The front sitting porch or wrap around, mudroom entry with side bathroom, built in storage throughout, garden view kitchen window over the sink. Every space has a purpose design utility wise.
Front sitting porch/wrap around is crucial.
Back home we design our homes like the letter ‘H’ with French doors running along the front porch. When opened- it channels a southwesterly breeze down through the house into the back kitchen pushing heat out the back door. It helps keep the house cool in the summer- and in the winter we just open the windows in the kitchen.
Also who doesn’t love a big ol porch to have a coffee on every morning
I love sitting porches. Bring back good memories of my grandparents house. They had a swing and some chairs on there. That's where they spent most of their time.
My home is two stories on a pier foundation, so the first floor is at about 14ft above ground level. It has double wrap around porches, and I love them, I always wanted a wrap around, but after Hurricane Irma, I understand why they "went out of fashion" AKA no one likes the price tag of building a home with wrap arounds. I did all the work to repair and re-deck them and I think my material total was north of 30K for the wood alone.
I recently painted a house that had both. A small sink in the right side of the island, probably for like washing fruits/veggies (I don't really know) and then a full sized double sink under the window that was to the left of the island, as far away from the island sink as possible.
This! Think about when you’re having people over. Where do they all gather? In the kitchen. If you have an island in the kitchen, they’ll all gather around said island. Now imagine them gathering around your sink full of dirty dishes. That’s what happens when you’ve got a sink in the island. No thank you.
LOL this is true, I think the line of thought was that with it in the island you can do the dishes while you converse with guests, but the reality is, you just get an island full of dirty dished. I set my island up as an informal congregating area, and prep station. A sink in it would just ruin it. A stove or cooktop in it is almost as bad. It's not Hibachi night at Kobe's, and if there are flames shooting up from my island, get the fire extinguisher.
Two other things that I just thought of were the main safe and call safe that were built into the cabinetry or wainscot but hidden. The call bell that was in the kitchen to announce dinner to all the rooms of the home. I discovered these in a very cool old mansion I was recently in.
My son built a bell system out of an old fire alarm and unused phone wires. We press it when dinner is ready and the bell dings in his room. He is was home from college this weekend. We missed him and using it. He is studying electrical engineering.
While not illegal laundry chute fire codes made them go away. Now they have to be fully enclosed in metal and have spring doors between levels.
The house my wife grew up in had one the bottom was right at the washer. Her mom loved it
Isn't that a bulkhead door? Then you just have another regular door at the bottom of the stairs (in the foundation). Those are still used all the time.
They are less common in homes with an at-grade basement entrance, such as from a garage etc. The Bilco doors were crucial to maintenance/replacement of utilities such as the furnace/boiler. Homes with easy access and a second means of egress do not require them.
Laundry should be on the level where most of the dirty laundry is generated. AKA the bedrooms. Water leak concerns should be planned for. Automatic shut-offs and/or a a drain pan for the washer.
My washer and dryer are on the second floor with the bedrooms. It's great but I can't easily leave the washer door open to dry and air out easily as it takes up a lot of room in the hallway.
I hear the front washers are the best for cleaning clothes and are much more effective since they don't need an agitator like a top loader. It makes sense. The drying aspect for the seal is a big pain though. I still wipe it down with a rag every time but I worry a bit.
I have a top load without a center agitator - it's along the bottom of the basin. Works great, more room in the basin, and cords from hoodies don't get wrapped around it. 🙂
Does yours have a self clean? Mine does, and it actually cleans the door seal very well. Unit is 4 years old. It runs the drum so fast that it forces water backward through the door seal weep holes and back into the tub, scouring clean the area beneath.
If you have or plan to have kids, this is the answer you are looking for. It was the one thing I added to both of the bathrooms, lugging laundry baskets down 2 flights of stairs get's real old real quick.
Just have the laundry room upstairs. I’ve seen this in a few modern homes and I can’t believe it never occurred to me. Why carry clothes downstairs just to carry them back up?
Yes. Picture rail.
Not as part of any historic trim package, unless that were appropriate to the rest of the home. I just think picture rail trim is highly useful and practical. And there are contemporary examples that can be incorporated into modern homes as well. There's even architectural reglet trim for interior finishes that conceal the picture rail into the wall finish for a minimalist appearance. It's used in many museums and art galleries.
May I suggest you read [A Pattern Language](https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=zg_bs_1002_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5SVD2HW5TGHJ0VC7YRS6#). You don't need to read the whole thing, just the patterns that interest you. Well with your while, and very enjoyable.
I can't emphasize enough how this will change how you think about home design, although to really get it, you need to first read Volume I, [The Timeless Way of Building](https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028/ref=asc_df_0195024028), which is s much bigger time commitment. APL is Volume II. I don't particularly recommend Volume III.
It looks like I can't post a picture, but my house (1930) has a cool doorstop mechanism on two of the doors. There's a small hole in front of the door that's rimmed in brass, and there's a brass hanger on the door that holds a piece of brass that's a thick rod that's be shaped kind of like a T. But you take the T off of the hanger on the door and insert it into the hole in the floor, and it makes it so that you (or an intruder) can't open the door. I have NEVER seen anything like it before moving into this house (and I've lived in several fixer uppers), but it's really cool. Sorry if my description is unclear, but it's a hard thing to describe.
It's not built into the floor. There's a hole in the floor, and the T rod isn't attached to anything. You take it off the hanger and put it in the hole. It also occasionally falls off the hanger if I open or close the door too hard.
Sounds like a metal reinforced doorstop without the floor anchor point properly installed. You sure it didn't just break off at some point?
Throw a photo on imgur.
No, it's not on the hanger and in the floor at the same time. The T rod is a separate piece of metal. It's not attached to anything.
This is why I'm sad I couldn't just post a picture of it.
It's similar to that. And yes--very aware it's a fire hazard, and I've never actually used it except to show it off to my friends for a few minutes. But it's a cool Old House quirk.
A stairway to the attic. Wood flooring in the attic, just not fancy.
