AIBU to ask to see your houses?!

[cookie4640]

I’m dreaming of building our own home, and awaiting on planning. In the mean time I’d love to gather ideas to make the perfect home!
What are your must haves and don’t bothers?
What amazing and clever designs have you got?
I literally don’t know where to start (apart from I know I want lots of storage and a utility room to hide the mountains of washing in!)

We want it to generate its own power supply, or at least contribute to it - solar? Wind? Other bright ideas?

It’s such an exciting time but so overwhelming I’m worried we are going to end up with a crappy cheap, boring build unless I get some ideas 😁

I really want it to be fantastic and clever and a place I love to be, unlike our current rented accommodation!

How much money do you have. How big will thd house be

I recommend reading A Modern Way to Live by Max Gibberd. Beautiful and inspiring book. Made me want to build a new home, even though I've always said I preferred period!

Yes, you are being unreasonable L.

Look at border oak. Gorgeous oak framed buildings with modern insulation.

www.borderoak.com/

I want a laundry room upstairs. I hate lugging laundry downstairs to wash only to carry it all back up again. So, washer and dryer upstairs for me!

A utility room that’s big enough to leave the ironing board up, has a door to outside, and a heated door mat.

Storage storage storage

Our house has barely any and it drives me mad.

Don't have a massive utility room - it ends up being a dumping ground for everything. Make sure it has a sink, a laundry maid and windows to air everything in bad weather
Have some sort of balcony from the bedrooms if you have a nice view

Laundry that incorporates a mud room and toilet, that opens to the back. Can store school bags, coats etc. out of the way. Kitchen sink overlooking the garden. Planned built ins, so for family room, built in cupboards and shelving unit that hold the tv also. Can store loads of toys, games, equipment and have some nice things on display. I wouldn’t put a fireplace (unless you’ll have a massive space) but that’s just me.

Is anyone really going to share identifying pictures of their homes on Mumsnet?

I'd have thought google was more than capable of giving you home ideas.

We have a laundry chute, a cloakroom, large hallway, gym, large study, separate ‘posh sitting room, kids have a den upstairs, open plan kitchen/living space, 4 en-suite rooms, 2 share a bathroom. Underfoot heating, loads of storage and lots of kitchen space. Love my house.

Unless you have a really really good heating system and dont mind sound reverberating around the house dont have open plan stairs.

All the heat and sound goes straight upstairs and is wasted .
get plug sockets that you can plug usb cables straight into and so free up the normal sockets
Get more plug sockets than you think you will need .

Not to everyone's taste but I would have a real fire fitted too , providing you can get a ready supply of wood / coal / coke

If you have DCs , build a play room for them , it should ( in theory ) help keep the rest of the house toy / clutter free or at least reduced.
When they grow up it can be turned into a study for them for school / uni work

Make sure there is a proper and practically located dining room.

Wall mounted lighting as well as overhead lighting , lamps are all well and good but can get in the way and use up valuable plug sockets

I’d have an everyday door that leads straight into a boot/ coat room then into the house plus a ‘posh’ front door that leads into your beautiful uncluttered hallway.

We’re also building this year and waiting on planning. I have a similar wish list to yours. Big utility/dog room which opens to the garden. Planning to have a carpenter to build in cupboards and storage. Will watch this thread with interest.

Not a massive budget, probably about £200-300k
The land is already bought and paid for. We have applied for a four bed, with office space.

I’m loving the responses so far everyone thank you! There’s honestly so much to think about I literally have no idea where to start!

@BoredZelda I’ve no idea that’s why I asked AIBU 😘 it hard to google when you dont actually know what to google - I need to narrow down my starting point.

@Dindundundundeeer a laundry chute?! No way! Are you Uk based??

@Chickoletta I hope we get some fantastic ideas!

Has anyone got any knowledge of sustainable energy and where to look for all that shizzle on the Internet? There’s SO much stuff comes up in search’s I don’t know what to look at.

Yes I’m in the U.K. I do love it. The kids always put their clothes down. It all goes into a cupboard with a basket in. The cupboard has the ironing basket/hangers/chute. It’s next to the stacked washer and dryer. I have a folding shelf between the two and 5 baskets (us 4 + house stuff) on shelves and everyone takes their own basket upstairs. We have a ceiling maiden too over a sink & counter and a door to the outside for line drying. We are set up for efficiency!

Build a passivhaus - look at Passivaus Trust. Take a fabric first approach to minimise energy consumption and then think about renewables. They are amazing to live in with no condensation or damp (even in internal bathrooms).

And my laundry is on the same floor as my bedrooms and all clothes are also air dried in there due to the passivhaus thing. I also highly recommend.

Will you be using a heat pump for heating/hot water?

Whatever you do, don't have the stairs going directly off any of the rooms. In cold weather the heat from downstairs all escapes upstairs, it makes ot so much more difficult to keep it an acceptable temperature downstairs. It's a massive drawback of modern small housing & also open plan layout in some larger houses.

Consider which you want the front and back gardens to be facing. South may be lovely for sitting out in the sun, & is warmer in winter, & the room to that side will get more sun. However in summer the room to that side will be baking hot, the north room will be cold & dark in winter, & a south facing garden absolutely drinks water in a dry summer, you will be watering it constantly unless you're content with a dead, brown lawn.

We had solar panels at our last house. The electric bills were definitely lower.

USB plug sockets are so useful! But you don't need them everywhere.

I'm not sure about a fireplace. I read something about woodburners potentially being restricted soon, not sure if that includes fireplaces as well. Worth looking into.

Pinterest will give you lots of ideas too op

Hire an architect if in budget for someone to design it for you. Your home made perfect on bbc has lots of ideas too

I’d love a laundry room and agree with pp that the most logical place for it is actually upstairs.

My favourite thing about my house is our big kitchen diner where we have an island (where I can sit and drink wine and chat to my OH while he cooks me dinner) have a big dining table and a comfy seating area with a tv. It’s a nice social space for when we have people round and we hang out here all the time. I don’t agree you need a proper stand alone dining room but I do think an open plan space like this only really works if it’s spacious enough and if you have a separate living room.

Also our house has double aspect windows in most of the rooms which means it’s nice and light.

If I was designing from scratch I’d really want to pay attention to heating. Do you need big radiators everywhere which limits where you can place furniture? Obviously it would be good to be able to use modern energy efficiency measures.

I’d also build in some sort of library area - a corner maybe with floor to ceiling built in book shelving.

Here's mine. Kept it quite understated.

Solar panels will save you a fortune.

South facing so you will get the sun in whichever rooms face that way.

I’d be concerned about having a laundry upstairs as at some point in your life you could well get a flood.

@JorisBonson

Here's mine. Kept it quite understated.

I love that, it’s like Gaudi went full kitsch