Tips on ideal house for teenagers

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We have a family of six in a three bed house. We are having an architect help rejig the house to make it a four bed, but in the process I want to make it a house that will work for the next 15 years until the youngest have finished A levels.
My oldest is only 9 now so I struggle to imagine what life will be like, and this is my chance to get things right.

What do I need to think about?
What should I prioritise?

If you have teens what do you really appreciate having in your home set up?
What do you really wish you could change?

Many thanks.

I think the house I live in now would be great for teenagers. I am grandparent age now though.

Upstairs are two bedrooms, good sized, one has walk in closet. Bath up there is two rooms. One is long vanity with two sinks. The tub and toilet room is adjacent and has a sliding door. Even better would be a tub and separate shower.

We have a basement that is big. Has a pool table, lounge area so plenty of space to be away from parents.

Rooms should be wired for Internet, phone.

When my son and DIL stayed here for two weeks, they had privacy upstairs and used basement in eve for family time.

Obviously don't know your situation, but as a mother of several teenagers, space and distance are a great thing

We insist on a family evening meal around the table, basically so that we can still recognise our offspring if we meet them in the street. They like to spend a great deal of their time shut in bedrooms once they hit teens - either studying (?), FBing, listening to music or texting their pals with their 5,000 free texts per month, or whatever they get.

If it is possible for them to have a bedroom each, they appreciate it greatly. If it is possible for you to be at the other end of the house I would highly recommend it (if you ever fancy having sex). It is very difficult to make love to your partner with your 17 yo DD in the next room studying for A levels, believe me! Teenagers are nocturnal and will still be awake long after you. However, should you care to set your alarm for sex at 5.00am you will probably be undisturbed.

We are lucky enough to have a big house and teens have a bedroom each. We also have 2 sitting rooms - so that when their mates come round (which they frequently do) they have somewhere to chill out, rather than having to sit in the living room with us.

I would probably prefer more bathrooms - we have 2, but there always appears to be someone locked in there for hours whilst siblings bang howling on the door. Recommend a combi-boiler if you don't have one - teenage girls wash their hair constantly and you would not believe the rage that can occur if someone has a hot date and their sister has used all the hot water...

Large American fridge. And freezer. Teenagers snack constantly.

I think open plan is a big mistake with older children, you need to be able to get away from them . They need space so one person can be doing music practice while another is working & you are cooking with the radio on. Can you tell what I find frustrating? Oh & showers which will let daughters wash long thick hair.

A brilliant post, sowornout!

Separate rooms if you possibly can. I only have 2 teens, both boys, but they hate each other most of the time.

Separate living/hangout space... I tend to hide in my kitchen to leave the sitting room free for them, and now have a new house with conservatory which will give me a space to relax in.

We manage with only 1 bathroom, but it's hard, and I've had to remove the lock to prevent hijacking by a single person at peak times.

A garden big enough to accommodate a shed, garage or summerhouse for them to hang out in.

A separate house from yourself, ideally

soundproofing!

No en suites - go for family bathrooms - we have a girls one (full of hair stuff) and a boys one (full of shaving stuff)
one has a large walk in shower
the other has a huge bath
downstairs we have a cloakroom for parents !

huge amounts of sockets in bedrooms : 6 is ideal

when we put the kitchen diner on the back of the house we deliberately took out enough walls that there are routes round the house rather than just in and out of rooms

Probably won't work for you, but we happen to have bought a sort of town house, so the kids' bedrooms are on the same floor as the living room, and opposite the one bathroom that is on that floor (we have an en-suite and there's a downstairs loo - you can never have enough loos!). Although dd has not yet had a boyfriend, let alone brought one home, there's not much they'll be able to get up to with the living room opposite her bedroom

Other than that second the idea of a separate tv room for them.

kids do not need TV rooms now, just unlimited wifi for their phones!

we do have the old TV in the family room (no aerial attached) that runs the xbox and the wii and can pick up iplayer through the wifi through them

We always said that we wanted them to live next door. Close enough to see what was happening, but not dealing with the mess!

W e moved 10 days ago into our 'forever' bungalow which will accommodate our family now - dds 13 and 14 - and not be too onerous when they leave home. The 2 girls have a bedroom each at the front of the property, there is a study / music room and then a really large family living room. Our bedroom /ensuite are at the back of the house so nicely separate from teenage areas!

I agree with an earlier post saying that separate rooms are really important (if possible) with internet access etc.