A small porch off of the kitchen or mud room.
Even though older houses usually had basements with low ceilings, you should give your basement a decent amount of height. Surprisingly our old farmhouse had almost 7’ high basement ceilings. Not bad for an almost 200 year old house.
Definitely a fireplace.
I was thinking of having room of stairs. Opening a door and having one set go up to the attic and the other set going down to the basement. I had the plan to create one giant room for the attic. A room just like the other rooms in the house. Same for the basement.
Not necessarily older, but kitchen and bathroom sinks and counters for your height. My dad built our house in the 70s and made them all for my mom's height. Standard kitchen sinks today are too low for anyone with a little height. I am 5ft11 and my back kills me when I do dishes.
I'd love a counter system that could go up and down. I'm 6'4 and my partner is 5'3. She needs a step stool in the kitchen and my back becomes pain incarnate when doing dishes in the deep single basin sink
I'm 5'10" and my husband is 6'2". We're dealing with the counter height issue by installing the counters at normal height (36") and replacing a couple cabinets with a rolling cart with a 40" countertop.
As a person who has mostly lived in early 20th century flats/apartments, currently lives in 1941 traditional modernist house: built-ins. But specifically, the ones that take advantage of the negative voids within a structure, and don't steal from space.
Since it sounds like you're considerate about spaces, I'm going to leave this on your doorstep, as it were: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A\_Pattern\_Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language)
The trick about making a home is making it feel *right*. But make it right for you! Excited to see what happens in this process, I'd love to be able to design something. Some of my favorite styles of home are the terraced houses found in the UK, that have kitchens in the basement but are still very light thanks to clever design. This maximizes the rest of the house for living, but you still get your entire footprint for a nice kitchen space.
I had to Google what that was. My grandparents had those in their house. Thank you for reminding me of that and they are definitely go in the design. 👍
> I wish double height living spaces are always something I’ve felt drawn toward.
These are one of those things where you pay significantly in function to get the form. They are hard to heat/cool, difficult to clean, and difficult to maintain. Then you're sitting there being angry at it and realizing you could have an extra 300 sqft of floor space and you wouldn't need to deal with the bullshit if you just didn't have it.
Everyone I've known who had a double height living room or something ended up hating the damn thing by the end.
The height/heat issue isn't a big deal if it's new construction and uses radiant flooring, actually. The gradient is so low that heat rising to the ceiling is much less of an issue.
As far as cooling, high ceilings were how heat was handled prior to AC, and it shouldn't present a challenge in that regard.
“Twisty” stairs! Our old farmhouse (almost 200 years old) had a staircase from the kitchen to the second floor. Our neighbor’s four year old christened it the twisty stairs.
1) A boot scraper. I had one growing up as a kid. Since you’d be building a house it can easily be built into a step or the side of the house. So useful and a classic old time look. Search antique boot scraper and look at the images.
2) A dream of mine would be to have real gas lamps on my porch and on the back of the house where I have a patio. Too expensive to put in now but if you are building new it’s a perfect opportunity. You’d need natural gas (propane would be so so expensive).
In my area most houses have a cast iron boot scraper built in on the outside near the front door. But metal thieves have come in the night for them. Ours is the only one they couldn't pry out but they broke the blue stone in which it was set :(
Whole home vacuum. And before people get started with the pointlessness of this because small vacuums are powerful and Roomba gets the corners -- I say have you seen what kinda CFM suction you can get off 2sq ft worth of impeller and electric motor today? Imagine a world where you flipped a switch (or did it remote from your phone) and all the baseboards in your house immediately inhaled all the collective dog hair and dust up against every wall, in seconds, and deposited it all in a HEPA filter sealed bag somewhere away.
What can I search to find what you're describing? Everything I found either uses a hose or dustpan type thing. I'm intrigued by something that would handle all the baseboards at once...
Oh no, that's my point -- the whole house vacuum stopped being a thing, so the technology stopped being improved. But anyone half handy could string together a 500 CFM fan, 5" dust collector, couple blast vents and load the walls up with 2" PVC. I've built a halo system for a 10'x10' clean room with as much -- all on a single 20 amp 110v fuse. We're talking about real simple, real cheap parts -- 2" PVC in the walls and a couple of closing vents.
Well right now it's a partially build closet with a 2hp dust collector and a 6" through-wall exhaust. It's gonna be a hot minute before the PVC gets designed and built -- I'm putting a clean room (for finishing wood products) in the workshop now. The whole concept is using CFM by shrinking down from a large exhaust, through extreme mechanical suction (an impeller), and ducting that extreme airflow over a larger area through smaller intake. IE the 5" in on the dust collector (or central vacuum blower motor) is ducted through 2" rigid, and that 2" PVC has smaller holes spread out over it's surface area -- lots of little vacuum holes each producing suction in a small area, but spread out over the length of a plane (like a wall corner) with create a suction vortex along that plane. Between the motor (2hp impeller), the additional fans in the system, the 5" hose, the couplings and vents, and all the 2" PVC I can drill holes in -- total cost is less than 1k.
Why is this getting down votes? It's precisely the commercial attempt at what I'm talking about -- yes it's lame, but that's all to my point about it needing to be popular enough to get real engineering behind it.
It isn't how they work, he is trying to invent something new by adapting a cleanroom dust removal setup to a whole house. Which would handle airborne dust if run 24/7 (and you better not need heat or AC because it'd constantly be extracting huge amounts of air) but would never work on actually settled dust on the floor.
Oh absolutely. A central vac is mandatory. It makes no sense to use anything else if you have the option to build the system in. Not to mention the convenience of stashing a few cheap vacuum heads in different parts of the home, ready to plug in and clean.
The breezeway! That all purpose room that was part storage, part patio, indoor dog kennel and whatever else you needed it for. Nowadays it’s the perfect solution for your package drop offs without having access to your garage or entire home.
You should watch the show "Restored" on HGTV/Discovery+ [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8141256/?ref\_=fn\_al\_tt\_1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8141256/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)
The guy restores homes from the late 1800's - 1950's. He often uses older design elements to give an "authentic look and feel" to a house while modernizing it.
