If you had more money...

We are empty nesters also. Our "built it ourselves" home is about 960 sq feet with a seperate but attached utility room of 160 sq feet where water storage and laundry take place. We have no halls- have small dining area, kitchen, living room and bathroom down stairs. Open loft above has two sleep areas and a large closet. If we had more money, I would have liked to have a walk out basement (would have required blasting etc) and would really want a huge garage and shop and wood shed all in one- would have to be like 40-50 by 30! But we are just fine, i have plenty of house to clean already!

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www.MontanaSticksAndStones.com at Goshen Farm

If money and property taxes weren't a determining factor, we'd build a smaller house with a bedroom on the first floor, and with root cellar access directly from the kitchen and with access to the outside, so it would be easy to put things into the root cellar from the garden, and easy to use things during the year, without going outside or down steps. We have a good site further up the hill from our house, that would allow a first floor built into the hillside, but the idea of property taxes on a new house scare us off. A bedroom on the first floor would mean not having to climb stairs as we age, and it could be used as an office/library now. We would consider a straw bale house, or other super-insulation construction, as our experience has shown that adequate insulation and weathization, along with maximizing passive solar gains, can do away with the need for a heating system except for a small backup heater. Our wind generator and PVs could easily handle the electrical load.

Wow! This topic really got running since I checked in last night.

Alex - thanks for sharing your layout with us. I LOVE looking through floorplans and imagining how they would suit us. Those rugs that your wife makes sound very comfy to walk on.

I agree with many of you that land(acreage) is important before a house. We do want to purchase a large (~100 acres) plot, but probably will only be able to afford 5-10 by next summer. We don't want to get too into debt by buying more than we can afford. And we will wait on building an actual house until we can save up a bit more, or our planned garage loft gets to feeling too small.

Moonwolf - Good ideas. It would be smart to have a door near the kitchen to facilitate bringing in the produce, like you said. I would very much like a large island, too. Right now we have this flimsy little 1.5 x 2 ft rolling island that I do all my bread & food prep on. It's just not cutting it.

Jenn - My husband keeps saying he wants a separate office or den where he can game (when he's not working, sleeping, or eating... he's gaming), but I really like the idea of having everything centralized. I totally understand about the family-being-together thing.

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Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain

I love the detached garage. I put the laundry room there (a must have on my list!) and the freezer chest, so I can unload frozen stuff from the car. I can always harvest dinner items while stuffing another load of laundry in. I used the area designated for a laundry room to put in another bathroom with shower only. It is next to the door to the back porch so the kids don't tromp through the house when playing outside and will be handy if we ever put in a pool.

I like having a cathedral-ceilinged great room as I have claustrophobia. However, it can be hard to cool and heat. We tend to use quilts or throws when reading and watching TV in cool weather and fans in the summer. If I lived in a cooler climate, I would have a fireplace or wood stove and arrange a lounging area around that instead of around the entertainment center. A great room lets me stay with the family while cooking or doing dishes. It makes for a cozier area...rather cabin-like.

Our walk-in pantry is bigger than some of our closets....but it is a blessing as we live 20 miles from the nearest store.

My advise is to keep your indoor space to a minimum to make it easier to clean and cheaper to cool or heat. Maximize your outdoor space: porches, patio with outdoor kitchen (do your canning here instead of heating up the house), a jacuzzi and an exterior fireplace or firepit would be great. Make the garage larger for a warehouse area for out of season or seldom used stuff and keep the house uncluttered.

Sisterpine - We thought ahead on the garage/woodshop, because we know we would want to do a lot of the woodwork ourselves when we build a house. We'll most likely build something like this: http://www.houseplanguys.com/plan_de...id=16236&st=10 and live in the loft until we build a house. It's about the same sq footage we are used to now, so it'd do us good until we start popping out babies.

We'd probably also build a little shed for a kiln and throwing wheel for my ceramics. The Lansing guild won't let me use their facility because I'm not "experienced" enough, and my fingers have been itching for clay since we left Albion. That would definitely give us a little income boost every now and then, too.

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Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain

Okay, I was wishy-washy last night. Definitely not less house (1/3 is used solely for business purposes currently which really cuts down on our livable space), but more land for sure. Whether it's ag zoned or not.

Living on a hill,and lots of steps (17) to the house,then an upstairs loft,next house is single level,no steps anywhere,and able to park right by housedoor to bring in groceries.These steps are tough on my old neighbors and no picnic for me,I see a trend there......

BooBoo

Yep 25000 sf ,you would have plenty room.Guess you got so excited at the thought,or a Fruedian slip,and tossed in an extra zero,eh?

BooBoo

I would like to have a "usable" basement where I could stand up in.

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Gary in Central Ohio

I'd pay off the house i just bought---

Sq footage is right around 1000 for the main floor (open kitchen/living room)/3 bedrooms/2 car attached garage/big open basement thats unfinished/no carpeting in the house--wood floors!...the only thing is the smaller yard...but thankfully the neighbors aren't close! and i have garages on both side of me.

---and then buy some land in the country.

smaller is better, we have too much stuff anyway... that is why I have the dumpster in the front yard

We want more land... a farm ... a real barn - I'd sleep with the cows. The teens probably would not like it too much, but we would love it. We are working on the plan to subdivide here and sell both sections and buy a chunk of land in the middle of nowhere once the kids are out of school. 5 more years. Hopefully we can get the land in 2 and work on it from there. Yep, if we had money (any money) we would have a farm.

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Its a good day, I woke up on the right side of the grass.

I was surprised recently when hubby said he'd build a new house on a new place if he won the lottery (it was over $300,000,000). He said he'd build this exact house only bigger up in East TN. Of course, we didn't win the lottery, but might have had a better chance if he'd actually bought a ticket!

The house we're in is less than two years old and is about 3,500 sq. ft. It isn't big enough for all my junk (I'm a packrat). The downstairs has an open floor plan with lots of windows which leaves us with almost no wall space. It's very difficult to arrange furniture and hang pictures.

We have a three car enclosed garage and it is much better than a carport. It is our "shop" and we usually park the cars in it only when it's cold. The rest of the time the garage is almost an extension of the house...it's where we do projects that won't fit in the house. We even had my daughter's wedding reception in the garage!

I have a double door closet type pantry and it really isn't adequate, but the utility room is right next to it and I have put shelves up in there for canned goods (Home canned goods) so everything works out okay.

One other necessity to me is large porches. Our front porch wraps around the house and the back porch is wide and runs halfway across the back of the house. I would love to screen it in, but haven't convinced hubby of that.

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I'm running so far behind I thought I was first!

http://hickahala.blogspot.com/

If we had more money we'd just forward our retirement plans a few years. Build on our other property and move there. Personally having lived in different style homes, I prefer open plan . If you use wood heat its easier the more open the house is. When I lived in a home with hallways and rooms shut off from one another, it was impossible to heat with wood. I guess you could use a wood furnace but we just had a wood stove. The house we have now is 2200 sq. ft. I like large rooms, especially when the kids visit with the grandkids. When we are just the two of us it really doesn't seem too big. We have 3 beds and 2 baths but the rooms are a nice size. The kitchen is 30 ft long, plenty of cupboards but next home will definately have a store room. We like a garage instead of a car port too. We store things in the garage and DH has a workshop there. No stairs like this house, it has to be wheel chair accessible for DGS.