We chose our house as it had a basement with lots of spare capacity, over all bedrooms, living room, dining room in the upper floors. Its well renovated, waterproofed and insulated. We are in an elevated position so all rooms but one get natural light, so the area is usable and doesn't feel like a cellar, but gives about an extra 115 square metres space in the house, though ceilings are a bit lower.
After spend a period of lock down in a 100 sqm flat with 4 people, poky bedrooms and a single kitchen/living/dining room we really priorised extra space, storage and flexibility.
We have effectively 7 extra rooms
- large spa style bathroom with indulgent shower, freestanding bath.
2.Laundry room (huge space, I have a table for folding and sorting clothes that I can set up for wrapping presents, using sewing machine, potting house plants or any sorting/reorganisation of stuff).
3.The only room without natural light is used as a walk in wardrobe and storage room, can store winter clothes, linen, quilts there.
4 landing is a craft area, where the dcs can do creative stuff, paint etc and make a moderate mess, but be close enough to the bathroom to clean up
- Storage room (Christmas decorations and stuff only used occasionally) which is also used for drumkit, music room
6 has a sofabed, TV and desk. Dp uses that as a home office, it can be an occasional guest room or DCs can chill out and play computer games with their friends there
7, the largest room is flexible use, with gear for darts, table-tennis. I also use it for stretching, yoga and some weight training, but the ceiling limits you a little . We used to keep bunnies there too. Right now we are having work done upstairs and have been able to store all books /furniture there (sitting room is the library area with built in bookcases)
Having all that storage allows us to hold the upstairs rooms very clear, spacious and minimalistic which gives a lovely atmosphere.
We have agreed we are not moving again in the foreseeable future.
Edited for coherence