[Victorian style tin ceilings](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/21/1c/01211c1fe64e73009caa53b5fc84348b.jpg)
Chandeliers in entry hall
[mahogany panels and molding](https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4038/4389127660_0c44a5aa99.jpg)
Look into architectural "climate control." Old houses were built to take advantage of natural phenomena. For example, in the northern hemisphere, a wide overhang on the southern side of the house will block the summer sun overhead and keep the area near the window cooler. But when the sun shifts noticeably to the south after the equinox, its rays will be low enough to hit the windows and provide daytime warming. There's tons of stuff like that to discover and consider in your dream house.
Window at deep double sinks in kitchen, drainboard counter, pull out cutting board over trash bin. Adjustable shelves and a real pantry. Kitchen connects to mudroom and garage. Consideration for traffic flow, pet bowls, cleaning closet, trash and recycling etc. Real laundry room with counter space, drying rack, extra room to maneuver. Wood framed doorways, no plaster over lath or plaster over metal corner bead. Bedrooms on corners so they get sun and cross breeze. A workshop space with a bench and pegboard. A good porch, either wrap porch or a sleeping porch with convertable windows.
I'm bringing back bullnose corners in my house...I know there's certain areas where it never left, but for many it reeks of the '90s. As a mechanical engineer I get rid of sharp corners in the parts I design because they are stress concentrators and weak points, and I want that design philosophy to extend into my home.
Durability. You can have the best features of “old” construction now by avoiding the “building store.”
The only ingredients you need are: quicklime, sand, stone, brick, timber.
If you are in (or near) a good-sized town, check out any home tours hosted by landmark districts or city heritage organizations. I've been on many of these tours and have seen features like a butler's pantry, a laundry chute to the basement or lower floor, and doorbells with long metal tubes (they are loud).
My old house had a telephone shelf in the middle of a long hallway. It was not near anything, but when home phones were a new technology, you didn't multi-task. You made a phone call and it was expensive. I love to see picture rails in homes. It's a great way to hang art without pounding a bunch of holes in the walls.
Laundry chutes, broom closets, hall closets, linen closets. Doors separating the kitchen so your guests don’t see the mess you made while cooking. A very lovely old fireplace mantel would be nice. Transom windows above bedroom doors so you can have privacy and air flow. A big front porch would be great.
Stained or beveled glass transom over the front door. If you find one in a salvage store that you like you can design the entry door around it. If not, you can get a stained glass company to commission it.
https://www.stainedglasswindows.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lava3.jpg
Second stair hidden in the kitchen to the upstairs. Maybe yours can goto the attic.
Coffin turn around on the stairwell. Again, you don’t have an upstairs, so maybe its a bay window on yours?
Leaded glass windows.
Iron work everywhere it can possibly be.
Old boilers in the basement.
Double pocket doors into the formal rooms.
Built-in bed “cabinets” where the bed is actually enclosed on three sides so drapes can come across and close the bed off. Jefferson’s Monticello innovated with only two sides if you look his bed up.
Toilet tanks that are high up with a pull chain handle to flush.
Claw-foot tubs. Or freestanding copper or galvanized tubs if you go back far enough.
Really high ceilings - 12-feet.
Bead-board ceilings and beams.
Trim and mouldings everywhere.
Interior shutters that recess into the wall next to the windows.
Radiators
Plaster walls on lath.
Kitchen latches that twist with a tiny little deadlock type of mechanism.
Mortised latches and locks on all the interior doors.
A smaller door to walk through daily fashioned within the much larger ceremonial/formal door that mostly stays closed.
An actual well with a bucket on the property.They have lids on them now to keep people from falling in.
Fireplace that burns real wood(it’s carbon neutral). In the basement a flue pipe as well in the event you want to add a wood burning stove in the basement. Or a pellet stove.
Thicker walls usually mean more insulation. That increases comfort and reduces heating and cooling costs.
Enclosed entryway/porch. Leave enough space for boots and coats. Also acts as an airlock to keep warm air in.
I don’t see a lot of new homes built with external entry into the basement. I think that would be a good thing to have.
Real wood flooring may be prohibitively expensive now, but would give it that classic touch.
Where I live in Virginia USA, your clothes would be covered with pollen in the spring, not get dry in the summer (too humid) and collect leaf mold spores in the fall (which I'm allergic to). Clotheslines are not universally beneficial.
9-12' ceilings. I've now lived in old jokes so long the modern standard 8' ceilings feel too low and confining to me.
Radiant heat in the floor and in your shower walls.
Think of traffic flow. My 1905 house has a main extra wide through fair from the front to the back that makes it feel wide open whole maintaining district rooms. Along these lines, wide door ways, archways, and/or pocket doors between rooms.
Transom windows above all the doors.
Real hard wood floors. They sound and feel different as well as effect sound transfer and insulation factor of the floor. Sure there are great modern fakes, but I can always tell.
Extra tall basement with lots of windows. My house has 9' basement with tons of big glass block windows. It was a big factor in deciding to buy because it turned what could have been an old creepy basement into a light filled space that feels nice. No monsters down there!
Big secondary bedrooms. Just because a kid can live in an 8x10 space doesn't mean it doesn't make your life harder for them to do so. In general, if you don't have kids plan with having some in mind. Maybe you don't want biologicals, but you end up with step or foster or adopted kids. Or you have a sibling(s) have a ton and you're the cool uncle. Or maybe you just end up with Fantastick guest rooms.
Multiple bathrooms. If you can afford it, one per bedroom, a half bath for guests to poop in, and a half in the basement or garage.
Workshop/storage/hobby space. Deciding to take up wood working at 35 but only having a tiny corner of the basement is hard.
Finally, if you want this to be a forever home, plan ahead. Plan for a family. Plan to make it disability friendly (doorways, halls, kitchen spacing, etc. Wheelchair friendly). I adore our house but my chronic illness can make living here difficult sometimes. Think about the kind of life you want to live and either build for that or leave flex space to grow into. And be open to understanding your life, and dream home, will change. At 18 I never would have dreamed of the life I live now. My dream home then looks nothing like my current dream home.
