If you were building a house...

[ifindoubtdoit]

What's the one thing you'd do most people don't?

For me it's aircon throughout.

Where I live it's so rare, not even the mansions seem to have it. Yet in the summer months the heat is unbearable at night and open windows result in either lots of bugs or the birds waking you at 4.30am!

A cellar/ basement. I'm in the UK.

Definitely have laundry room upstairs. Also, along with en suite and walk in wardrobe to master, I'd put a coffee machine and mini fridge in there too.

Laundry room upstairs is also a dream of mine. I don't understand why we have ours off the kitchen in the UK!

Fully open plan...

Shit for noise and heating.

A big kitchen diner is great (with a family space if you can) but you can't beat a cosy family lounge.

Yay to the upstairs laundry room....It's bonkers to do anything else even if the norm

A pantry - in fact I have added it in to the house we have planning permission for

We rebuilt our house and it's on 4 floors with the utility/laundry room in the basement (really is the best place for it in our house). I wanted to put in a dumbwaiter to save carrying all the laundry back up several flights of stairs but just couldn't sacrifice the space it would have taken up on each floor. Really wish we could have made that work!

@Quincejam

A pantry - in fact I have added it in to the house we have planning permission for

Agree, a nice north facing well insulated pantry with a slate floor and marble shelves. Sigh. My friend used to live in an old farmhouse and she had the old dairy, slate lined with slate shelves and a stone floor, cool even on the hottest days.

I would also like a library and a home cinema, they could be the same room if space was at a premium ( who am I kidding, in my fantasy house space is not an issue!)

we had a big extension 5 years ago and redesigned the entire house.

we have:

• an upstairs laundry room
• a large kitchen with 2 dishwashers, 2 double ovens, big island with breakfast bar.

it's part of the open plan downstairs space, but on the north face so no more cooking in a boiling hot kitchen. how I used to hate that (esp during many pgs!)

• 4 bathrooms including one downstairs
• downstairs nook with tv & bed so I can hide there to rest when needed
• craftroom
• ceiling fan in every room

• also a big drive (fits 3 cars spaciously or 4 cars tightly) so never have to worry about parking for us & visitors

there are so many things I'd love to have, to mention a few off a long list: a garden fountain like in Much Ado About Nothing, indoor pool, music room, dance studio with suitable floor for tap dancing, gym, cinema room, game room with pool table, bowling alley, wine cellar, attic library and a gift wrapping room a la Niles Crane🤣
one can dream!

but what I really wish we could have incorporated is a huge fireplace.

I'd also have a secret door or two.

we were told not to do an upstairs laundry room- i think it causes problems from a noise angle and is hard to sell (it may also be a weight/logistics issue as well)
we did do the 2 dishwashers thing.
But my absolute best decision was the laundry chute! Not only useful but entertainment for kids as well.

I would like an internal courtyard with a fountain and lots of plants.

I’m angling for a laundry chute!

We won’t have space for a utility room in our kitchen/back of house redesign, so will design a utility cupboard - double width/full height, washing machine and tumble dryer side by side with counter top above and shelves for supplies, maybe fold down drying rack if enough space. The bathroom is directly above so I want a laundry chute to go from the bathroom into the cupboard so clothes can land in a laundry basket on the counter inside the cupboard.

That makes a lot of sense right?!?

I think designing an upstairs laundry room in a new build from scratch would be fine…..it’s putting them in an older building as a renovation that can be issues with weight and vibrations and noise, from what I’ve read.

A secret escape room with chocolate and wine, to hide from my dc

In my younger fantasy mansion, I thought a water slide from my bedroom suite down into the indoor/outdoor interconnected pool would do nicely. At one stage there was also a trampoline room and a ball pit room. Now I’ve added a poolside spa room (alongside the steam room obvs) for my personal masseuse/beautician to do my treatments in, as well as multiple yoga spaces for my sessions with my personal yogi - one airy light indoor space with big roof windows and lots of tropical plants (personal gardener as well, obv), one sunset rooftop terrace, and one outdoor yoga deck hidden in a secret part of the massive gardens. My fantasy mansion is great

Someone explain the upstairs laundry room to me please – easier to put a bedding wash on, yeah, but what about hanging out to dry? Far rather a downstairs utility with a door to the utility garden (dreamhouse would have a utility garden).

My wish list would be: larder, library, lake. Ancient orchard. Separate dining room as well as eat-in kitchen. A walled garden.

You've hit the nail on the head @burritofan
An upstairs laundry room only works for those that don't hang clothes out and tumble dry most of the washing.

I've heard that they're not a great idea if near bedrooms because they have machines that are most likely to go on fire but aren't as insulated (tiles etc) as kitchens. Laundry shutes also have to be well designed and insulated or else they're a chimney during a fire.

A kitchen garden (raised beds full of veggies and herbs)

Upstairs laundry (above the garage or somewhere with a reinforced floor)

A bathroom just for me that I access through my clothes in the wardrobe so no one knows it's there.

I'm with you, @burritofan. Downstairs for laundry!

we built the house we live in, but if we were building another I would include a lift to futureproof it

We ended up with a bigger hot press than planned and it’s walk in size. It has an extraction fan so basically has become a mini drying room, clothes horses are in there and I’ve a few bars up high so can hang wet T-shirt’s on hangers. Clothes dry overnight. I’d make it bigger as it’s too tight of a squeeze

A lego room
A slide into a ball pool
A secret library through a bookcase

Serious ones...
A pantry
Utility room
Separate living room, dining room and kitchen, but space for small table in kitchen. And a serving hatch.

Washing machine downstairs makes sense if your hanging out your washing, and a full machine is heavy so better to have it on the ground floor.

My Best Buys when we self-built were

• a built in vacuum cleaner (powerful, never blocked, just carried a hose around and plugged it into holes in the wall)
• all internal walls were brick/block; no stud walls. Excellent sound and thermal insulation and you could put anything on any wall anywhere.
• an automatic bath tap you could press and it would run a bath for you then stop when the bath was full (as long as you put in the plug first). Brilliant for a houseful of primary/tween/teenagers.

@CrumpetyTea

we were told not to do an upstairs laundry room- i think it causes problems from a noise angle and is hard to sell (it may also be a weight/logistics issue as well) we did do the 2 dishwashers thing. But my absolute best decision was the laundry chute! Not only useful but entertainment for kids as well.

We have an upstairs laundry room and it works perfectly well.