Now that I'm looking at it again, I really do NOT like having the entry door to the master bedroom at the outside wall. Somehow you'd probably end up with a couch or something on that wall or the adjacent one you'd have to walk around every time to get in your room. Why not put the door in the middle of the house next to the wall with the bathroom?

 

C'mon, this is fun! You must have some design ideas you'd like to put in as well!

You know, I'd move the whole front of the garage forward 5 feet or so and divide the added space between the master bath and the garage. A whole wall full of cabinets in the garage would be VERY useful to them, and I could have a bigger shower and toilet.

 

Basements are definitely more of an east coast or midwest thing. You rarely see them at all in a west coast home built after the 1950s

It's too bad too, because I love homes with basements. There's a certain character and versatility with houses that have basements, that you don't get with houses that don't.

For me, there's a bit of nostalgia associated with the family basement. One house I lived in as a kid had a giant basement that was a game room.

The house I lived in for 1 year in college had a huge basement and I lived in one of the bedrooms down there. I have fond memories of both places.

But the problem is that there's practical reasons for a basement that make prefect sense on the east coast and midwest, but not in the west coast.... at least when it comes to justifying the added cost of having a basement.

 

Huh. I didn’t know that about the west coast and basements. Why is that?

 

What are the practical reasons? I’ve never understood the need for a basement. Lol

 

We don’t have them in the south either.

 

I did know that. I have a friend who moved to Florida and she told me her washer and dryer were in the garage. I remember thinking, how f*ucked up is that, lol.

 

My guess would be that you get a lot of extra space without having any new above ground exterior walls that would require more heating of the house to make up for losses through the walls in the winter.

In the South and West the climate is mild enough to where people just figured "why bother" with the expense of digging a basement and just made the aboveground structure bigger.

That would be my guess, at least.

 

@purriwinkle @PepperAnn

Okay... I don't know all the ins and outs because I don't know much about specific building codes back east or midwest, etc. I can only assume what might be the case.

First- Out here in the Portland area, we don't really get a frost line because it rarely ever gets below freezing. That means we only need to bury pipes a few feet below ground, we only need about 3 feet of crawl space under a house, etc.

Houses with basements are more common in colder climates because the space between the walls and floor of the basement can help serve as a buffer from the cold for all of the pipes and wires and stuff that run under the house. In those cases, it might be more cost effective to build a basement versus digging 10 feet below the ground to avoid the frost line, or adding extra insulation to every single pipe, line or wire for your house.

The land built on a house out here is excavated much differently than it used to be as well. There's a lot of heavy gravel and other materials used to divert water for proper drainage now in neighborhoods, as opposed to neighborhoods built in the 50s or before. That's why a lot of older houses WITH basements are more prone to getting flooded.

The vast majority of homes built here, in Arizona, Texas, etc. are relatively newer and the construction methods and building codes are different than in the east coast and midwest. Ergo, from a practical standpoint, basements aren't necessary in all cases.

We do have a lot of hills though, so we have a good amount of newer homes that have what is called a daylight basement. It's where the house is two or three levels, but from the front of the house, it looks like a one level home. But that has more to do with the topography of the land that the house was built on.

 

I think Mo’s reasoning is sound. In addition, they don’t tax your basement when it comes to square footage which wouldn’t be the case if you added a family room above ground. If your cellar is dry and finished they make excellent game rooms, or play rooms for your kids.

My sister-in-law downsized to a town house. Her basement is fully finished and is as nice as the upper areas. She has this huge TV on one wall with couches, chairs, a big table for eating, with a full bath, in addition to her utility room and a large storage area. Her upstairs living and dining areas work well for small groups but when she has all the family and some friends over we usually end up down stairs. We were there not long ago for a Galaxy Quest screening and eats and you would never know you were in the “basement” ....if you didn’t know.

Your furnace, water heaters, meters, sump pump and many times your laundry room will be found in the basement. If you have animals, especially cats, their littler goes down there and there’s less chance it will be tracked upstairs when they use it. Dog and cat beds along with their furniture fits in great down there without messing up the upstairs living areas.

Besides, If it’s not finished you need at least one creepy area of your house if you don’t have a full walk up attic, lol

 

Oh gawd, I HATE THAT. There's a crap ton of houses out here that have that same type of format with the laundry appliances in the garage. It's a cheapskate move and it's gross, imo.

Almost all of the one level homes in my neighborhood have that setup. Fortunately my house has a proper, albeit very small laundry room. I refuse to live in a house with those appliances in a garage. Nope. Nope. Nope and a thousand more nopes.

 

Thank you. Makes good sense.

 

My parents old house used to have that. I hated it too. Ugh.

 

If I win, you will have to explain this to me.

 

I read! I read! I don't always remember to refresh.

 

I would shut the doors and walk into a hallway. My current home has the dust-and-spiderweb-gathering laundry-in-the-garage set-up and no linen closet, so these spaces make me happy.

 

YES to the one-floor-living! The square footage on this is actually about 100 sq ft larger than what I have now. I'm just being grumpy because some of the St. Jude houses in other states are so beautiful and on spacious acre lots, but I would only relocate in California. First world crankiness, and, if I did win, I wouldn't be looking the gift horse in the mouth.

 

I'm not against one floor living, but the living should make sense. You've got bedrooms by the front door, a garage that opens into the linen closet, and a bedroom you can only get to by going through the bathroom.

It's badly laid out.

@Jama I always wondered if the no basement on the west coast thing was because of earthquakes? I wouldn't want to be in the basement during an earthquake. Or a tsunami for that matter...

 

That's not true. If you look very closely at the floor plan, there's a nub in the hallway that leads to the bathroom door, which is straight ahead, and then the bedroom's doors are to the left and to the right.

The same thing applies to the garage. You're not going through the linen closet per se. But the linen closet flanks a little nub-hallway that leads you from the garage to the main area.

But I get the essence of what you're saying and yes, I'm splitting hairs a bit. lol

I just think it's worth noting that you do not have to go through a bathroom to get to a bedroom.

That would be nuts and I believe it would violate building codes no matter where you are in the country. If someone was using the bathroom and they locked the door, then someone in the bedroom would not have safe ingress/egress to the rest of the home.