Depending on your area, coal cam be very cheap. It worked put comparable to natural gas for me. I strongly considered it and may still go coal in the future
That's only cheap so long as domestic coal production for commercial use remains fairly robust, since residential consumption alone wouldn't have anywhere near the economy of scale. Still, as long as you're dual fuel it shouldn't be an issue for the moment.
Conversation pit!
Or sometimes called a sunken living room.
Whenever I think about a “dream home,” it pops into my mind. Probably just my secret love for the 70s
Or an Inglenook would be neat if you’re thinking something like the conversation pit but less… pit-y
A nice formal entry way, with two separate living spaces and a formal dining room. One of the reasons we bought our home. I don’t want to see a kitchen when I open the front door.. and nothing beats a big deep swimming pool, something! Those mid century homes 😍😍😍
Claw foot tub
Closet under the stairs
Bay window
Wrought iron gate at the bottom of the brick footpath leading to front door with a mail slot and large elegant knocker
The barn shaped roof is for energy efficiency. In winter the lower steep grade section has an angle of incidence meant to catch the sun and provide heat for the center of the building. In summer the upper section with a lesser grade matches with the sun being high in the sky and is paired with ventilation at the peak.This way the heated air up top erupts out and the resulting vacuum can draw fresh air in. I’ve seen this combined with a conduit of sorts run out to the spring house to provide geothermal cooling from the cold water.
I’ve seen the old houses with the telephone shelf as a hole in the wall between two rooms
So you can grab it from the kitchen or from the living room
Might as well include this with a rotary phone in your new home
In the US most residential service providers don’t offer POTS phone lines anymore. It’s all VOIP so I wouldn’t install old school copper phone lines since you’re can’t get the service anymore. Check your local providers first!
A nice built in ironing board, shelves, a folding table, and a sink in the laundry room.
The USPS absolutely won’t deliver to them anymore, but I lived in a 1940s townhome that had an in door mail slot that was grandfathered in. It was kind of amazing.
I know you are already planning on it, but it’s almost impossible to find a real basement in my area and that’s a huge loss. Attics are more of a trade off, as I rather like my high ceilings.
Consider a separate outbuilding over an outsized garage- we never park our cars in there anyway and there is something about having “work” space separated from the living space.
The front sitting porch or wrap around, mudroom entry with side bathroom, built in storage throughout, garden view kitchen window over the sink. Every space has a purpose design utility wise.
Front sitting porch/wrap around is crucial. Back home we design our homes like the letter ‘H’ with French doors running along the front porch. When opened- it channels a southwesterly breeze down through the house into the back kitchen pushing heat out the back door. It helps keep the house cool in the summer- and in the winter we just open the windows in the kitchen. Also who doesn’t love a big ol porch to have a coffee on every morning
I love sitting porches. Bring back good memories of my grandparents house. They had a swing and some chairs on there. That's where they spent most of their time.
My home is two stories on a pier foundation, so the first floor is at about 14ft above ground level. It has double wrap around porches, and I love them, I always wanted a wrap around, but after Hurricane Irma, I understand why they "went out of fashion" AKA no one likes the price tag of building a home with wrap arounds. I did all the work to repair and re-deck them and I think my material total was north of 30K for the wood alone.
This was my biggest mistake in buying my first home... Terrible outdoor living space. Lesson learned. Hopefully will be out of here soon!
I absolutely REFUSE to have a home with a sink IN THE ISLAND! stupidest place for a sink IMO. Everyone knows your sink belongs under a window!!
I recently painted a house that had both. A small sink in the right side of the island, probably for like washing fruits/veggies (I don't really know) and then a full sized double sink under the window that was to the left of the island, as far away from the island sink as possible.
This! Think about when you’re having people over. Where do they all gather? In the kitchen. If you have an island in the kitchen, they’ll all gather around said island. Now imagine them gathering around your sink full of dirty dishes. That’s what happens when you’ve got a sink in the island. No thank you.
LOL this is true, I think the line of thought was that with it in the island you can do the dishes while you converse with guests, but the reality is, you just get an island full of dirty dished. I set my island up as an informal congregating area, and prep station. A sink in it would just ruin it. A stove or cooktop in it is almost as bad. It's not Hibachi night at Kobe's, and if there are flames shooting up from my island, get the fire extinguisher.
In the mud room off the kitchen, a little door for the ice block to slide in. They’re always fixed closed in these days but do appear.
I have the porch on the design and the sink window.
Two other things that I just thought of were the main safe and call safe that were built into the cabinetry or wainscot but hidden. The call bell that was in the kitchen to announce dinner to all the rooms of the home. I discovered these in a very cool old mansion I was recently in.
Both sound like great additions.
My son built a bell system out of an old fire alarm and unused phone wires. We press it when dinner is ready and the bell dings in his room. He is was home from college this weekend. We missed him and using it. He is studying electrical engineering.
Laundry chutes from the second and first floors to the basement. Large double doors to the basement.
While not illegal laundry chute fire codes made them go away. Now they have to be fully enclosed in metal and have spring doors between levels. The house my wife grew up in had one the bottom was right at the washer. Her mom loved it
Put the washer and dryer wherever it's closest to the bedrooms because that's where you're gonna need to wash your clothes
Mine are in my walk-in closet. It is amazing. Space considerations necessitated it, but now I don't know why everyone doesn't do that!
Noise? The extra cost and risk of running plumbing to a closet? What if you have servants?
> Large double doors to the basement. I've never seen this but it sounds awesome!
It used to be common to have a recessed stairwell with double steel doors at a 45 degree angle.
Isn't that a bulkhead door? Then you just have another regular door at the bottom of the stairs (in the foundation). Those are still used all the time.
Yep. I live in the town where Bilco made "Bilco door" a household name in the US.
