Well, I survived the first house hunting trip. We looked at a lot of places … 6 resale, 4 new, 2 driveby. No clear winners, but some clear trends.
What happened to all the doors?
For some reason, the prevalent style is to not have doors within the master suite. OK, so this sidesteps the entire post I could write on the existance of a master suite, but I’m just letting that go for now. But now they’re taking away the doors, and I don’t like it. The realtor says that it’s a trend that evolved after the toilet was placed in its own little room – that since that one thing was made private, the rest of it could be all opened up. For what reason, I do not know. There are a lot of things done in the bathroom that I don’t want to have witnessed or to see that have nothing to do with the water closet. And carpet. Carpet in the bathroom. Another incomprehensibility. But since “we” buy for resale, and this is the popular thing, I am willing to wager that I will end up in a carpeted bathroom without doors.
Officially upsold on the garage
Yup … it’s 3 car and up; another wager for you. There’s a house on the list – high on the list – with space for at least 5 cars, maybe more … we’ve termed it the ‘airplane hanger house.’ When we rank the houses, each one with a mere 2-car garage gets compared unfavoribly to this one .. if we can get one with 5 stalls, why consider one with only 2? Though of course, we only need 3 … Sigh
Different opinions on the basement
I am of the finished basement camp. It’s a whole other floor, and I think it’s a plus to have had someone else put in the walls and lights and bathroom and all that. Kevin is of the unfinished basement camp, that it is a storage space not a living space. I don’t think it will be a deciding factor, though.
Hmmm My question is, if you have a 5 car garage, why do you need the basement for storage? OK… I am thinking… a space for each vehicle and a space for the vehicle you may buy because of the area you will be living in… 2 spaces for storing the bikes and recycling bins and building a work bench for the wood and a workbench for the mechanics…. I think if he would build a woodworking bench and buy basic tools including a mini table saw, i would use the basement for storage, but how much storage do you need???? I would think Kevin would like to have a basement like your great room where you could store your excess stuff and guests, especially child-size guests as well as spread-out time consuming projects which probably look like disorder and mess to Kevin? I would think Kevin would like a finished basement unless the upper house is huge…….
Oh well… It sounds like you are going to end up with a big nice place. You may need the space occasionally when company comes. Colorado is a popular destination…. 🙂
I love finished basements. I would convert it into my computer area, plus lots of shelves to make something as close to a library as possible.
I’d so that in the garage instead, but I’d fear the elements doing bad things to computer stuff. So it would end up a great area of storage that I’d be afraid to mess with.
Ok – picture a basement the entire size of your house. The usual thing to have down there is a family/rec room (one house had a pool table, another had a couple of full size tables and TV, another had the outlines of their wet bar), a full bathroom (sink, tub, shower, wc, linen closet, etc.), a full size bedroom (from just bed size to really generous, depending on the house), small room containing all the heaters, water, pipes, etc. for service, and usually a separate area, unfinished mostly, the size of a medium bedroom, where you do general storage.
Chris, the sum total of all computers owned by this entire family over the entire time that we’ve had computers could be set up with individul work spaces for each one, and you’d still have space for the storage, the pool table, and enough shelves to handle all the computer books to go with all the computers.
These basements can be -huge-
The valid concern – I’ll go ahead and list the valid concern – is radon gas. This is a high radon area, and as a heavy gas radon tends to fill basements. New construction has to have radon reduction systems, and if we get one without I’ll pitch a fit to have one put in. And we’ll be doing pretty much constant radon testing – so I don’t feel like I’ll be exposing myself unknowingly to anything dangerous. But I get the feeling that in Kevin’s mind, the basements are unhealthy places to be. There’s also limited escape routes. There are the stairs, and then they put in at least two window escapes (with little stairs to climb out of them). But that’s still only three exits in a space the size of your entire house – and it’s underground, so those three exits are pretty much IT. That’s his argument against using the basement as a bedroom (guest bedroom) space. And these are the valid arguments.
But still …. all that space … all that project space…