Note's I've kept from several years of living in several houses and my most recent build, which we currently live in. These are ideas I've been keeping in a notebook. I'm not a code guy or builder, just what I've gathered. Are these ideas good or retarded?

General construction & layout:
1) Consider ICF. I want a quiet, quiet, quiet house.
2) Have a 2 or 3 stall "garage" attached, completely insulated. 8' garage door, and separate big wide man door. I don't park in the house, but have a gym, workbench and tools, etc. that I like to keep in the "garage".
3) Have a first floor mechanical room, perhaps off the garage. Large double swing steel doors for easy access. Keep water heaters, HVAC, water softener and treatment, etc there. That way if it floods or you need to replace something, it's right there, and not up in your attic.
4) 12' ceilings because I want to pay extra to heat the house.
5) All interior doors to be big and wide, and SOLID. I want a quiet, quiet house.
6) On that same token, insulate interior walls for quietness. Rockwool or something similar.
7) I want the attic finished and conditioned. Maybe use a little mini-split to keep it conditioned. I don't really like spray foam though, so I guess use regular construction techniques? Attic for conditioned storage.
8) Every bedroom has it's own full bathroom. Standing tiled showers with tiled benches.
9) Main entrance and garage-to-house entrance should have a mud room.


Kitchen stuff:
1) Use a freestanding range/oven instead of separate countertop range and in-wall oven. Range should be on an exterior wall so you can vent right out the side of the house instead of up the attic.
2) Consider ceiling height top cabinets. Perhaps split level, where the top are glass doors for decorations.
3) Bottom cabinets should almost all have pull-outs. Plain cabinets you have to dig in to get stuff in the back SUCK.

Plumbing:
1) PEX with manifolds.
2) Pre-plumb for whole house water softener and water filters in the mechanical room. Have a separate plumbing line for drinking water, and pre-plumb for an RO or something.
3) All toilets the tall kind. No standard low height toilets.

Electrical & IT:
1) It'd be nice to have every room on two separate circuits- one for plugs, one for lights. All 20 amp.
2) I want a ceiling fan in every room. I also want downlighting on dimmers in every room. I might not use it much, but having an abundance of can lights on my current 12' ceiling is barely noticeable and really comes in handy when you're working on something or cleaning.
3) Have an MDF closet where the main telecom stuff comes into the house. Home run 2x cat6/whatever to every room, garage, etc. Also have all camera locations prewired. That way you can just set a rack and some big switches and NVRs and everything in a dedicated MDF closet. Put a conduit from there to the attic so when you want to run new stuff you can, easily.
4) Electrical main service, meter, disconnect- all preferably right on the other side of the breaker panels. Again, run a conduit up to the attic for future. Run a conduit and service to generator location. Run an extra one to the side of the house that would be closest to your future solar panel field (solar goes on the ground, not the roof).
5) Figure out where all the TVs are going and have outlets prewired at TV height.
6) Fuck the ring doorbell. Put a cat6 right at eye level at your front door so you can put a wide angle security camera and look a motherfucker right in his nose when he's ringing your doorbell.
7) Plenty of "emergency" exterior lighting. Would be nice to have a switch in the master bath or closet that could turn it on at night.

Master Bed & Bath:
1) Huge roll in shower. I'm an athlete and break shit often, so ease of access is nice.
2) Freestanding tub. Not a built in tub with tile and shit.
3) In the shower, have a bench. HEAT IT. Last time I was hobbled with a torn ACL and patellar, I sat for a lot of showers. Even in summer that tile was cold on my balls.
4) Have a door or something between the master bath and closet. His and her sides. His side gets room specifically for a big safe. Preferably on an exterior wall.
5) Tile a laundry area in the master closet. Run water and drain.

What am I missing?

It’s all going to come down to your budget.

Your ideal house sounds a lot like a good friend of mines recent renovation, albeit his is incredibly extravagant and done to the extreme.

