To ask your home must haves?

[Fishface77]

Aibu to ask that If you could design your own home what would you class as essential?
I have the opportunity to extend our current house. I would like

1. A pantry
2. An ensuite bedroom
3. Walk in wardrobe

We are having a bigger kitchen with a conservatory attached but DH thinks a walk in wardrobe and en suite are unnecessary and we should make an extra bedroom which would be for guests.

Downstairs loo would be my first essential.

We have an ensuite and a family bathroom - nobody ever needs to traipse through our room - but the downstairs loo is a lot quicker to spruce up if guests are coming and the family bathroom is less than pristine.

Especially with young children think a loo downstairs would be top of my list. Even in relatively small new houses they seem to squeeze one in nowadays - a far cry from when I was a kid and even a fair sized 4 bed had just the one upstairs - and maybe another outside - ours was invariably spider ridden so we never used it. There were 6 of us to the one loo and I well remember Dsis at about 3 wriggling and squirming outside the locked door - - 'It's comin' it's comin' it's comin'!'

I'd love a utility, but it's not going to happen, at least not in this house.

We're trying to move at the moment. On the 'deal breaker' list are:
Spare room to turn into an office
Decent sized kitchen
South facing garden
Off street parking

Nice to have:
Cloak - there's only 2 of us but I'd really like a 2nd loo for those occasions where you are both in a rush and trying to get ready and DH has annexed the bathroom when I'm desperate for a wee
Utility - I'd rather have this than a pantry, because if the utility is big enough then you can build in storage for the stuff that you don't want living in the kitchen everyday.
Walk in wardrobe - I'd take this over an en-suite any day. Big enough to be able to store all your shoes, bags, seasonal clothing.
Hall big enough for a large cupboard - or storage off - to store coats, outdoor shoes, scarves, dog leads and so on.

Things that have happened recently to people in my life mean I'd also want the possibility of living completely on the ground floor without steps if I were building a "dream" house. Not necessarily a bedroom on the ground floor now, but a wheelchair accessible room that could be converted just by changing the furniture.

"There are some real sanctimonious windbags on here"

I agree.
Deal breakers for me would be mains gas, off street parking and more than one loo/bathroom. I simply would not even look at a house that had only one loo, no mains gas and nowhere to park two cars.

My ideal house would have:

A south west facing garden (larger than we currently have) with room to grow vegetables and accommodate a greenhouse
A double garage
A large dining kitchen
A utility room
A downstairs loo
A house bathroom and en suite bathroom
Two downstairs living rooms
A study
Three bedrooms

The above is for our current lifestyle. DD is a teenager and spends ages in the shower. She also has friends round quite frequently and OH and I either go out or watch TV in one of the upstairs rooms so she can entertain her friends downstairs.

I bloody hate en-suites: get woken up every time DH needs the loo and as for the pong..

I'd go for a spare bedroom if I were you, OP - but with lots of cupboards: that way you've got the best of both worlds: spare room that also functions as a walk-in wardrobe.

Personally I'd love a 2nd bathroom that only I am allowed to use - we have a downstairs loo but only one actual bathroom.

I would like (currently live in 2 bed 2nd floor flat with one bathroom!):

One of those split doors like a stable door from the kitchen on to a lovely terraced area with pots of flowers and stuff:
A separate loo
A walk-in wardrobe
A proper study, not just a corner of the sitting room
A kitchen big enough for a dining table

I need a house, really.

Cupboards are a real must more me.
Somewhere to hide all of the general crap of life.

"and as for the pong"

I don't understand this argument. He opens the bathroom window and leaves the door shut to the bedroom. Simple.

I was house hunting recently on a too-tight budget for the area - time running out. Turns out when my back is against the wall the three things I will fight for are

• a room each for the kids
• natural light
• 2 living rooms

Having one room for the big telly and the x-box and the corner couch and all that crap, and another peaceful space with books and my lovely coffee table and my Beautiful Things - it's the best.

Off-street parking,

Mud room/ utility room
I don't like to have shoes in the hall, but who would put shoes in their bedroom? yuk!
Even in a flat I've never done that, sounds disgusting.

Downstairs cloakroom
so useful with visitors

Separate toilets upstairs, can't stand toilets in bathrooms.

I am not that bothered about en-suite, as long as there are enough bathrooms in the house. I don't really understand why there are such a must for some people, most of us don't have such a big house that it's a trek to cross a hall to your shower!