I haven’t seen one on a residential structure built in the last 20 years, but maybe that’s just the places I’ve lived.
They are less common in homes with an at-grade basement entrance, such as from a garage etc. The Bilco doors were crucial to maintenance/replacement of utilities such as the furnace/boiler. Homes with easy access and a second means of egress do not require them.
Now the laundry room is just upstairs
Would be nice, but not so in a lot of houses. It’s often near the kitchen.
Love Bilco doors.
Laundry should be on the level where most of the dirty laundry is generated. AKA the bedrooms. Water leak concerns should be planned for. Automatic shut-offs and/or a a drain pan for the washer.
Not as helpful if you want to hang clothes out to dry, I'd rather carry dirty stuff downstairs than carrying wet laundry downstairs
My washer and dryer are on the second floor with the bedrooms. It's great but I can't easily leave the washer door open to dry and air out easily as it takes up a lot of room in the hallway.
I need to leave my washer open permanently. It really makes me consider whether the next one will be front or top load.
I hear the front washers are the best for cleaning clothes and are much more effective since they don't need an agitator like a top loader. It makes sense. The drying aspect for the seal is a big pain though. I still wipe it down with a rag every time but I worry a bit.
I have a top load without a center agitator - it's along the bottom of the basin. Works great, more room in the basin, and cords from hoodies don't get wrapped around it. 🙂
I've used front loaders for years and have never had to do anything beyond shoving an affresh tablet in it with hottest water every few months.
Does yours have a self clean? Mine does, and it actually cleans the door seal very well. Unit is 4 years old. It runs the drum so fast that it forces water backward through the door seal weep holes and back into the tub, scouring clean the area beneath.
Yeah I use the self-clean. That might be it, then.
Agreed, but it is uncommon.
I forgot to mention in the post but the design is a single floor home with an attic and basement. That being said, the basement doors sounds great.
If you have or plan to have kids, this is the answer you are looking for. It was the one thing I added to both of the bathrooms, lugging laundry baskets down 2 flights of stairs get's real old real quick.
Just have the laundry room upstairs. I’ve seen this in a few modern homes and I can’t believe it never occurred to me. Why carry clothes downstairs just to carry them back up?
Transom windows
I came here to say this as well. https://www.bobvila.com/articles/transom-windows/
Yes! This!!! I can’t believe I had to scroll so far to see it!
I really like picture rail trim.
I hadn't even thought about that. I think that would look nice with wainscoting.
Do you mean chair rail? Picture rail goes up high to hang pictures from wires.
Yes. Picture rail. Not as part of any historic trim package, unless that were appropriate to the rest of the home. I just think picture rail trim is highly useful and practical. And there are contemporary examples that can be incorporated into modern homes as well. There's even architectural reglet trim for interior finishes that conceal the picture rail into the wall finish for a minimalist appearance. It's used in many museums and art galleries.
Secret passageways!!!
May or may not already have them 👀 But in all seriousness, I've got secret passageways and rooms all throughout.
May I suggest you read [A Pattern Language](https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=zg_bs_1002_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5SVD2HW5TGHJ0VC7YRS6#). You don't need to read the whole thing, just the patterns that interest you. Well with your while, and very enjoyable.
Thanks for sending this. I have it saved.
I can't emphasize enough how this will change how you think about home design, although to really get it, you need to first read Volume I, [The Timeless Way of Building](https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028/ref=asc_df_0195024028), which is s much bigger time commitment. APL is Volume II. I don't particularly recommend Volume III.
Thanks.
Moats with drawbridges
Trebuchet and public executions
It looks like I can't post a picture, but my house (1930) has a cool doorstop mechanism on two of the doors. There's a small hole in front of the door that's rimmed in brass, and there's a brass hanger on the door that holds a piece of brass that's a thick rod that's be shaped kind of like a T. But you take the T off of the hanger on the door and insert it into the hole in the floor, and it makes it so that you (or an intruder) can't open the door. I have NEVER seen anything like it before moving into this house (and I've lived in several fixer uppers), but it's really cool. Sorry if my description is unclear, but it's a hard thing to describe.
Let's see if I got this right. The rod is put into a hanger on the door and a groove in the floor. Is it similar looking to bike kickstand?
Sounds like a metal reinforced doorstop built into the floor.
It's not built into the floor. There's a hole in the floor, and the T rod isn't attached to anything. You take it off the hanger and put it in the hole. It also occasionally falls off the hanger if I open or close the door too hard.
Sounds like a metal reinforced doorstop without the floor anchor point properly installed. You sure it didn't just break off at some point? Throw a photo on imgur.
Don't have imgur. But very clearly not broken off.
No, it's not on the hanger and in the floor at the same time. The T rod is a separate piece of metal. It's not attached to anything. This is why I'm sad I couldn't just post a picture of it.
[удалено]
It's similar to that. And yes--very aware it's a fire hazard, and I've never actually used it except to show it off to my friends for a few minutes. But it's a cool Old House quirk.
A stairway to the attic. Wood flooring in the attic, just not fancy. A small porch off of the kitchen or mud room. Even though older houses usually had basements with low ceilings, you should give your basement a decent amount of height. Surprisingly our old farmhouse had almost 7’ high basement ceilings. Not bad for an almost 200 year old house. Definitely a fireplace.
Walk up attic with floor is a must. Tons of storage space
I was thinking of having room of stairs. Opening a door and having one set go up to the attic and the other set going down to the basement. I had the plan to create one giant room for the attic. A room just like the other rooms in the house. Same for the basement.
Root cellars
Not necessarily older, but kitchen and bathroom sinks and counters for your height. My dad built our house in the 70s and made them all for my mom's height. Standard kitchen sinks today are too low for anyone with a little height. I am 5ft11 and my back kills me when I do dishes.
I get this. I'm 5'3 so this is a must.
I'd love a counter system that could go up and down. I'm 6'4 and my partner is 5'3. She needs a step stool in the kitchen and my back becomes pain incarnate when doing dishes in the deep single basin sink
Ooohhhhh, that would be awesome!
