What’s your ideal house downstairs like?

[Cinnabomb]

Just for fun/lighthearted! in the stages of dreaming about our future home purchase and extension thoughts etc as we are planning a full remodel. If it ever happens….

Currently thinking large kitchen/dining/family room, living room, utility, maybe small office and downstairs loo. It’s a fairly small footprint so wasn’t sure I could fit anything else in. If you could design your ideal home, what would be a must room for downstairs? We are a young family, outdoorsy, with dogs.

All those you've listed, but would leave out the office if not enough room

Cleaned by someone else!! 😀
Open plan, huge bifold doors looking into a perfect garden ( obs) and downstairs loo and utility room.

Nice big entrance hall, big enough for a big Christmas tree. Formal reception room, cozy living room, playroom, toilet (possibly a shower too for when muddy or sweaty from gym), cloakroom, big utility, office, dining room, huge kitchen/diner/family sitting room, with bifold doors onto my spacious grounds!

The gym, pool, entertainment room, media room, wine storage would be on the floor below.

Upstairs I'd like a huge master suite, with separate dressing rooms and a big en suite, with luxurious shower and bath. I'd like a massive balcony too.

Big bedrooms with dressing rooms and en suites for the two kids. A further three guest rooms, also en suite. Ideally one would be one of those integrated flats, in case I needed to give care to elderly relatives, or for the kids before they move I to their own places.

I'd like a lift to all floors too.

Outside, I'd like a pool, terrace, tennis court and lovely gardens. Not overlooked at all.

I'd like one of this circular driveways at the front.

Yep, that's my ideal house. I enjoyed this, thanks!

Boot room/utility preferably with a shower in it for hosing down children/dogs etc!
Small snuggly living room strictly for adults (no toys!) Big kitchen dining area with enough space for a sofa and toys.

Not a building site is my main ambition for my house's downstairs at the moment.

(Ours currently is, on the way to being less ramshackle and dire. It will, eventually, have two living rooms, a big kitchen with a dining table, a pantry, a utility room and a loo with a shower, but the actual kitchen is unlikely to happen until the next phase, so we'll have to continue to use our primitive, cement-floored one for now...)

@Liverbird77 I do like the sound of that!

I think I'm in the minority, looking at the renovations people have done, but a kitchen big enough for a decent sized table, and DOORS so the rest of the house doest have to listen to the pans being crashed about, the dishwasher swoshing, or smell the meal they ate an hour ago. I HATED our house that had just one downstairs room. You could never do anything in the kitchen without being told someone wanted to watch TV, or do homework, or have a chat with someone.

A wide hallway with a storm porch to not let the cold in.
Boot room with shower and toilet
Kitchen diner with enough space for a table and sofa toys
More formal sitting room - no toys
Separate utility room with pantry space and space for the hoover to live

@Liverbird77 that is quite some vision! I can but only dream! Good inspiration tho!

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Sooooo… what do we think of pantries? I like the sound of it but just imagine I’d be carrying stuff back/ forth to the kitchen worktops all the time? How do they work? I do love a huge larder cupboard tho.

Wondering if a smaller kitchen/diner/ family room or try to include an area that can be sectioned off for a ‘playroom’. Children will be maybe 5 and 3 by the time we would move in

I'd have a huge , clean, light kitchen diner with a breakfast nook like US kitchens have, as well as a long dining table, all overlooking a big garden. There'd be a big utility room, a separate boot/mud room and a downstairs shower and loo. A walk in larder maybe. A big living room with open fire and big sofas. A library lined with bookshelves, a library ladder, map tables, low lights, a window seat and day bed. A generous hallway and lots of cupboard space so coats and bags and shoes weren't all on view.

@MaizeAmaze

I think I'm in the minority, looking at the renovations people have done, but a kitchen big enough for a decent sized table, and DOORS so the rest of the house doest have to listen to the pans being crashed about, the dishwasher swoshing, or smell the meal they ate an hour ago. I HATED our house that had just one downstairs room. You could never do anything in the kitchen without being told someone wanted to watch TV, or do homework, or have a chat with someone.

I'm with you on this. We spent the first lockdown living in a small open-plan holiday rental (just after moving countries and a house sale had fallen through), and trying to homeschool, run two FT jobs and cook in the same small open-plan space forever cured me of any hankerings in that direction I may have had.

With a family, open plan living is awful, think about looking at your dirty pans etc whilst trying to enjoy a meal. or never being able to get away from kids, mess etc
I have a kitchen I can eat in with a large table, a utility room with a downstairs cloakroom off it (better than off the hall!) seperate living/dining room and a seperate lounge.
It all works well with a large family

I’d have a huge kitchen with as many appliances hidden away in cupboards so I have nice clear surfaces, and an island. A boot room/utility room to with a door to the outside which we can come in through when we’re filthy dirty. Nice large windows to view the garden (and kids!) from, open plan living diner with bifold doors to the outside. I’d have double doors going to a separate playroom, and an adults only sitting room away from the mess/noise/living space. And finally, tons and tons of storage for everything I own, so it can look immaculate all the time. Basically, I’d like to hide the chaos of my home life behind cupboard doors

@HazelBite so you have a living/ diner and a lounge? Does that mean a room with dining table, sofa and tv and another sofa/tv room?

