Building Your Dream Home

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by Monterrey

I wish i had built a larger utility room. Large families need more working space. Smaller bedrooms and larger activity rooms is the way to go.

I agree. Right now our utility room is downstairs. I look at it in a positive light, get lots of exercise going up and down stairs, lol. However, in the new house, I hope to have it on ground level.

And I also really, really hope we can find a floor plan that somehow allows for a mud room. I agree that smaller bedrooms, and large open main rooms are what will work better when dealing with smaller floor plans.

[ILG]

Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord

I agree. Right now our utility room is downstairs. I look at it in a positive light, get lots of exercise going up and down stairs, lol. However, in the new house, I hope to have it on ground level.

And I also really, really hope we can find a floor plan that somehow allows for a mud room. I agree that smaller bedrooms, and large open main rooms are what will work better when dealing with smaller floor plans.

Our utility room is downstairs too. Yes, there is the exercise factor! However, I wonder how that will work when I'm 80. LOL!

[Monterrey]

The other thing I would do would be, if possible, to build a walk out basement with activity rooms or a great room downstairs. That way I could put all the kids and grandkids downstairs and not be bothered by the noise.

Then there is the case for alternative heating and cooling.

Been looking at that recently.

Anything to save on energy costs.

As funny as it sounds I would probably go with 2x6 wall firred our to 2x8 for the exterior walls. This extra 1 1/2 inch of insulation would make some difference in heating and cooling.

In the present house I insulated every wall, including the interior walls. Makes a huge difference with sound. No hollow sounds in the house. Will do the same on the next one too. But I have been studying the r-value on the 2x8 walls and it would make up quickly in recouped heating/cooling cost what the extra 1 1/2 would cost to put up.

[Monterrey]

The house that we had before this one had zoned hot water heat. Loved it but also like the a/c that my forced air has now.

Hot water heat is super economical. Zoned is the way to go.

Will probably consider this in the next location and just have a separate cooling system somehow.

[KeptByTheWord]

Interesting Monterrey! We have considered a daylight basement, but our property is flat. We have also considered digging further down to make a daylight walk in/out basement too, but that is cost prohibitive at the moment. We have a huge treed parcel of land, so for heat, wood is the way to go for us, and we certainly don't need air conditioning up here, lol. We plan on putting a den downstairs, with the wood stove, and two bedrooms.

[Rose]

Niece built this home with almost duplicate flipped Space in basement except kitchen area became laundry storage area. Turned out really nice.

http://www.theplancollection.com/hou...290/big-images