Sorry to digress, cant add much as DSs are 8 and 6 but can imagine that bathrooms and separate space are useful...
Talk do you pay for a TV license to use your TV to watch iplayer or do you just watch non live tv on it (therefore no need for a license)?
I have an out of action TV (broken aerial) and keen to keep it that way in the daytime but wouldn't mind a decent sized screen to watch stuff once they boys are in bed.

if you watch live TV (anything with a delay of less than 30 mins) anywhere in the house you need a licence

we have a normal TV in the living room

its one licence per house, no matter how many tellies

We have it set up as best as we can for teens - we bought/modified the property with them in mind.

On the ground floor we have a big kitchen/dining room for family tea. We also have a living room which is generally used by DH and I unless there is an occasion which causes us to come together (eg Christmas). I have an office on the ground floor too, and there is a little loo and a utility room. We're contemplating a conservatory as a dining room in the future.

The basement is predominantly for the kids. The main area is open plan - We have a big TV down there and sofas, a pool table, a 'bar' area (not stocked with alcohol, but has fridge, drinks, sink, glasses etc.) There's also a loo down there so if they have friends round we don't have to see them! There's a second room which we turned into a dance studio - it has a wooden floor, iPod docks, cupboards with their costumes and shoes in, mirrors on one wall and a short barre. They have spent hours down there as kids and teens, so it's been worth the expense. It also has a TV so I can do my exercise DVDs and a treadmill.

On the first floor is our room (with en suite), DD3s room, DD4s room and their bathroom. On the second floor is DD1s room and DD2s room, plus bathroom. The large landing space has 2 big tables for homework, laptops etc plus storage shelves for all their school books.

Oh and DH has a shed in the garden!

We're very lucky to have so much space, but a lot of it is careful planning. We bought it as a 5 bed house with 2 bathrooms plus downstairs loo and en suite. My office is what was advertised as a dining room. The basement was just garage/cellars until we renovated, but we wanted somewhere the girls could see as their own entertainment space for friends, but that we were on site if needed.

We just have a normal, three bedroom house so the teens have a room each but dd2's is tiny. A lot of the things mentioned on here are luxuries that most families could only dream of.

A second bathroom would be amazing, but we don't have one. We do have a downstairs loo which is useful for when dd2 is having one of her mammoth showers in the bathroom.

A large fridge is a must. We did have two fridges and that was perfect, although the little one is currently dead. It meant that the little one could be used mainly for cartons of juice, bottles of water etc. So if you can, that would be useful.

Other than that, our kitchen diner is my favourite thing, because it means that there's room for all of us to be in there at once - perhaps with the dds making a cake and me peeling vege at the table etc. And we insist on us all eating together each night, or at least those of us who are here.

Remus my house was a standard 3 bed 30's semi, but instead of moving I changed it. Best investment ever.

OP here. Wow, some of you have large houses I can only dream of!
I am so grateful for all of your replies.

We have 4 dd's, and live in fairly central London, and space is tight, so how much 'separateness' we can achieve, I don't know. It would be nice.
Currently the girls are sharing one room, so they are used to dossing down.

To summarise so far:
2 bathrooms and ideally an extra loo
Very large fridge (and extra freezer too, I guess)
6 sockets in every bedroom and with Internet access in all rooms
A 'den' (summer house or sitting room) space for the children with a dividing door (at least) from kitchen and/or adult relaxing space

A further question. What would be the smallest I could get away with for their den? Keeping in mind I have 4.

Talk - you've got me thinking about if there is any way we could squeeze a shower into our tiny downstairs loo.

No idea about dens but whilst the weather has been warm, our dds and their friends have been using the roof of the extension as a chill-out zone! We have a tiny garden (most of which is taken up by dp's vege patch) but the roof has been declared to be a brilliant space. It's about 8 foot square I'd guess, and can fit six of them. :)

OP
its the nooks and crannies that are actually the best for dens

very Harry Potter, but under stairs cupboards with beanbags, a light and an ipod dock can hold two for hours!

ditto the bits of roof space : board it out, pin groovy hippy scarves to the ceiling and ensure that the router works there

Remus
A spare shower will save you thousands of arguments
we have solar hot water : when its gone its gone and DH and I always shower first .... cold is a great discipline!

they fold ....

Talkinpeace That. Is. A. Brilliant. Idea.

Honestly.
We have a bit of roof space that is not good for making a room, but as you say, a couple of bean bags and a rug would make it somewhere to hang out.

Another question about something that hasn't been mentioned.

Storage of coats and shoes at ground floor level. I am thinking this is something that should be properly planned in. We will have no space under the stairs, so how much space is adequate does everyone reckon?