Kitchen/dining/family room width of back of house which would be south or west facing would be lovely. Downstairs toilet and utility room would go in middle of house just behind the living room and living room at front which would only need to be fairly small and cosy with a sofa / sofas that take up most of the room. Ah you’ve got me dreaming now…

Big hall with plenty of storage for coats, shoes etc. Two sitting rooms. Two studies/workrooms. Kitchen diner with utility and pantry attached. Downstairs loo. Outside a sunny garden with lovely plants, fruit trees, greenhouse and veg patch, a view and ideally access to river/sea. Garage with plenty of storage. Upstairs 5 double bedrooms with 3 bathrooms/ensuites. And to come with a gardener and cleaner!

I’m waiting for the building warrants for mine! 2 big bedrooms, big bathroom, large kitchen whic, living and dining rooms which will be partially open plan and utility room.
Remind me how excited I am about it when I’m surrounded by builders and rubble and tearing my hair out 😂

[quote Cinnabomb]@Liverbird77 that is quite some vision! I can but only dream! Good inspiration tho!

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Sooooo… what do we think of pantries? I like the sound of it but just imagine I’d be carrying stuff back/ forth to the kitchen worktops all the time? How do they work? I do love a huge larder cupboard tho.

Wondering if a smaller kitchen/diner/ family room or try to include an area that can be sectioned off for a ‘playroom’. Children will be maybe 5 and 3 by the time we would move in[/quote]
I have been going through what I would like done in my head for a while now. I currently have a larder, a kitchen diner, a boot room and a downstairs loo in that space.
I want to double the kitchen diner to accommodate a squishy tan leather sofa, island and grand dining table.
I would like to put the freezer and current larder inside a pantry with shelves
I would love to lose the downstairs loo which exists solely for the benefit of tradesmen tbh but since that would mean having them come upstairs, a lootility configuration with washing machine and clothes drying space would need to be squeezed in against one of the outside walls while taking up as little room as possible.
It's a nightmare trying to get it right.

I also have separate living and dining rooms on the ground floor. The under stairs area is wasted space but unlikely to be repurposed because of the cost of moving out meters etc.

Separate room for TV is vital for me. Call it what you want, living room, snug, whatever. They're needs to be some way of separating and being in different rooms, for example when the kids want to watch annoying cartoons but you want to sit with your coffee and a book.

Our downstairs has a utility, living room and a nice, big open plan kitchen, dining with space for armchairs. Lovely as open plan is, I do like doors!

Separate rooms for everything. I cannot stand open plan, they just serve as areas with no privacy, although I like the idea of internal folding doors so you can choose
Somewhere to eat in the kitchen but a separate dining room if possible, doesn't have to be large
French doors to the garden from living area, small utility, keeps everything neat without being a dumping ground
Downstairs loo and outside hot & cold taps to wash the dogs down/wash cars
Large back door to kitchen/garden (stable door would be nice) to let damp dogs in and out/put washing out.
Garden big enough to have a small table and chairs plus a sun lounger
Lots of large windows in every room (that actually open)

We are currently drawing up plans to develop our house to be more disabled friendly.
We hope to move our front door across so we can have a nice large hallway with room for more than one person to put on coats and shoes and for wheelchair storage.
We are putting in a downstairs shower room and changing the current sunroom and dining room into a proper room for our dd to have a bedroom and work studio.
We have a utility room but will be extending it a bit.
The living room is staying as is and we hope to put on a solid roof conservatory with roof lights as our dining room.
Upstairs, we are hoping to move the bathroom and use that space to be a hallway so we can change the staircase for longer but slightly shallower treads.
We hope to put in an en-suite to our new bedroom, which will be in an extension above dds room. The en-suite with have the bath as the current bathroom will be moved and become a shower room.
We hope we have enough money for all of this, but are having two sets of plans drawn up; one with the dream layout and one with the basics.

We have been looking at rightmove to see if something is out there that we could afford, but yet to be the case. If it was out there I would love a living room which is not a walk through. A massive hallway, a dining room and another reception room which could be dds bedroom, plus a downstairs shower room. A kitchen diner would be lovely too with a good sized utility room. Upstairs, three or four bedrooms with a family bathroom and an en-suite.

Separate living room, dining room and kitchen. Mine is all open plan and I hate it. Cold and noisy and the cost of redecorating/changing the flooring is hellish.

Living room at the back with big windows overlooking the garden.

A decent sized hallway with space to sit down and take off boots.

My ideal is a kitchen looking out into back garden on one side, play room on another, dining area on another, and a sitting area in the corner between the dining and play room. I’d have big double doors so that it can all be opened up or closed off as needed.

Playroom would be accessible and visible from kitchen and living room.

The last side of the kitchen would be storage with a laundry/utility, and a pantry.

There’s also a library, music room and indoor swimming pool but that’s for a different post.

Good sized insulated porch with boot washing area and plenty of hooks for hanging up coats and shoe racks.

Hallway with a large walk in cupboard for storing vacuum, spare toilet/kitchen rolls, cleaning goods, ironing board, sports equipment etc.
Toilet off hallway.

Large kitchen with plenty of storage and a larder coming off it. Lots of worktop space too. And, like a pp, DOORS! (I strongly recommend against open plan). Either a separate dining room or a dining end to the kitchen.

Good sized lounge, playroom, study/library (I had a study until a few years ago, when it was turned into DD's bedroom, and I still miss it)

If I don't have a basement then I'll also need to add a sauna area to the ground floor - dressing room (which can double as utility room), wet room, sauna. Fireplace room would be very nice too, for relaxing inbetween sessions, perhaps with a bar and a pool table.