What features of your house make day to day living easier ?

[Kittypickle]

Our long awaited re-mortgage offer arrived yesterday so we can finally after nearly 3 years start some serious work on our house. We want to sort out a bigger bedroom for DS, re-do the kitchen, bathroom, put in a downstairs toilet and I'd love a utility room if possible and every room needs decorating and new flooring. Neither of us want to move again (this is house no.4 in 7 years) so we want to make it practical for DD (6) and DS (2) now and so that it continues to be so as they get older.

What things about your house do you love and make family day to day life easier ? Any ideas, large or small and however bizarre would be very welcome !

We are just getting some quotes in for the following:

• drive in front of house (to avoid parking on road)

• bedroom and loo on ground floor (for grandparents/visitors)

I'm hoping these will make life easier!

Dishwasher
Laundry Room

Children's playhouse in the garden - dumping ground for toys so they're not strewn all over the house.

We live in a pokey flat. But things which make life easier, having once lived in a large bungalow that is my parents' home: more worktops and cupboards in the kitchen than you think you'll need. A walk-in larder. A master en-suite, downstairs loo or guest bathroom, AND a family bath. A utliity room w/access to the garden - makes getting washing from machine to line a snap. Wood or tile flooring. Built-in cupboards w/shelving in bedrooms. More plug socket than you think you'll need. Dimmer switches. Fully paved driveway and carport and/or garage. Outside tap - easy to attach a hose to it and wash your car in your driveway.

How fantastic Kitty Pickle to have the money to refurbish. I would go mad! The one thing I have which makes life simpler is in the kitchen, a long drawer under work surface, pull out and inside is a fold out ironing board. No struggling getting ironing board unfolded and is so quick and easy! Iron whenever you need instead of big piles all at once!
Also have a pull out lockable cage under sink in cupboard which houses all cleaning equipment so no accidents!

An eat-in kitchen is a good thing, too!

Things that would make my life easier are:
dishwasher, another bathroom (we can but dream but definitely a second toilet), a cleaner (sorry going off to fantasy land here!!), another room like a conservatory or extended lounge so throw ds into with all his toys!!

Decent shower in bathroom(s)
Ensuite to master bedroom
Lots of well-planned cupboards in kitchen
Room for seperate washer and dryer

very large bathroom - so much easier for bathing kids.
Used to have laundry room in old house, was very useful.
Wooden floors - no worrying about spills or accidents.
plain magnolia walls - can paint over marks easily.
locks on all the doors, toys stored out of reach of children - saves on mess.

Proper hose that you pull on and it wraps itself up.

I'd love a dishwasher, a bathroom downstairs, a space in the kitchen for a table and chairs, somewhere to hang washing indoors, fitted or any wardrobes in my bedroom, a dressing table for girly things,cupboards for the kids toys and an adult room for a tv that isn't showing cartoon network all the time. Makes it worse that all of my friends living nearby have all of these things and we don't. I shouldn't be jealous but I am

Drawers more than cupboards in the kitchen - easier to store loads. I don't have this yet, but I will.

I think this house encapulates (sp) everything I'd want in my 'perfect' house (DH are hoping it's still on the market in about 10yrs time when we may just be able to start thinking about being able to afford it LOL - it's about 10 minutes walk from our house.

These are brilliant, please keep them coming . I do feel very lucky mememum to be in a position to get on with it, not sure it's going to stretch to do everything but I'll be extremely grateful for simple things like safe access into the garden - we're on a hill with dangerous subsiding concrete steps and poor DS's legs are all grazed when he tries to climb out.

PLayroom - we have a room for all of dd stuff so the grown up room is always tidy.

A big study - doubles up as a craft room and stores all my books. Means I can leave my books out in between studying rather than having to clear dinner table. Also means I have space to sew, or complete whatever project I have on the go without cluttering the house. And things like needles, scissors, craft knives, glue guns etc all out of the way from dd.

Laundry room, invaluable as it is all out of the way, would like a bigger one though as my study has become an ironing room lately. Would like a laudry room with an ceiling airer,sink etc. At the moment just room for shelving, tumble dryer, washer and laundry baskets.

WE also have a play house in the garden and dd spends hours in it and it is great for storage.

I would like to knock bathroom and toilet into one to have a bigger more luxurious bathroom.

Convert my attic into a study so I can have study as bedroom and knock through to dd room as my dressing room. Dd could then have our old bedroom.

We are also plan to extend our kitchen to have a big dining room and more workspace in kitchen, at present we use dining room as playroom and have a table in kitchen but it is a bit cramped.But extending the kitchen would mean loosing laundry room.

I would also like my garden lancsacaped, safety surfacing for dd climbing frame and toys, a smaller shed to create more room and some great garden furniture.

High pressure hot water system

Definitely invest in a good kitchen floor that is wipeable. We are stuck with carpet in our kitchen as can't afford to get it removed atm! Also we have a bathroom that doesn't have a shower - would definitely get a bath! Power shower is a must if you've got a shower.

*Downstairs Loo

*Ensuite shower room with powerful shower

*Utility

*Integral Garage - love the fact that it is integral as we use it as an extension of the kitchen, the bin is in there and there's also a little larder bit, as well as still having room for usual garage stuff (bikes etc).

*Private drive wide enough for both cars

Dishwasher Microwave*Washing machine

*LOVE my airing cupboard as it means I can dry an entire wash load overnight indoors without my house looking like a launderette !

I wish we had a big tall pantry cupboard in the kitchen for the food. We had one in our old house and it is absolutely the only thing I miss about the place. If we ever had our kitchen re-done then we'd definitely have a larder/pantry cupboard put in.

God don't get me started on kitchen floors, we have some horrible lino tiles that never look clean.

Would also want extractor over cooker, for some reason there isn't one, open shelving and granite work surfaces.

I could keep going!

"Power shower is a must if you've got a shower."

Now that I disagree on. Our last house had a shower that was straight off the mains - and our first thought was "get it replaced with a power shower"........we never bothered - it was MORE powerful than any power shower I've ever used. And when we moved to this house it took ages to get used to the 'power shower' in this house...

Didn't mean to make those odd words bold !

Also loads and loads of built in storage particularly our coat cupboard in the hall, it has a hanging rail with coat hangers for coats (weirdly enough), and shelves for shoes. Also handy for the hoover

For a house with young kids, windows that open from the top and you have to engage them to get them to open any further than a couple of inches.

By our back door we have pull out baskets in a unit thing - kids each have one for shoes - so in theory we know where they are when dashing out for school.

Get any cupboards built up to ceiling height - no dust and extra storage (we have a little ladder in a drawer under units to reach high shelves)

Have a rail hanging space in utility to put stuff on hangers. Always though laundry chute would be really cool too - now more carrying dirty washing down.

Message withdrawn

En suite
Utility room
Big kitchen/diner so have dining room as plaroom