Must haves when house searching that I don't 'get'

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All open plan.
Why? Much nicer to have separate rooms where people can do their own thing, and to not have cooking smells invading the whole downstairs.

Kitchen Islands.
Usually just become dumping grounds for loads of rubbish and take up loads of floor space.

I can't stand 'breakfast bars' with barstools, naff as hell.

See I love them. Not because they are trendy but for two practical reasons.

1. they encourage people to hang around the kitchen area and chat to the cook (usually me). I like company.

2. I’m a percher and find it more comfortable to sit at a bar stool if I need to read my emails or similar than sit at a table. If I sit down on a sofa I tend not to get up for a long time...

We have a breakfast bar with stools. When people come round they make a beeline for the stools. If someone gets up, they've immediately lost their stool. We've joked that we should have extended the bar right around the kitchen so everyone gets a seat. I love the cosiness and social aspect of people getting comfy at the bar and chatting to me whilst I cook.

It is quite hard to get on to those high stools htough when you're my height (short). It is an athletic exercise in itself. We have a built in table in our kitchen with 6 chairs around it so people can gather there if they want to chat or open the door to the dining room and talk to people in there. The dining room has one door to the hallway and one to the kitchen.

My main requirement when we moved here was a separate office for me ( work from home and in the last house shared a tiny office which admittedly had a separate door to the road with a piano, electronic organ and masses of other stuff, I was bunched up at the side - it was pretty difficult).

As I prefer not to talk to anyone ever anything that encourages chatting is going to be the opposite of what I want although I am slightly joking and always happy to chat to the children if they want to.

The thing I cannot get my head round is houses with more toilets than bedrooms. One downstairs and one upstairs in the bathroom is plenty. Surely the more you have, the more you have to clean?!!

Each to their own but for me the weirdest thing is that folks look at houses expecting them to magically be exactly their preferred style and are shocked and disappointed when that is not the case.

Breakfast bars and stools are so uncomfy - I am short too so this may be the issue. It is not comfortable having my legs swinging like a little child. We have ab armchair in our kitchen.

oh my goodness op. you have started something now. my bloody useless breakfast bar that is only used to put the toaster on. only put there as there was a radiator. wondering if a small table would be better.

I totally want your conservatory @MarieIVanArkleStinks - it sounds fabulous!

I’m short and like breakfast stools! They generally have a bar that acts as a footrest and helps you get up?

Meh. I don't see why an island is more of a dumping ground than a table. Ours is huge and sits eight with a potential for more, the stools are big heavy and high backed, and very comfy, and it fits the kitchen way better than the old table did. It's never been a dumping ground for anything an neither was the old table.

A friend has conservatory and is the most used and social room in her house and usable all year round.

Open plan works I think if the space is genuinely big enough, the issue is often it's not, and it's done to give an illusion of space and in reality it does mean you're watching the tv listening to the dishwasher or washing machine and gazing at dirty dishes.

Pick what YOU like. Everyone has a different idea of what works for them, and NO idea of what would work for you.

I like open plan. But not everyone does. Does that make my decision to choose an open plan house wrong? NO! Because I like it. Be your own person.

Have never, ever understood the appeal of ensuites. Our bedroom door is dead opposite the bathroom door and we've got a shower room as well. It means that when we have people to stay everyone can use them both instead of having to queue for one bathroom while one sits idle.

Oh my God is that what a boot room is? I WANT ONE!! My life is a constant battle with muddy boots.
My fantasy house would be an arts & crafts style period property with big fireplaces, stone or parquet floors, separate rooms, a big dining kitchen, lots of nooks and crannies and a cellar, pantry, utility and boot room. And a big garden with veranda and a gardener.

Yes, this, all of this. I want it.

I'm loving that arts and craft house.

Don’t understand why people like an integral garages. Most seem too small to fit modern cars in anyway and they take up so much of your downstairs space!

meatbadger - I wouldn't necessarily choose and integral garage, but we do need a garage as we have bikes, and unless that shed is really big with decent doors, it just isn't going to work.
In an ideal world, I'd have an attached garage, alongside the house, with a doorway through. But our house has a plot with a small frontage, and no rear access, so we have an integral garage.

