<p>pg, there are definitely snakes in the area but not problematic. By that I mean I’ve never walked up on one. We have a pier that goes out to the boat dock. Snakes don’t seem to hang out there either. We have seen the occasional snake swimming in the river but we have also seen dolphins which is very cool.
Fishing is huge but not fly fishing. You’d have to go toward the mountains for that. We can catch lots of crabs off the end of our pier though!</p>
<p>ah. So you are on the inland waterway. We get down to the outerbanks to the old family house a lot. A big reason for the move once kids are launched. They are most likely to visit us down there.</p>
<p>single story, close to my mom’s and a in-law suite for in-laws.<br>
no pool (been there, done that).
tub is a must ( i use it every day)</p>
<p>the most successful, quality-of-life-improving addition to our house was the placement of the kitchen garbage can on gliders, safe under the sink (we have three dogs)</p>
<p>We built and immediately thought of things we’d have done differently. Luckily this isn’t the final destination. 
I love my kitchen. Oversized island. Drawers deep enough to store pots and pans. Roll out trays for lower cabinets. Every drawer has a custom organizer. Bread drawer. Wall pantry with pull out shelves for canned goods etc AND walk in pantry for everything else like small appliances. We did not put our microwave in our w/i pantry & I wish we had. Out of sight! Built in pull out cabinet for trash & recyclables. </p>
<p>As others have said, laundry room with folding space. DH simply put in a counter across the back wall and cabinets above for extra linen storage. We still have enough room to keep our ironing board up. I’m more inclined to quickly touch something up that really needs it since I just have to turn on the iron. Everything’s there.</p>
<p>Spend the money to have your hardwoods installed, sanded, stained, and finished on site. It makes a huge difference. Everything is uniform and you don’t have grooves between the boards catching dust/dirt. We have a low satin finish and I love them. </p>
<p>Make sure you are on site as much as possible. Even with a great builder things will be done wrong. We had a wall put in backwards and realized it when going over pictures and noticed the window was on the wrong side. There’s more but I don’t want to scare you. ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For sure. We bought an existing home and are making changes. I noticed today that the doggy door was installed in a solid, sturdy door-upside down. I don’t know if it’s salvageable.</p>
<p>:(</p>
<p>anything I want in a house?</p>
<p>That would be Eric Ripert (in the kitchen)</p>
<p>Huge mudroom with a walk in closet, a bench,cabinets and shelves. Large enough for a second fridge or freezer. A powder room right off of the mudroom.</p>
<p>nrdsb4 - That mbr with his and her bathrooms sounds like heaven! </p>
<p>Two large walk in closets in mbr.</p>
<p>Walk in pantry.</p>
<p>Sunroom off of the kitchen.</p>
<p>Linen closet in each bathroom.</p>
<p>Lots of built in cabinets/bookshelves.</p>
<p>So, you’re saying I’m gonna need a TV with a DVR in there musica?</p>
<p>I do love that Chef Ripert. </p>
<p>You guys are giving me the greatest ideas. It’s all those things like having the dog shower INSIDE. Exactly. But I wouldn’t have thought of it.</p>
<p>hey…who said anything about a tv? AND he would be welcome ANYWHERE in the house if you catch my drift.</p>
<p>A refrigerator that reads the labels and replaces the minimum quantity by ordering directly from Amazon Prime. All I now need is someone to pick it up from my locker and shelve it! </p>
<p>PS It is a given it exists in an internet-crazed country, minus the Amazon lockers.</p>
<p>Before your drywall is put up take pictures of every wall showing locations of electrical outlets, cable hookup, and light switches. You are paying for every single one. You’ll have marked these on blueprints for your electrical walk through. When the drywall goes up go back and make sure everything has been cut through and isn’t covered up. We had four outlets and one cable hookup left behind drywall. Pointing it out on the blueprints wasn’t enough to convince my site manager, I had to pull out pictures showing him the outlets existing prior to the drywall install. They cut through and what do you know? Outlets!!! 
(a few hundred dollars worth)</p>
<p>You’ve gotten some great ideas, many would be on my list. A few more are:</p>
<p>-tall ceilings with high crown and baseboard moldings
-Sillites (or similar) window candle receptacles in all windowsills and mantles
-bathroom near back door or garage entrance
-double ended slipper tub in master bath
-programmable thermostats</p>
<p>The accessibility from a couple pages back may be nice for family. Our current house is a nightmare for my BIL in a wheelchair, so I would make sure my next house would be accessible. </p>
<p>I would love a big kitchen and heated floors.</p>
<p>A big cozy window seat.</p>
<p>Screen porch facing water and attached to a walk out to a dock
Mudroom located between garage and kitchen
Radiant heating
Laundry on the second floor
A library with ladders and leather seating
A walk in shower with no doors or curtains
Universal design so we can age in place
A big enough kitchen but not huge
A sunny yard for my vegetables, but big old trees too
Enough closet space I don’t have to shuttle around seasonal clothes
A dining room that’s actually big enough for the overwide Victorian dining room table I inherited from my great grandmother
A home office that’s a decent size
A separate studio for painting
A window seat in the kitchen for dh to join me when I’m cooking
Built in music system</p>
<p>No utility meters.</p>
<p>a house that’s manageable both in terms of size and taxes long after the kids are gone. over winter break i watched “the company men” w/ my S1. good movie. we both had the same reaction: we’d never want to be house poor and the excessiveness seemed so burdensome. i’m a designer, so i love working on houses both old and new, but i can’t stand preciousness. the minute a house is overdone, it owns you.</p>
<p>A heated island with seating. Someone on Gardenweb (check it out–more ideas than you’d ever think of for your home) has heated her island under the granite. Makes it warm instead of cold to the touch. She says it draws everyone to the seating at the island.</p>
<p>You have tons of great suggestions so I am going to add a material suggestion. We used MDF doors in our basement playroom and I have been really happy. Every other door in the house is six panel oak and the wood invariably expands and contracts so that you are left with a strip requiring a touch-up paint job. (Same with the powder room wainscoting since powder room is on an exterior wall.) We have several closets and a bathroom in the basement and the MDF doors look almost as good as new.</p>
<p>I will add to the chorus for radiant heat for tiled floors. Our tiled mudroom is freezing all winter long! I don’t notice the cold on the hardwood floors.</p>