I would really start considering networking, there’s a lot of smart networking guys on this forum. Since you’re already going to have a rack in your MDF closet, I’d start filling that bad boy up. Actual quality network, and if it was me would start considering distributed Audio and Video. It’s really nice to have speakers throughout the house(and outside) that are invisible, zone specific, and controllable by your phone. Video distribution is nice and can cut down other costs, as all sources can be viewed from any screen, plus makes monitoring cameras that much easier as a bonus. Run CAT to all TVs regardless of what you wind up doing.

For the lighting the way you describe it, you might look into systems like Lutron or similar.

I’m a fan of Mini Splits, particularly a well insulated and mini split garage.

In addition to pantry, I would have a separate storage for dry goods or similar. A logical extension of this is a large utility room, for laundry, storage for cleaning supplies, and additional storage. One of the best most life improving things in the world, when you’re at that level, is honestly double washers and dryers. Would highly recommend, especially if you plan on having lots of guests for linens.

Separate drink fridge. This one’s always a big one for me.

Toss in a warming drawer or two into kitchen. Extra bonus is you can do hot towels in them too, since you’re an athlete. Really helps with cooking for groups or holiday meals.

Freestanding range is the best. Make sure whoever puts the hood vent in knows what they are doing, don’t put one of them shitty little good vents that don’t actually pull air.

Electrical Sockets in bathroom drawers. Are a nice tough usually.

There’s a lot more but that’s off top of my head.

Vault room. Fort Knox large inswing vault door. If you have a basement this goes under the garage. 8” concrete with rebar all around.

Handy for guns, safe room, and hiding Christmas presents.

Consider concealed entrance.

Well I do a good job pretending at least

That’s gonna be an overly expensive house.

Don’t forget the heated towel racks and bidet toilets.

Heated Toto toilet seats are honestly one of the weirdest things to adapt to, but also oddly comforting.

I didn’t see sex dungeon with a drain in the floor. Come on man!

Plaster walls.  Not drywall if you want your home quiet.

Depending on what part of Texas, heated floor in a bathroom would be nice in the winter.  Disregard if you are in someplace like Houston.

For the ceiling fans, if you need to save money up front, get them wired with a fan box installed and put in an inexpensive light.

Convert an old missile silo.  Be sure to let the Russians know the missiles aren’t there anymore.

It does get cold here. Every year, not just last year. And the floors are cold.

I wouldn't put a safe anywhere near a bathroom/shower.  Even with desiccants humidity is a problem.  I had to throw out a small/papers safe because it stunk so bad.  It was kept in the MBR closet a few feet from the shower.

elevated jacuzzi tub in the master bed room with an elevated bed.

This guy stays at anniversary inn.

PHUN Factoid....there are a plethora of old time shares that have been converted into resorts and they all have that weird ass lay out where the jacuzz tub is right next to the bed. Fuckin boomer architecture. The same great generation that brought you pop corn ceilings.

So you only want 8 ft wide garage doors? How will you fit a squatted 4wd with massive tow mirrors inside like that?

It sounds like the house my Dad and I built when I was 12-13.

Every bedroom having a bath doesn't work out as well as you'd think. I'd do a master and two Jack-and Jill's in a 5bdrm. Occupancy fluctuates over time and too many little rooms crowd plans and often make flow awkward.

Orient the house so most of the sunlight enters through south facing windows.

I'd put the 12' ceiling in one room, or area, or just do 9'.

An earth-linked concrete floor is really nice in most climates.

Why would you build an attached garage and not park in it?  

Waterfront stilt home on 16' stilts with a retractable aluminum entry staircase.

Go away.

I built an elevated dag shower w/ hot and cold. 8 ft long, 3 ft-ish deep.

Conduit for High and Low Voltage.

Plywood Nailer between studs for Base Boards.

5/8” Drywall.

down here we use 1/2" plywood on the exterior and interior walls

I also have an idea that I am working on for modular hurricane proofing the rafters to the top sil on the walls. It's stronger than hurricane straps and quicker.

If you're doing solar, you'll want batteries, and those batteries are going to need to be kept warm.

