Adding- I want to stay in coastal Ca. I don’t need to see the ocean but I need to be close. What I can’t do in my present location is walk to anything. I can go on a beautiful “walk” but can’t go to shops or restaurants. Living near family is important.
@abasket I like tall ceilings too. My kitchen, family and dining area are all open. I love it and wouldn’t change it. I don’t like the idea of being closed in. Granted my H isn’t a loud TV watcher. I also love that my present home opens out to the outdoors. I like seeing the sun and outdoors from wherever I am inside my house.
@Nhatrang I wish I could order up grandkids as easily as I can order up a house of my dreams. I have a couple of my kids local work I’m hoping to get at least one grandchild.
I am of retirement age but don’t plan to retire as I love my work. ShawWife loves hers.
We have bought a new house – we failed miserably at downsizing but bought the lot and it came with a big house.
Things I wanted:
Location: View of water or mountains. This house is on a river, grandfathered very close to the bank
Room for a 1000 sf painting studio for ShawWife. We are converting a 3.5 bay garage into a studio with skylights etc.
Energy efficiency. I think we’ve got that. Hard to tell. We are going to put solar cells on the two south-facing roofs.
Walk to either town center or hiking. Our house is adjacent to conservation land and we can hike to a trail system. Bonus: we can drop kayaks in from our house without having to drive anywhere. Drive to shopping, but Amazon.
Warm in winter. Big Fail. (Not on ShawWife’s list).
Great kitchen/dining area for entertaining. We’ll get there. This kitchen has badly designed space with phenomenal appliances (stove apparently cost $50K). No dining room, but we are converting what they called a sun room into a DR.
Home office for me with a view. My home office has a stunning view of the river.
Potential for first floor master bedroom. This house has a large first floor in-law suite, which could become the MBR (though my office is in the LR area of that suite at the moment).
Places for kids and prospective grand-kids to stay. Even taking over a couple of BRs, there are plenty of BRs for kids to stay.
Lower cost. Modest Fail.
Exercise space. We will put exercise equipment in one of the upstairs BRs.
Good health care. Excellent.
Mountains for hiking. Fail.
Garage so I can get a Tesla. Fail, at least temporarily, as garage becomes studio.
@abasket I LOVE open concept so much, before it was a thing. My current house has a huge kitchen and living room combined. I love to be able to cook and talk to the kids/guests and see everyone’s face. It’s my favorite place in the whole house, except for our bedroom of course lol.
We have a formal dinning room and another room (don’t know what to call it, but we have kid’s study desks, their entertainment xbox, microscope, etc…). We never use the formal dinning room except for thanksgiving. And it becomes some sort of temporary storage unit. Anything ordered from amazon/shopping and we don’t quite know where to put it, it goes to the formal dinning room. Quite a waste of space actually. We were thinking about open it up but the configuration doesn’t go with the kitchen/living room so we didn’t.
Dh retired two years ago. This is close to what we have EXCEPT the ability to walk to a grocery store (we can walk to a convenience store) and the washer/dryer in unit. We are on a barrier island on the intracoastal side, but our goal is to eventually move across the two-lane street to the beach side. We are 220 steps to the sand right now. A state with no state income tax was a requirement for us, and Florida ticked that box.
The lack of an in-unit W/D was worrisome to me. Dh volunteered to do all the laundry, so that is working okay for now. Lol! But it is definitely on the list for when we move beachside.
We are in a 2BR/2BA unit. It is 935 sq ft. It’s fine when it is just the two of us, but rather cozy when we have company (though easily workable for 3-night visits). The number of BRs and BAs are fine, but we would prefer a bit more elbow room. 1,200 - 1,350 “feels” right as we go to open houses.
This was a place we already owned that enabled us to get into the area as a second home. We always knew we would start our retirement here. Goal when we retired was to remain in this location five years. If we found a dream place before then, we’d do it.
Had to think hard about this. If minimum is capitalized, then I guess all I need is a separate bedroom. My H and I could not live in a studio apartment and still remain married. But more realistically, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a location that had a lot of outdoor activities. I would live in a dump before I would live in a place where I can’t run, bike, walk to places , etc.
But for a few years, I’ve always lived in new construction. So brand new or completely gutted and remodeled would be a must. I can’t stand the small windows, dark walls, narrow hallways and tiny kitchens of so many older homes.
