What’s your dream house / what do you love about your house

[hillview]

We are house hunting in San Diego. What on your wish list for a house.

[gymnbomb]

I am probably between 6 months and 2 years away from buying a house. This is my current wish list (which I will almost certainly not be able to get all of in my moderate cost of living location within my 450K budget!).

2 car garage
4 bed, 3 bath, about 2000 sq ft
Full bath and something usable for guest bedroom on main floor
Central air (or at least already have ductwork soo can add it easily)
Heat that isn’t oil fueled
City water and sewer
Basement (unfinished is fine) I am not worried about flooding
Master bath and walk in closet
Yard that is big enough for kids to play in
Neighborhood type location
Not on busy street
Paved driveway
Main entry on main floor, not between floors
Good school district

I currently have an 1800 sq ft house with all of this except the third/master bathroom, walk in closet, and good school district that I think I can sell for something in the neighborhood of 300K. But the school district thing is big. If it weren’t for that I would gut my kitchen and settle in here happily for a long time.



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[Liziz]

As someone who just bought a house, I definitely consider the "wish list" and "what I love about my house" to be very different lists. Below is my "what I love about my house" list...

-a functional kitchen that has workable counter space to easily accommodate me cooking with my DDs (our last house didn't have enough counter space and it was really hard to cook w/ both kids at once)
-a yard with a good mix of clear grass space, and also a part with nice mature trees
-a layout where our main living area (our family room) is at the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms (so many houses have the living area sharing a wall with a bedroom, or living area w/ a staircase going straight to the upstairs bedrooms...the noise transfer is often a big issue in houses like that)
-double vanities in both the master bath and my kids' bathroom
-a garage that is large enough to fit both our cars, with room around the edges for bikes/mower/tools, etc. (I hate leaving a car permanently on the driveway/street)
-it's in a neighborhood the vast majority of people take pride in their homes and really maintain them well


Good luck on the house hunt! It's always exciting.

[twowhat?]

Hmmmm ok I'm going the "dream house" route (*denotes what we have and love about our current house):

-4 bedrooms 4.5 bathrooms, 2800 sq ft single story ranch
-relatively flat lot*; if on a slight slope, to be uphill*
-interior neighborhood street. On a curve is actually nice, makes it very hard for anyone to case your house*
-sidewalks*
-mature trees*
-3-car garage
-master separate from kids rooms*; guest room separate from all*, each with own bath
-bedrooms strategically set apart with hallways for privacy (I love open concept but hallways are needed to escape into private spaces)
-large island kitchen with island seating, extra prep sink; gas stove*; double ovens*
-single large dining space* (we repurposed one dining room into a music/homework/art room)
-flexibility for 2 home offices* (we have 5 bedrooms and use 2 as separate home offices)
-large laundry/mudroom with utility sink, space for second fridge, space for shoes/coats/backpacks near the front of the house (single main entrance to front of house and garage)
-wood floors throughout, including bedrooms (excluding bathrooms)
-ceilings no higher than 10 ft anywhere
-pool visible from kitchen/main family room*
-enough trees to partially shade pool but not any messy kinds of trees (we have crape myrtles and they are THE WORST with pools)
-patio large enough to sit for dinner and to enclose with mesh curtains and hang string lights
-yard with enough grassy area to play and space for small storage shed and space for compost bin away from the house
-natural light throughout*
-nice master bath with large walk-in shower*, clawfoot soaking tub*, window for natural light*, double vanities*
-non-attic storage space (like a big cedar closet or something); maybe that even doubles as a reinforced tornado shelter with fireproof safe
-double-sided fireplace (one side facing living area, one side facing master bedroom)
-good toilets* (I know that sounds silly but I just really love how nice our toilets are - they flush smoothly and strongly and CLEANLY with minimal spraying and using not too much water and sit up a bit higher and just feel good. I would never have though good toilets would make a difference but they came with our house when we bought it and now I guess I'm a toilet snob).

[janeybwild]

Location location location and an open plan main area

[meggie t]

What I love about our house:
- Beautiful architecturally and a style that I love
- A perfect size for us with no wasted space; 2400sqft; 3-4 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms.
- No open concept. We love walls and room delineation.
- Well laid out kitchen with plenty of workspace, a usable working island (I don't like island seating)
- A first floor room that can eventually be used as a bedroom in my old age! Ours also has a full bath, which is great. We currently use it as a den.
- Bedrooms and bathrooms that aren't too big. I find many homes have these huge bedrooms with mostly wasted space. Bathrooms too. Our current bathrooms are a tad too small but function well.
- A nicely sized basement that could be finished out if we needed the space.
- A manageable yard with a nice patio.
- Great family neighborhood located walking distance to many amenities (train for commuting, quaint downtown, schools).
- I know schools should be on this list but we chose a great neighborhood with not so good public schools b/c we knew we would do private (as do 99% of our neighbors - very common here).

