If you could design you home again

[TRAILRIDER]

I am not wishing disaster on anyone, but here's a question for you.

If tomorrow your home was gone and you could start with a new building, what would you change?

I now have a small 100 year old farm house. I think if I could do it all over, it would be a one room cabin with a loft. Over a cellar and with a wood burning stove.

[Pearl B]

I think Id get a nice Quanza hut, & build it up.

I knew someone who had one & put a loft in it. Turned out nice, lots of room.

[Peace n Quiet]

This one is easy for me... I currently live in a 150+ year old farmhouse. It has almost no closets, no real attic, and an unusable basement. Storage space is at the TOP of my priority list!

So, all I ask is for someone to build me a 2,000 sq ft closet with tons of built in bookshelves and attach it to a single bedroom, large kitchen and bath. A small living room would be welcome too - but it needs to have tons of windows!

[crazyfarm]

What we have now but with the 2 walls I hate gone. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my house.

[MO_cows]

We intend to build a new home. I have a design on paper but want to see it on computer as a "3D walkthru" before we commit to construction.

Our home is Depression-era farmhouse, cute but too small, not enough storage. No coat closet, no linen closet. We need more space overall, more storage, laundry not in the basement, 2nd bathroom. Other improvements will be wood stove, gas cook stove instead of electric, bigger and better front and back porches.

We are upsizing, not downsizing. Storage is a biggee! Seems like I spend half my life hauling stuff up and down from the basement.

[OH Boy]

I would design it to include a nice energy efficient wood stove instead of this piece of crap zero clearance fireplace that just sucks heat up the chimney when we have a fire.

[Forcast]

I built a log home but if I did it again I would go with a stick built 6 in deep with the log siding. too many air leaks and drafts.

[Kasota]

I would have a laundry room on the main floor and a bedroom on the main floor. Most of all I would love to have a room totally dedicated to fiber, processing fleece, storing fleece and yarn. Big enough to have a huge table for sorting fleece, a double sink, and a comfy corner for spinning wheels. With some big windows looking out over a garden.

[mnn2501]

Big kitchen, pantry, and 3 bathrooms - maybe 4

[Ramblin Wreck]

Like a lot of things about my house, and I'm blessed to have it. But if I were doing it over, I think I would dig into a south facing hill and build a mostly underground house. It would be easier to heat and cool and the maintenance should be minimal.

[Cookie2]

We have a 2000 sq ft single-story, Southern rectangle home (classic full front and rear porches). It is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and less than 10 years old. We like it a lot.

What I'd change:
~ A basement or storm shelter with inside access. Basements aren't common in MS but we're on a slope so a small walk-out basement with a storm shelter in the back would be very easy to do.

~ I'd put more windows on the rear of the house so we can take advantage of the beautiful view of the pond. Also the living room, which faces the rear of the house, is rather dark because of the lack of windows. We've talked about putting in windowed dormers just to brighten up the place.

~ A better metal roof. The person who installed our metal roof, put the screws in the panel valleys, not the ridge. Every screw that loosens ends up leaking. We planned on replacing all the screws with longer or bigger ones but it wouldn't matter since the cross supports for the roof is just lathe - not very thick at all. Instead we have been using a glue-type caulk to keep the screws in place.

~ Storage. The basement would help but I need so much more storage space like built-in cabinets and some coat or linen closets.

~ A 2-car garage. We only have a carport and the lack of garage storage is a hardship.

~ A screened porch. I like working in a bug-free environment.

[Brighton]

NO STAIRS!! And a metal roof!!

[ErinP]

I'm in the process of building my dream house, so there's nothing I'd change at this point! lol

But, in looking at what I love:

-Master bedroom on the main floor
-No master bath, but the door is literally 2 feet from our bedroom door
-Open kitchen with a half-wall to hide dirty dishes, but still be able to be part of the living room conversation
-My sewing room in the loft, that looks out over the living room
-Door from our bedroom onto the deck for early AM coffees.
-Good southern exposure, without excessive east/west windows, for passive solar heating
-Bathroom on each floor.