Must be quiet. So not close to any busy roads or under any flight paths.
Must be large enough so that I can read while H is watching TV and I don’t hear the TV.
Safe neighborhood. Close to an active tennis club.
Room for guests.
“Interesting - wonder what the divide is between say yes to open concept and say no to open concept. I’m in the say no camp. So thankful our kitchen is not open. Like @maya54 I don’t want to hear the tv roaring on a show I’m not watching.”
Sensitivity to noise? I definitely have misaphonia and would lose my mind in an open concept house.
I love open concept. Our current house’s second floor is basically supported by pillars, and almost the entire ground floor is open (only the library, the powder bath, and laundry room have 4 walls). Love it! Our first TV is mounted on the wall in the kitchen… we watch it maybe 30 minutes a day while we eat breakfast at the counter. The other TV is in the den, and there are no TVs in the bedrooms. No smart speakers or any music players, so no sounds to corral.
@BunsenBurner You probably aren’t super sensitive to sound. It’s not just the tv that would drive me mad from that configuration. It’s everything from the dishwasher being loaded and unloaded while I’m in another part of the floor. . Someone clearing their throat in the living room while I’m trying to read a recipe in the kitchen. The stirring of a pot in the kitchen while I’m sitting relaxing in the living room. I’d be absolutely miserable.
I have an open plan in the new build. Never had on. Will see how I like it. It is a small house and the open plan made it spacious.
Yeah this is an extreme case, you need to minimize the noises. But unless you have 4 wall room, you would still hear them, no?
Our current home is 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a 2 car garage in coastal So Cal. We can walk about 30 minutes to the beach. We also have restaurants, shops, 3 grocery stores and a movie theater within walking distance (less than 10 minutes). We also have two world class hospitals in our neighborhood. By fall of 2021 we will have public transportation that will get us to many parts of our city we like to visit.
If I lived in Southern California within walking distance of the beach I could probably live in a closet. 
For me anyway, I think house size/space might differ a bit if I lived in a climate where I could be outside for longer periods more months of the year. I could do with less indoor space if I had more live-able and more time good weather wise to “live” outside!
“Yeah this is an extreme case, you need to minimize the noises. But unless you have 4 wall room, you would still hear them, no?”
Our kitchen closes off from the rest of the house with two doors. The first floor den does too. As I said my “ minimum “ is lots of walls. Lol.
I’ve always said this about the tiny home trend. Not very ideal for places where you can have snow on the ground for 5 months and, therefore, at risk for cabin fever.
Our house isn’t open concept (thankfully) but it is NOT little dark rooms with closed doors. It was built in 1925 and has beautiful wide arches or french doors going from living room to foyer to dining room to sunporch. The kitchen has two doors - that can be closed but are often open but to the dining room (not used much) and the foyer stairway (so no one really hanging out there. With the 9 foot ceilings and lots of windows it is light and bright - BUT also separate!
The tv is one thing, but my husband talking on the phone all hours of the day and evening - THAT drives me bananas!!! Why didn’t they ever create “phone rooms”?!! 
Our house is semi-open. When originally built it had a living room running from the front to the back with an 8 foot wide opening between it and the dining room. The kitchen was accessible only from the dining room through a hall with the powder room. When I remodeled, I extended the kitchen so that it runs behind the living room. The sitting/eating area of the kitchen opens to the living room through an eight foot wide opening echoing that of the dining room opening. The kitchen is around the corner. You can’t see dirty dishes from the living room or dining room. Our stairs to the second floor are in the center of the house and provide a pretty good buffer for noise. I hated being stuck in the old kitchen. This is a huge improvement.
In house phone booth!
Very helpful thread as our children are also on the verge of complete independence outside the nest. Downsizing seems the way to go.
We are living in our “retirement” house. It more than meets our minimums, but the must-haves were:
- Single story / at least 2,000 sf
- Two master suites
- Large, central kitchen with miles of countertops/cabinets
- Proximity to a good hospital
- No mortgage / low taxes
- Decent weather
Some(?) of these minimums were driven by DH. My ideal would be to live in isolation in a lighthouse on a bluff or island in Maine with a couple of cats, but that was only going to happen in my head.