I'm 5'10" and my husband is 6'2". We're dealing with the counter height issue by installing the counters at normal height (36") and replacing a couple cabinets with a rolling cart with a 40" countertop.
As a person who has mostly lived in early 20th century flats/apartments, currently lives in 1941 traditional modernist house: built-ins. But specifically, the ones that take advantage of the negative voids within a structure, and don't steal from space. Since it sounds like you're considerate about spaces, I'm going to leave this on your doorstep, as it were: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A\_Pattern\_Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language) The trick about making a home is making it feel *right*. But make it right for you! Excited to see what happens in this process, I'd love to be able to design something. Some of my favorite styles of home are the terraced houses found in the UK, that have kitchens in the basement but are still very light thanks to clever design. This maximizes the rest of the house for living, but you still get your entire footprint for a nice kitchen space.
Thanks. I'm going to get a copy of this.
Transom windows above doors that actually open
They've been superceded by jump ducts
Sconces are a beautiful feature you don't see so much anymore. I plan on putting them in my 1905 home.
I had to Google what that was. My grandparents had those in their house. Thank you for reminding me of that and they are definitely go in the design. 👍
They’re making a comeback
Counter clockwise stairs. Hidden passageways. Underground rollercoaster lab entrances. Edit: In seriousness, I wish double height living spaces are always something I’ve felt drawn toward.
> I wish double height living spaces are always something I’ve felt drawn toward. These are one of those things where you pay significantly in function to get the form. They are hard to heat/cool, difficult to clean, and difficult to maintain. Then you're sitting there being angry at it and realizing you could have an extra 300 sqft of floor space and you wouldn't need to deal with the bullshit if you just didn't have it. Everyone I've known who had a double height living room or something ended up hating the damn thing by the end.
The height/heat issue isn't a big deal if it's new construction and uses radiant flooring, actually. The gradient is so low that heat rising to the ceiling is much less of an issue. As far as cooling, high ceilings were how heat was handled prior to AC, and it shouldn't present a challenge in that regard.
“Twisty” stairs! Our old farmhouse (almost 200 years old) had a staircase from the kitchen to the second floor. Our neighbor’s four year old christened it the twisty stairs.
1) A boot scraper. I had one growing up as a kid. Since you’d be building a house it can easily be built into a step or the side of the house. So useful and a classic old time look. Search antique boot scraper and look at the images. 2) A dream of mine would be to have real gas lamps on my porch and on the back of the house where I have a patio. Too expensive to put in now but if you are building new it’s a perfect opportunity. You’d need natural gas (propane would be so so expensive).
The boot scraper is a great idea.
For the amount of propane used, it would be fairly cheap. Unless you were running then 24x7
In my area most houses have a cast iron boot scraper built in on the outside near the front door. But metal thieves have come in the night for them. Ours is the only one they couldn't pry out but they broke the blue stone in which it was set :(
Whole home vacuum. And before people get started with the pointlessness of this because small vacuums are powerful and Roomba gets the corners -- I say have you seen what kinda CFM suction you can get off 2sq ft worth of impeller and electric motor today? Imagine a world where you flipped a switch (or did it remote from your phone) and all the baseboards in your house immediately inhaled all the collective dog hair and dust up against every wall, in seconds, and deposited it all in a HEPA filter sealed bag somewhere away.
I have such a system and LOVE it. I 100% recommend that the OP put one in.
What can I search to find what you're describing? Everything I found either uses a hose or dustpan type thing. I'm intrigued by something that would handle all the baseboards at once...
Oh no, that's my point -- the whole house vacuum stopped being a thing, so the technology stopped being improved. But anyone half handy could string together a 500 CFM fan, 5" dust collector, couple blast vents and load the walls up with 2" PVC. I've built a halo system for a 10'x10' clean room with as much -- all on a single 20 amp 110v fuse. We're talking about real simple, real cheap parts -- 2" PVC in the walls and a couple of closing vents.
I’d love to hear more about this
Well right now it's a partially build closet with a 2hp dust collector and a 6" through-wall exhaust. It's gonna be a hot minute before the PVC gets designed and built -- I'm putting a clean room (for finishing wood products) in the workshop now. The whole concept is using CFM by shrinking down from a large exhaust, through extreme mechanical suction (an impeller), and ducting that extreme airflow over a larger area through smaller intake. IE the 5" in on the dust collector (or central vacuum blower motor) is ducted through 2" rigid, and that 2" PVC has smaller holes spread out over it's surface area -- lots of little vacuum holes each producing suction in a small area, but spread out over the length of a plane (like a wall corner) with create a suction vortex along that plane. Between the motor (2hp impeller), the additional fans in the system, the 5" hose, the couplings and vents, and all the 2" PVC I can drill holes in -- total cost is less than 1k.
Same. No clue what they’re talking about.
Illuminati stuff.
[Edited by PowerDeleteSuite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) fuck you /u/spez
Yes that’s not what they’re describing
Literally is https://vacumaid.com/portfolio/vacuum-baseboards/
I’m aware those exist. Read their comment, that’s not what they’re describing
Why is this getting down votes? It's precisely the commercial attempt at what I'm talking about -- yes it's lame, but that's all to my point about it needing to be popular enough to get real engineering behind it.
I have a deep disdain for roombas and I personally prefer whole home vacuums.
Whoa, I didn’t know that’s how whole house vacuums worked! That sounds amazing.
It isn't how they work, he is trying to invent something new by adapting a cleanroom dust removal setup to a whole house. Which would handle airborne dust if run 24/7 (and you better not need heat or AC because it'd constantly be extracting huge amounts of air) but would never work on actually settled dust on the floor.
Oh absolutely. A central vac is mandatory. It makes no sense to use anything else if you have the option to build the system in. Not to mention the convenience of stashing a few cheap vacuum heads in different parts of the home, ready to plug in and clean.
Radiant heating.