Dream house would have:
- A two car garage attached to the house. We have a one car attached garage and a driveway where the other resides. My husband commutes via train so the tandem parking hasn't really been a problem for us.
- A dedicated guest room or office type room that can be used as a guest room. Our den is what we use as a guest room. We have two other living spaces so it isn't the worst thing but it would be nice to have a room elsewhere for guests.
- A butler's pantry. We had one in our apartment and loved it.

[ncat]

We have lived in both San Diego (Encinitas) and the East coast. What we needed each place was not the same. You will spend more time outside in San Diego and don't need as much living space as you do somewhere you are cooped up inside all winter. You can entertain outside year round. Your yard/garden will grow more or less year round - gravel yards got more appealing to me every year. Your heating needs may be minimal.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Layout matters more than square footage to me. I don’t need big bathrooms (no need for double sinks either). So, I want living spaces to be a good size and I’m fine with smaller bedrooms and bathrooms. 2000-2500 square feet is a good number if I had to pick.
Right now my big one is ease of access to the outdoor areas. Our house is on a hill. Our basement is a walkout. That means I can’t walk out of my kitchen or family room to my back yard and I really wish I could. I also want quiet.


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[DualvansMommy]

I find your housing needs is very subjective to the area you live in. East coast with real 4 seasons and long winters like I do have a must for large interior space ; proper mud room, 2 car garage, heating by gas (not oil!) flat landscape for easy in and out with snow removal and drivability. A dedicated office space, a dedicated guest room and a space for the kids homework.

So with that in mind, our current house have all above needs including partial house generator. We live in an area with full mature trees, outside lines for electrical is still common means fair amount of power outages. So we got that recently to cover the kitchen, den and bathroom upstairs.

Also have enough square footage when we bought our house 11 years ago with 2,700 sq feet, 2 car attached garage home with ability to expand it more. Which we did when we changed the layout of our kitchen, mudroom and laundry room few years ago to be more functional. Now we’re almost done with design to hire contractor to finish out our 900 sq basement to be the main kids hangout/family media room. It’ll be where we’ll have family movie nights, sleepovers for their friends, play their big toys, etc.

With West coast, I would be thinking about outdoor space as much possible to include in our daily living with the house. Basement may not be allowed due to code, so think where for extra storage I’ll be used to from East coast. But you wouldn’t need all that winter gear, mud room, etc though. Open plan is more appealing if I wanted to have a proper backyard, patio to be visible from the house. Some homes in my neighborhood converted the attic space behind master bedroom to expand their suite, to include a bigger walk in closet and home office. We didn’t bother with that since we already renovated our master bath, it isn’t large as it doesn’t have room for both ; soaking tub and walk in shower. But we do have our walk in closet. So that’s enough for us. We may end up converting our attic to be the home office/bigger master bath and use the current home office on main floor as proper guest room since it’s on main level, with windows and closet to meet proper code for a bedroom.

I’ve always wanted to buy a home with a neighborhood feel like Halloween movie scene is. That to me, is the all American home, which is what I wanted. Full mature lines large residential quiet street, in a good school district with bus service and strong community sense. We lucked out on the location.


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[georgiegirl]

We just moved into our dream home two months ago. Here is what we wanted and have in the new house

Large lot with mature trees and flat grassy area for kids to play
Lots of natural light
Large kitchen with lots of counter space and walk in pantry (our house has a butlers pantry and not a walk in pantry)
Master on main level, but not super close to main living area
No formal dining room or formal living room (I don’t like unused space)
Three kid bedrooms upstairs (plus we have a loft play area for the kids)
Laundry room with sink and cabinets for storage
Large basement with guest room and place for kids to play
Layout so that no one is walking on top of anyone’s bedroom and going up and down the stairs isn’t going to wake up people sleeping (this was a huge problem with our old house)
Hardwood floors
Really large garage
Office
Modern, updated everything

The only thing out house doesn’t have that I really, really wanted is a mudroom.


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