You think that you would like something, until you get it, and then find it doesn't fit in with the way you live.

We got a conservatory about 12 years ago, I was desperate for one, and we had one built only to discover we had no use for it. We've tried it as a dining room (preferred eating off trays from our laps in the living room), a kids playroom (they preferred their bedroom or annoying us in the living room), an additional living space (we prefer to sit together and watch the same TV), a laundry room (went mouldy with tumble dryer in there), an office (had to have 2 heaters on full to work in there) and a dumping ground (this was the biggest success).

Anyway, if we ever move I would like a downstairs toilet (or room to build one), a second reception room which I'd turn into an office, and a kitchen big enough to get a table and chairs in. I'm not bothered about an en-suit or a big garden.

I also would not like open plan, I never even thought of the noise issue - my bugbear is the cold. When we have the door between living room and kitchen open it's freezing!

If we stay here, I'm waiting for the DS's to move out then turning the small box room into a walk in wardrobe, dressing room.

We have a bit of both worlds with our house. We have a kitchen (with an island) other end of the kitchen we have a dining table and chairs. Then we have a big arch leading to the next room, we have a sofa and tv in that room. So it feels very open plan...but we have a door into an entrance hall one end, door into small hallway the other end, door into living room, door into a snug room and door into office. So we have rooms (with doors) for peace and quiet, but if we entertain we have the large kitchen/diner family room.
We recently bought the house, it has an island. We took the island out while we put underfloor heating in, I quite liked the kitchen without the island, it looked huge. But the hob is on the island and lots of cupboards I can’t do without. So the island went back. I quite like it though. Had I designed the kitchen I’m not sure I’d have added it though.

Weird over large bathrooms with funny shape baths that could easily have also had a nice big cupboard instead and an ordinary bath. Also loads of ruddy bathrooms. Bloody nuisance if you ask me.

Grey tiling, grey everything. Like a morgue.
Huge granitey worktops and extra sinks for washing lettuce in.

I am not sure when the little back to back cottages were built but those really are tiny Friends live in one of the many back-to-backs around here, and while they're not large, they're certainly not tiny. Double fronted, so on ground floor there is large kitchen diner to the left and huge living room to the right. Two more floors above of same size, and they have cellars.

I also had friend who lived in one of those cottages and it was tiny. If there were 4 people in the living room, the others had to get up and shuffle round if anyone wanted to get out. The ones opposite us were also tiny. No cellars either. The houses on our side were all large plots, still with big gardens and some of the garden had been sold off to enable more (also very big) houses to be built. As far as I am aware the little ones were for the 'workers' and the big ones for the land owners and rich folk when they were built.

I love our ensuite. A house without one would be a deal breaker for me.
When we have guests, I love that we have our own totally private bathroom which the guests can't access. I hate sharing a bathroom. And now we have teens, I'd hate the five of us to share one bathroom in the morning, the horror!

We’ve just moved to an open plan kitchen diner with separate living room and utility. I really like being able to potter about doing things I enjoy and being able to keep an eye on the kids while they play inside and outside. We have a kitchen island which allowed more units with a smaller overall kitchen footprint; so far it’s less of a dumping ground than the dining table...!
We have an en suite too and I like that it’s just ours-feels like a nice hotel room! Each to their own though I get it wouldn’t be for everyone. While the children are still young though this is so much better for us than the separate room setup we had previously.

Open plan means you can't get away from each other, more expensive to heat as no doors to shut. Good if you like family time.

What a luxury it is to choose not to have an ensuite, open plan, kitchen diner, huge flatscreen, accent walls, kitchen island, breakfast bar etc....we’re all so lucky to be able to not have the things we dislike in our houses.

We were looking at knocking our kitchen and dining room into one big open plan area, incorporating the hallway. It would have given us a kitchen area, with table and room for sofas in the corner.

Then we went and stayed in a holiday cottage that was open plan. The noise was horrendous.... you had to pause the TV every time someone boiled the kettle, let alone put the dishwasher on or the extractor fan and it really stressed me out having everyone around you when you were cooking.

We very rapidly changed our minds. We are house hunting at the moment and I rapidly scan past the open living houses. Not my taste at all.