An electrical room sufficiently sized for batteries, inverters, MPPT controllers etc., along with your breaker box, critical load panel etc.

If you can adjust the roof pitch (code depending), and orientation to optimize southern facing roof area that will also be helpful.

Subbed for later. ICF is the route I want to go but my wife thinks I’m trying to build a prison.

I can tell you what the shizzz is, a money manager I visited a few years back has their office built out of pre fab slabs of rebar reinforced concrete.

Bascially, just a big ass form, with rebar in it, then you do the pour, once it sets on site, you just lift up the whole wall with a giant ass crane.

then you bolt and weld the corners together. Way stronger and fire proof than ICF.

Along this line of thought, OP, install a receptacle behind the toilet for this.

8 foot tall, dude. Tall.

It works out great. I have it in my current house. It's fucking awesome for guests.

How would you do conduit? I guess you'd have to run everything in the ceiling and do individual drops down the wall to each outlet location?

Solar is not going on my roof. It's going on the ground on a poured pad.

That's called tilt wall and is meant for huge buildings that would otherwise be steel being built cheap.

My friend has a bigger than mini-mansion and he has a huge laundry room with 2 washers and 2 dryers and lots of room to hang/iron do clothes work. SpeedQueen large industrial/Commercial (think the big wall mounted washers/dryers at the laundromat/prison/hotel) is what I would want so I could wash/dry large objects like king sized comforters/duvets.

A couple of thoughts. What is the exterior finish going to be? If its a synthetic stusso over the ICF walls, check with your insurer and make sure they cover it.

Insulating the interior walls with safe and sound is a great idea. Make sure you have plenty of raceways where tv/AV equipment will be, adding wires in the wall later on will not be easy with that dense insulation. Are you planning on built in speakers in walls or ceilings.

I dont think I would recommend a mini split in the attic, filter cleaning and maintenance of the condensate pump will be more of a pain than adding a grill or two off the main ac trunk line. I would also go with open cell spray foam over traditional insulation.

We just worked on a house for a couple that were taller than average. All the kitchen and master bath cabinets were 3" taller than normal.

In that case, I have never had it, but from everything I have heard or read, in floor heating is both awesome and even fairly efficient. If and when I remodel my master bath, it will be going it. It is electrical so if you lose power it won't work. (thinking of this last winter although my coworkers down there were OK)

I always wanted a 2 story house with a large open room. The big room would be two stories tall and the stairs went up one wall and the 2nd floor had a railing and then opened up to the big room.  I would put taxidermist animals on the walls.

What’s the cost of that compared to ICF? I mean a 2500sqft house built like that is going to be insane on concrete cost alone.

it's cheaper than ICF because you don't have to spend all that time with the foam blocks from what they said.

The only that that sucks is they wanted to connect the two separate buildings with a sky bridge between the two to make going from one side to the other easier...and they said they had to do some serious engineering because they had to cut the holes in each wall.

What is your plan for outdoor spaces? I am looking at building plans and big screen in porches are nice for buggy areas.

It's cheaper if you're building a commercial building.

I don't think anyone does residential tilt wall.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen done was an underground shooting range below a garage and swimming pool

Radiant heat barrier roof deck

There have been some awesome threads on this.

Building a new home wishlist.....

Building home - must haves/ideas?  

Advice on Home kitchen remodel: TIER 1 kitchen appliances (refrigerator, dishwasher) ?

Building last home

One other thought, ADA compatible everything. If you get hurt, or just get really old it will come in handy and who doesn't like wider doors?  If you do move, it opens up the market to more buyers and shouldn't cost that much up front.

ETA, I am on the first day of a prednisone treatment for my knee. 7 pills today, 6 tomorrow etc.

Backup power? Solar is ok but it's fickle. A properly sized generator with fuel propane being my choice in a buried tank.

sounds outrageously expensive.

Not for backup, that's what the generator would be for. The idea with solar is to set up everything so in 10 years when it's economically feasible I'm all ready for it.