Complete renovation, your wish list

HelpMeMove

Hi,

We'll be completely renovating our house from early spring. Extending to the side of the house, building a new garage and 2 additional bedrooms upstairs and to the rear extending the lounge and kitchen.

We'll be rewiring, replumbing, new heating system, kitchen, bathrooms, ceilings, walls the lot.

What would be on your wish list? Post your ideas, no matter how wacky or out there. I'd want to make it future proof. To get you started I was thinking a basement under the garage for home cinema :P, wire the whole house for networking, laying speaker cabling through out, underfloor heating.....

Cheers

windym_2

We renovated our barn. The best thing we did was fit home-automation. We can control everything media based from keypads in each room. The skybox etc are all in a control cupboard and each can be accessed from any room in the house. Speakers are inbuilt into the ceilings. A harmony remote works each keypad if you are even more lazy! This is the one thing we now could not live without.

webwalker

Future proofing, Hmm build duct pipes in that will make all drilling through walls redundant, that used to be the standard for electric cabling when it was first introduced but then it got forgot in the price cutting days and now it's coming back lol.

Seriously I would be looking at solar tiles for the roof, triple glazing, not underfloor heating but underfloor insulation, keep the heat where it is needed, inside. Sound deadening quilt in all upper floor spaces no cavity in internal walls, ie all filled with insulation. The future of heating a home is very expensive and heating unused spaces could be the straw that breaks the fuel bank.

Errata

Future proof ? At least two different means of heating the house would be useful in case Gazprom get really bad tempered.

TomsMom

Gosh, this is far more advanced than my house renovation project!

On a practical level what about one of those vacuum cleaning systems whereby there's just a hole type thing in the wall (supposedly covered when not in use) into which you insert the hose and all the dirt is collected in a central container type thing located in the basement or wherever.

I've not explained that very well (but I know what I mean :rotfl: ). Hopefully you'll know what I'm on about or can find out more.

Flamingo_2

Underfloor heating in the kitchen (and possibly bathroom)
Double sinks (his and hers!) in the bathroom
Heated mirror / cabinet in bathroom
Kitchen work surfaces with the pop-up electric plug sockets - not a very good description, sorry.
Soft-close kitchen drawers and cabinets

I'm sure theres loads more but i just can't think at the moment

christineperseus

Heat exchanger in loft.
Light pipes
water softener.
microchip cat flap
linked smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors

kje_2

A basement would be good. I can't understand why new builds don't have them. It can't cost a lot more to get an extra floor level. I'd also go for insulation, insulation and more insulation. A walk-in pantry and cold store would be handy to stockpile foody bargains when they're available. How about a well ? You could sink a borehole and have your own mineral water !

halia

HelpMeMove wrote: »

Hi,

We'll be completely renovating our house from early spring. Extending to the side of the house, building a new garage and 2 additional bedrooms upstairs and to the rear extending the lounge and kitchen.

We'll be rewiring, replumbing, new heating system, kitchen, bathrooms, ceilings, walls the lot.

What would be on your wish list? Post your ideas, no matter how wacky or out there. I'd want to make it future proof. To get you started I was thinking a basement under the garage for home cinema :P, wire the whole house for networking, laying speaker cabling through out, underfloor heating.....

Cheers

ignore expensive 'personal taste' things like wet bars, I'd go for maximum insualtion and energy efficiency for starters - see if you can get to an absolute minimum of heating needed to keep house at a certain temperature.
So very good thermostat controls, heat recovery, solar panels, triple glazed windows, underfloor insulation.
no radiators would be nice - so underfloor heating, skirting heaters (central heating ones)

Dry lining all existing walls gives both insulation and an easier way to lay new cabling or piping without chiselling out brick or stone.

home working - network wiring, decent study, plenty of phone and TV sockets, if possible a seperate entrance or back door which accesses study for meetings at home without going through the family areas

Storage - as much as possible but unobtrusive. So floor to ceiling storage along one whole wall so it just looks like the room is 2 foot smaller!
Storage for bulky things, even supertall cupboards struggle with bikes, prams etc - they arent wide enough.

Accesible meters for services - no more hauling out the Xmas tree and camping gear from the understairs cupboard to reach them!

Space wise, I hate the trend for a bathroom for every bedroom - often the house size remains average and they just carve off bits of rooms. A 3 bed house should be fine with one main bathroom plus a downstairs WC IF there is space. 4 - 5 bedrooms it is nice to have a second shower as well as the WC- maybe an ensuite or a downstairs one.

Flexible layout and flexible room uses
Living room opening onto Garden, we're turning our new house around so that instead of the living room being at the front with a lovely view of the street (and the associated lack of privacy) it will open directly onto our garden, the kitchen will move to the front of the house.

a workshop! you wouldn't beleive how many people like the idea of having somewhere slightly seperate to the house for hobbies, DIY etc (can be attached of course but doesn't have to be accessed via the house)
If there isnt' space for a home office elsewhere, a workshop can easily become a seperate office room (properly built and insulated).

hth!

HelpMeMove

Wow, thats a fantastic list of ideas i didn't think about. Thank you everyone for your ideas. I understood all of them.

Beginning to get excited.

Keep them coming.....

HelpMeMove

Bounce to the top. Keep the ideas coming guys.

Thanks