[snowlady]

What I miss from my old (150 year old) home is a large walk in pantry with floor to ceiling shelves/cupboards and drawers. I loved that! I love the main floor bedroom and laundry room in this 25 year old house. We have a screen porch that I love. I would add a long open porch with a swing and rocking chairs in front but it won't work.

[Sierra Dave]

If I had the opportunity...

1) Walk in fridge that parallels the kitchen.
2) Long wide counter along the wall next to the walk in fridge. So you can do a lot of food prep or canning. Modern kitchens suck.
3) Small access doors to said walk in fridge on back of counter. So you don't have walk around to get stuff. Or open a door and let the cold out.


Solar water heating.

I'd set up a 55 gallon metal barrel in each room and some small water pumps. Outside and possibly on the roof. I'd have more metal barrels , painted flat black, with mirrors to reflect Sunlight. So, main heated water storage would be outside. And each room could turn on the flow of hot water into the barrel. And then let the heat radiate into the room at night. A little fancier could incorporate small radiators and fans to blow air through the radiators. You can use heater cores from the junk yard.


Sierra Dave

[V-NH]

Very simple. More storage space and not open concept. We currently live in a log ranch house that is open concept. 60% of the house is a combined living room/dining room/kitchen area. It doesn't leave much space to do other things. There's also only one small closet that isn't in a bedroom. We've completely run out of places to put new things and we have only owned the house 1.5 years.

Our next house needs to have 20+ acres, mostly pasture, too.

Counting down the days until we can reasonably sell it. Looked at an old farmhouse the other day, but it needed too much work. Going to wash it, stain it, and put a brand new front door on it before the summer is over and then probably list it for sale in the spring.

[ChristieAcres]

DH is going to build a log home. He built a beautiful 3-story one almost 30 years ago, and it has stood the test of time and still looks great! Our plans? A 1-story w/loft on a tall walk in crawlspace.

A master bedroom with adjoining bathroom containing a large soaker tub, walk-in shower, and double sinks. There will be a door in that bathroom, which will lead into a smaller 1/2 bath with toilet and sink. That 1/2 bath will have (2) doors. The other door will lead to our living room. The main floor will also contain a pantry, dining room, living room, and kitchen. In the loft, we will have a 2nd master bedroom with the same bathroom setup (tub/shower/sinks in one bathroom with adjoining 1/2 bath). Also, there will be an office/sewing/craft room area.

Right now, we can both easily climb stairs. DH is purposely building wider steps at an angle easier for any to climb. Since we will have 2 master bedrooms, we can use the loft one until we get older, then the main floor one. We will heat with a wood stove (that will heat our water, as well). DH already designed us a system at our last place.

Our home will have 3-sided wrap around covered porches and a covered smaller porch on the 4th side. The upper loft will have a covered deck off the master.

If finances permit, we would like to go with solar/wind...

We will have a carport for our vehicles.

[dablack]

I'm in the middle of it right now. We are building on a 26x52 slab. Two story with a walk up attic. The attic room is 8 x 52 with windows on each end. Full size stairs going up to the attic. LOTS OF STORAGE. We have four kids so storage is important.

Downstairs is a one car garage (shop), living, dining, kitchen and 8x13 pantry. Upstairs is four bedrooms, two baths and laundry. Along the front of the house is a 8' deep, 52' long porch.

Can't wait to be done building.

Austin

[Phil V.]

Large kitchen with dedicated area for bread making and a large pantry. Also would have metal roof and full basement. Would look into solar or wind generator or combination of both for electricity. And have a large wood cookstove in the kitchen.

[MJsLady]

I love my home.
The only thing I would do differently is redesign the bathrooms.
One has a sink with counter and is too small, it needs a pedestal sink with a side counter.
The other I would just shorten the counter area a little.
It is hard in both to adequately clean around the commodes on the sink side.
I might think too about opening up the kitchen/dining room and combining them.