I would rather have a spare bedroom than a walking wardrobe if I can't have both. You can always put nice storage in that spare room.

Yes to natural light. I hate dark houses. Low light levels really affect my mood, and I don't see so well in dim light.

Downstairs loo over ensuite every time.

But an ensuite is a private space. Not for everyone to go traipsing through. They can use downstairs loo or family bathroom. How many guests are you having over that they need to use 3 loos at the same time?

We are converting a backroom (currently a dumping ground - theoretically a study) into a utility room so I can move the washing machine out of the kitchen. Maybe get a tumble drier. Definitely then have a dishwasher in the kitchen in the current washing machine space.

Would it be weird to have a downstairs loo in the utility room? There's a window I could frost. I have a downsides loo already, but there's no light in that room and I could knock it down and donate that space to my dining room.

For the op I'd definitely go ensuite (or second bathroom) over a second guest room. You can't have a 5 bedroom house with only 1 loo. 4 with 2 is much more sensible.

And yes give your son the bigger room. He lives there. Take out the fitted wardrobe from smaller room and see if you could fit in a double bed. I bet you could for overnight stay purposes. We can fit a king-sized bed in our box room (nothing else mind you. And closing the door is hard)

We just use some shelves on the garage wall as a pantry (I assume pantry is where you store the big boxes of food that you buy on offer but it takes you all year to eat your way through)

'Essentials'

Good flow and light.

Plenty of storage
Large utility room
Large kitchen looking onto garden
Office
Ensuite
All double bedrooms
Double garage

'Nice extras'

Guest room
Linen cupboard
Boot room
Play room/snug
Walk in wardrobe

En suite, downstairs loo, dining room, utility room, garden that was either landscaped or had potential and a decent sized kitchen. Those were all pretty much 'must haves' when we bought our new house. Didn't even end up with en suite but the rest were managed

Dream home would be an old house with lots of rooms and nooks and crannies and secret passages, not big rooms just lots of them.

Reality is terraced three bed late twenties house, teeny kitchen, only partial centrally heated, one small bathroom and separate loo but I absolutely love it and compared to half of the world's population I am living in luxury. I never take that for granted.

If being sanctimonious is being happy where I am and enjoying a small space with no desire for an extension, dressing room etc that's fine by me.

I love our home but if we were designing a new one it would definitely have to have:

Big utility room
En suite (DH's big dream)
Conservatory (my big dream - I love the idea of sitting in an armchair watching the rain / birds on bird table etc).

Of your list, only an extra lav would do it for me. We bought recently. DH is the fussier of us and his list of must-haves included:

Super-high ceilings (just past 3.5 metres, in our case)

A hallway large enough to remove shoes and hang coats right by the entrance - actually a problem in a lot of Victorian housing with narrow hallways. 1930s builds are great for this, but the ceilings aren't up to req. (1)

Everything "new" - hasn't been the easiest of tasks in a building from 1870.

That said, if we weren't in central-ish London, and if an extra £250k or so landed on me, I could do it .

A mud/boot room for sure. All the coats, bags and shoes plus other bits and pieces that we need but have no where to go.

I love our pantry (though could do without it if there was enough storage space in the kitchen) and en suite. A proper utility room would be nice rather than the washing machine living in the garage, but it's not that big a deal. Actually what I'd love would be a better kitchen; it's quite big but a lot of it's dead space, but without quite enough room for a block in the centre. Better clothes storage would also be good but that's what I got for letting DH buy the furniture on his own (he didn't check internal size of anything)!

If I was thinking of moving (I'm not!) my absolute requirement would be more than one toilet, with one preferably downstairs. We don't have this and there's often a 'queue' when youngest spends nearly 2 hours in the bath! I'm not fussed about an en suite as they often take up valuable space that could be storage.

Same here ZaraW

Utility room, no clothes in kitchen, amazing! Ours doubles as cloakroom/bootrack.

I hate having houseguests so would rather have the walk in wardrobe and ensuite than a spare bedroom

I will be downsizing in the next year or so and this thread has given me a lot to think about re my own priorities. I am not bothered about light. Would rather have an old cottage with lots of character and nooks and crannies, that is what makes me happy.

My idea of hell would be a new build with a horrid naff kitchen island and words written on the walls...........

A craft room, big garden, swimming pool and summer house.