if you were building a new house...

[lovin2shop]

Just to weigh in on a few of the discussions here-

I'd vote no to built in desks unless YOU would personally use one. We have an area that was supposed to be for two desks, a library of sorts. We have long abandoned that plan, and do not really have another use for the space. There is no way that my kids would work happily on homework together. And, they both have their preferred spots around the house, and would be very upset if I made them use the desks/area. I however, would love an area like that to store my craft stuff, wrapping paper, etc. We have an office, but DH uses it almost full time, and it doesn't have room for all of my "stuff".

We have a laundry room sink, and don't use it at all. However, the laundry room is RIGHT next to the kitchen, so it's easier to just use the kitchen sink. If the laundry room were near another entrance then I would probably like having it. In our old house, we had a mud sink in our garage which was used all the time (except when DH would stack it full of random stuff like car seats and basketballs!)

As for an upstairs play area, it was a CLOSED off space, all the way for us. We have two boys, and constantly have tons of big and little boys going crazy up there. Even with it all closed off, I can still hear them plenty well just from the staircase alone. We would not be able to carry on an adult conversation downstairs otherwise! Also, we do use our media room as the sleep over spot for kids. The only downside is that it can get pretty stuffy in there. We had to put a floor fan up there, can't do ceiling because we have a movie projector that it would block.

Also, I do have tower cabinets in my bathroom that have outlets for my hairdryer, flat iron, etc.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

as a kid my brother was super fidgety/noisy and there would have been no way in heck we could have sat down anywhere near each other to do homework..we were 5.5 years apart so he was only in 1st grade by the time i was in middle school. i recall doing almost all my homework in my room! given my kiddos are a year apart and my ds is the older one (and the desks are actually decently far apart) i don't anticipate it'll be as big of deal.... and yes, worse case I could use one or more of the desks for crafting or whatever.

we will have large game room upstairs that will be largely be their "play" area. this pic shows the game room and i can see the playroom w/desks in the background. i do like that it is rather open so we can see it from the living room/kitchen. i imagine this is an area they could use for sleepovers when they get older. part of the reason we opted to put in a 1/2 bath upstairs near their playroom is for when there's time where someone needs to use the potty but the shower in the kids' bathroom is busy.
http://admin.hhomesltd.com/resources...27698_orig.jpg

our master is on the 1st floor (that is the norm here), so in the new house the whole 2nd floor (kids bedrooms, playroom, game room, 1.5 bathrooms will be their own space). In our current house, the kids bedrooms & their playroom/bathroom are on the 1st floor with us and while it was AWESOME when they were babies/toddlers (esp when i was pg with #2 and still had an infant-i would have DIED having to go up and down stairs multiple times every day) at this point I am soo ready for them to have their own space upstairs!! Right now our kitchen/breakfast area/family room gets inevitably cluttered with their toys bc their primary play area is RIGHT THERE.

we did have the option to put in a media room but decided to go without.. we have one right now and over the 6 years we've never actually used it as a media room! half of it is used as storage and the other half we have a queen bed for either guests or when i want to kick DH out for snoring etc.

and i totally agree about an enclosed office being a huge thing...another reason why we again went for an enclosed study on first floor. neither of us work from home for the most part, but stil it is nice to be able to have a place to do work (or just send emails or whatever!) in PEACE while the kids are in the house. even though we like the look of hardwood, we are putting in carpet in study so it will help with the quiet. we have a dedicated office in our current house and it still gets used pretty often and i can't imagine giving that up!