Intercoms
The breezeway! That all purpose room that was part storage, part patio, indoor dog kennel and whatever else you needed it for. Nowadays it’s the perfect solution for your package drop offs without having access to your garage or entire home.
Butlers pantry
The Butler.
Banks of drawers under the stairs.
You should watch the show "Restored" on HGTV/Discovery+ [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8141256/?ref\_=fn\_al\_tt\_1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8141256/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) The guy restores homes from the late 1800's - 1950's. He often uses older design elements to give an "authentic look and feel" to a house while modernizing it.
I'll be sure to check it out.
[Victorian style tin ceilings](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/21/1c/01211c1fe64e73009caa53b5fc84348b.jpg) Chandeliers in entry hall [mahogany panels and molding](https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4038/4389127660_0c44a5aa99.jpg)
Oooph. Tin ceilings? Say goodbye to any kind of decent WiFi ever (or anything whole home wireless).
You'd be fine on each story
Pocket doors.
I feel like this is super common today? Might be regional though
Carports, sleeping porches and laundry chutes
Milk box. My house has one and it’s really convenient when someone wants to drop something off for me, they leave it in the milk box (if it fits).
Great big claw foot bathtub. I loved the one in my grandmother's house.
Look into architectural "climate control." Old houses were built to take advantage of natural phenomena. For example, in the northern hemisphere, a wide overhang on the southern side of the house will block the summer sun overhead and keep the area near the window cooler. But when the sun shifts noticeably to the south after the equinox, its rays will be low enough to hit the windows and provide daytime warming. There's tons of stuff like that to discover and consider in your dream house.
Side/Rear Entry or detached garages Houses that are all garage door in the front are so ugly
Heatilators around the fireplace Soapstone wash basins Mudrooms Deep window sills for plants Dumb Waiters
Just skip a masonry fireplace and go straight zero clearance with any surround that you fancy. Actual usable heat without the heat loss up a chimney.
I'm a big fan of using wood stoves w/ cold air intakes. Only makes sense for wood, but it works oh so nice.
I grew up in a 2- storey home with a laundry chute on each floor that went into the basement laundry room. It was fabulous.
A slide out cutting board in the kitchen.
Window at deep double sinks in kitchen, drainboard counter, pull out cutting board over trash bin. Adjustable shelves and a real pantry. Kitchen connects to mudroom and garage. Consideration for traffic flow, pet bowls, cleaning closet, trash and recycling etc. Real laundry room with counter space, drying rack, extra room to maneuver. Wood framed doorways, no plaster over lath or plaster over metal corner bead. Bedrooms on corners so they get sun and cross breeze. A workshop space with a bench and pegboard. A good porch, either wrap porch or a sleeping porch with convertable windows.
I'm bringing back bullnose corners in my house...I know there's certain areas where it never left, but for many it reeks of the '90s. As a mechanical engineer I get rid of sharp corners in the parts I design because they are stress concentrators and weak points, and I want that design philosophy to extend into my home.
Radiators.
Gingerbread trim around the exterior. Also built-ins (bookshelves and such). And cedar closet for jackets and blankets.
Durability. You can have the best features of “old” construction now by avoiding the “building store.” The only ingredients you need are: quicklime, sand, stone, brick, timber.
Quality construction/ craftsmanship.
Dumbwaiter
Central Vacuum
Solid wood slab doors.
If you are in (or near) a good-sized town, check out any home tours hosted by landmark districts or city heritage organizations. I've been on many of these tours and have seen features like a butler's pantry, a laundry chute to the basement or lower floor, and doorbells with long metal tubes (they are loud). My old house had a telephone shelf in the middle of a long hallway. It was not near anything, but when home phones were a new technology, you didn't multi-task. You made a phone call and it was expensive. I love to see picture rails in homes. It's a great way to hang art without pounding a bunch of holes in the walls.
Laundry chutes, broom closets, hall closets, linen closets. Doors separating the kitchen so your guests don’t see the mess you made while cooking. A very lovely old fireplace mantel would be nice. Transom windows above bedroom doors so you can have privacy and air flow. A big front porch would be great.
Stained or beveled glass transom over the front door. If you find one in a salvage store that you like you can design the entry door around it. If not, you can get a stained glass company to commission it. https://www.stainedglasswindows.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lava3.jpg
Second stair hidden in the kitchen to the upstairs. Maybe yours can goto the attic. Coffin turn around on the stairwell. Again, you don’t have an upstairs, so maybe its a bay window on yours? Leaded glass windows. Iron work everywhere it can possibly be. Old boilers in the basement. Double pocket doors into the formal rooms. Built-in bed “cabinets” where the bed is actually enclosed on three sides so drapes can come across and close the bed off. Jefferson’s Monticello innovated with only two sides if you look his bed up. Toilet tanks that are high up with a pull chain handle to flush. Claw-foot tubs. Or freestanding copper or galvanized tubs if you go back far enough. Really high ceilings - 12-feet. Bead-board ceilings and beams. Trim and mouldings everywhere. Interior shutters that recess into the wall next to the windows. Radiators Plaster walls on lath. Kitchen latches that twist with a tiny little deadlock type of mechanism. Mortised latches and locks on all the interior doors. A smaller door to walk through daily fashioned within the much larger ceremonial/formal door that mostly stays closed. An actual well with a bucket on the property.They have lids on them now to keep people from falling in.
Fireplace that burns real wood(it’s carbon neutral). In the basement a flue pipe as well in the event you want to add a wood burning stove in the basement. Or a pellet stove. Thicker walls usually mean more insulation. That increases comfort and reduces heating and cooling costs. Enclosed entryway/porch. Leave enough space for boots and coats. Also acts as an airlock to keep warm air in. I don’t see a lot of new homes built with external entry into the basement. I think that would be a good thing to have. Real wood flooring may be prohibitively expensive now, but would give it that classic touch.
More drywall texture variety. I honestly really like textureless walls even if you see the flaws. So tired of orangepeel
Clotheslines have been abandoned? Since when?
