall, regular, and low). 2 sinks - big one at regular height, smaller “bar” sink at low height. I’ve been in a wheelchair before and you never know what’s in store.
Ditto the drains in the kitchen, bathrooms and garage.
The widest side of the house to face south - we face north, and I swear it’s like a cave. Only a little sun in the early morning or late afternoon.
1 big-ass bathtub in a huge bathroom. Easily accessible.
My husband would have his own toilet. That only he would clean. Ever.
Well, now I know what Dr.J will be wanting for our next house. I think he’d settle for a large soundproofed room in the basement, though.
Me, I want a smallish mudroom off the back door. Nothing fancy, just a place to ditch muddy shoes and corral muddy dogs until I’ve had a chance to wipe their feet. There should be a large sink in there, along with a place to keep clean dry towels and a laundry basket. Maybe some shelves to keep gardening shoes and such on. In fact, we could combine it with the laundry room and put in an elevated tub (so the top’s about waist high) instead of the big sink. There’d be a big sprayer hose attachment for the tub. I’d never have to take the dogs to work for baths again. They could even have a little fold-down ramp so I wouldn’t have to hoist them in.
I also want a sunroom where you can roll all the windows up and have a screened-in porch. Breezes in the summer, greenhouse effect in the winter. There’ll be something easy to clean on the floor, maybe some nice tile with throw rugs in the winter. Lots of cat hammocks in the windows, maybe some ratty old furniture for me and the dogs to wallow on. Bookshelves along the wall that connects to the house. A little cat door that leads out into a roofed holding pen so Eponine can go outside without me worrying about her.
Laundry chutes are considered a fire hazard, but are not necessarily illegal: there are just codes pertaining to what materials they’re made out of, and such. I’m confident that I could find a way to get one built. If not, I’ll just buy an older home that already has one in it (if I built a new home it would be in the style of the 1930s brick bungalows that populate the older section of this town, anyway).
Y’know what I want? A really big bathtub, deep enough and long enough for me to fully stretch out in.
More things for our house that racinchikki forgot:
[ul]
[li]Pneumatic tube system, like at the bank or in old department stores; we could shoot canned/bottles drinks and other small stuff to each other from across the house![/li][li]Skee-Ball. One of the old ones that’s yellow and orange, with wood track and balls.[/li][li]Small-plank hardwood floors in the living room and high-traffic areas.[/li][li]Perfectly level polished concrete floors in the darkroom and studio, with a drain in the middle of the darkoom.[/li][/ul]
On laundry chutes: couldn’t you get one with a heat-activated door that closes it off in a fire? That’s what they do with air conditioning ducts.
Everyone has such cool ideas. I have to confess that I started the thread in hopes of seeing ideas I could steal–we’re hoping to build in a couple of years. A whole acre for us, whee!
An underground rainwater storage tank (fills up in the winter, enables me to water my garden properly in the summer).