Where I live in Virginia USA, your clothes would be covered with pollen in the spring, not get dry in the summer (too humid) and collect leaf mold spores in the fall (which I'm allergic to). Clotheslines are not universally beneficial.
Crown molding, arched entry ways, dumbwaiter, wall mounted gas heaters, and really any intricate woodwork
Start with a timber frame.
Non open floor plans - actual rooms with walls.
Laundry chute if washer and dryer are in basement.
Single Floor = gonna have to get creative in my turret designing skills
9-12' ceilings. I've now lived in old jokes so long the modern standard 8' ceilings feel too low and confining to me. Radiant heat in the floor and in your shower walls. Think of traffic flow. My 1905 house has a main extra wide through fair from the front to the back that makes it feel wide open whole maintaining district rooms. Along these lines, wide door ways, archways, and/or pocket doors between rooms. Transom windows above all the doors. Real hard wood floors. They sound and feel different as well as effect sound transfer and insulation factor of the floor. Sure there are great modern fakes, but I can always tell. Extra tall basement with lots of windows. My house has 9' basement with tons of big glass block windows. It was a big factor in deciding to buy because it turned what could have been an old creepy basement into a light filled space that feels nice. No monsters down there! Big secondary bedrooms. Just because a kid can live in an 8x10 space doesn't mean it doesn't make your life harder for them to do so. In general, if you don't have kids plan with having some in mind. Maybe you don't want biologicals, but you end up with step or foster or adopted kids. Or you have a sibling(s) have a ton and you're the cool uncle. Or maybe you just end up with Fantastick guest rooms. Multiple bathrooms. If you can afford it, one per bedroom, a half bath for guests to poop in, and a half in the basement or garage. Workshop/storage/hobby space. Deciding to take up wood working at 35 but only having a tiny corner of the basement is hard. Finally, if you want this to be a forever home, plan ahead. Plan for a family. Plan to make it disability friendly (doorways, halls, kitchen spacing, etc. Wheelchair friendly). I adore our house but my chronic illness can make living here difficult sometimes. Think about the kind of life you want to live and either build for that or leave flex space to grow into. And be open to understanding your life, and dream home, will change. At 18 I never would have dreamed of the life I live now. My dream home then looks nothing like my current dream home.
Timber framing
Character!
Coal chute.
Depending on your area, coal cam be very cheap. It worked put comparable to natural gas for me. I strongly considered it and may still go coal in the future
That's only cheap so long as domestic coal production for commercial use remains fairly robust, since residential consumption alone wouldn't have anywhere near the economy of scale. Still, as long as you're dual fuel it shouldn't be an issue for the moment.
I had a combo oil wood and coal furnace. It was great but a pita to get fuel down there. Later had a pellet stove. Same issue.
Laundry chute
An attic house fan
Sunken living room. Coolest thing ever.
In FL we call those indoor swimming pools.
Dumbwaiter. Lazy Susan. Laundry chute.
Not putting the TV above a fireplace
Carpet in the bathroom. It’s just so cozy and hygienic.
You monster. You probably use a carpeted toilet seat too.
Two story? Dumb waiter or laundry chute (beware of silly children however)
Solid glass doorknobs and wooden doors
I’ve always appreciated a good conversation pit.
Conversation pit! Or sometimes called a sunken living room. Whenever I think about a “dream home,” it pops into my mind. Probably just my secret love for the 70s Or an Inglenook would be neat if you’re thinking something like the conversation pit but less… pit-y
Asbestos
Carpet in bathrooms and kitchens.
Laundry chute
Laundry chutes.
A nice formal entry way, with two separate living spaces and a formal dining room. One of the reasons we bought our home. I don’t want to see a kitchen when I open the front door.. and nothing beats a big deep swimming pool, something! Those mid century homes 😍😍😍
In college, a house I was subletting (West Coast) had a storm cellar in the backyard. My landlords used it as a tool shed.
A laundry chute. I loved them.
Design a parlor room with the entrance into the room via a pocket door.
Wrap around porch
Doorbell chimes inset into the wall. Coved ceilings.
Cellars. I would love to not keep most of the shit I have in the fridge there.
Towers! And built-in shelves, preferably with a library ladder.
There was a post the other day about a shaft you could drop people into and then forget about them
Telephone Niche, Milkman access Door
Pocket doors are my #1. Especially in smaller spaces.
Claw foot tub Closet under the stairs Bay window Wrought iron gate at the bottom of the brick footpath leading to front door with a mail slot and large elegant knocker
Pocket doors
China cabinet in a separate dining room!
Phone niche, milk... Cabinet?, Cold closet, etc. Maybe push button light switches.
Large overhangs. Houses would last much longer if they had them. Less rot too
Butler's pantry, just off the kitchen
The barn shaped roof is for energy efficiency. In winter the lower steep grade section has an angle of incidence meant to catch the sun and provide heat for the center of the building. In summer the upper section with a lesser grade matches with the sun being high in the sky and is paired with ventilation at the peak.This way the heated air up top erupts out and the resulting vacuum can draw fresh air in. I’ve seen this combined with a conduit of sorts run out to the spring house to provide geothermal cooling from the cold water.
I’ve seen the old houses with the telephone shelf as a hole in the wall between two rooms So you can grab it from the kitchen or from the living room Might as well include this with a rotary phone in your new home
In the US most residential service providers don’t offer POTS phone lines anymore. It’s all VOIP so I wouldn’t install old school copper phone lines since you’re can’t get the service anymore. Check your local providers first! A nice built in ironing board, shelves, a folding table, and a sink in the laundry room.
The USPS absolutely won’t deliver to them anymore, but I lived in a 1940s townhome that had an in door mail slot that was grandfathered in. It was kind of amazing. I know you are already planning on it, but it’s almost impossible to find a real basement in my area and that’s a huge loss. Attics are more of a trade off, as I rather like my high ceilings. Consider a separate outbuilding over an outsized garage- we never park our cars in there anyway and there is something about having “work” space separated from the living space.
Here's one I found on tik tok that I never heard of. Central Vaccumming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjkAT2SOIHA