Alcohol sometimes gives me a headache now :( but I can totally get behind the cheese idea.

If your handle is where you’re currently located, I’m waving! I’m just a bit west of you. :)

Your #1 is exactly what I was dreaming about to my husband, even before the pandemic. I have farming relatives in the Midwest and I love how they all have that type of room in the front or back of their (real) farmhouses. Granted, they need it due to snow and mud conditions, but I’d love one.

We downsized a couple of years ago, so my wish would be that we hadn’t. Now I want to add on what we gave up! Mainly my huge corner pantry. I’m missing that so much right now, as well as big storage closets we had, extra bedroom/bath, and large home office.

I’m doing so much more cooking now, so I’d want upgraded appliances, especially a bigger refrigerator.

I tried to convince my husband that we needed to buy a tall, standing freezer but was unsuccessful.

We've never had a mud room, but I think they are such a great idea. I've seen some that have a built-in doggie bath/shower which is genius. I'm also a TCUfrog.

My friends who refer to the new house and shop as "The Compound" are not so mocking now....

Our mudroom / laundry room / dog room is accessible from outside, and you pass through it when entering the house from the garage. It has a laundry sink and dog tub, along with W/D and a freestanding freezer. It also has a large exterior / well sealed door into the kitchen.

In working on the house, I wondered if that door made sense and if I would ever close it - but this is precisely the kind of thought process that makes me happy we have a space that we can seal off and use as an airlock (which is why we designed it this way - but that was more of a dog statement about containing them to clean them off from bring outside before entering the "main" house.

We have a configuration that would could have 2 master bedrooms with a shared master bath, or, use a guest suite from quarantine. I have, however, threatened hubby with him living in the shop for "other" reasons but might be the perfect quartanine facility. It does have it's own full bath and is just across the courtyard - we could wave to each other. LOL!

We're pretty isolated at the property - but that also was by design. 😂

Interesting exercise for sure.

Yup. We now live in Fort Worth. I was born in Dallas and my husband, who I met at TCU, is from another country. He went to the local US consulate to look at college brochures and applied to a whole bunch of US universities sight unseen. TCU is the one that accepted him. In October we moved back to Fort Worth from Arlington to be close to my sons' school and my husband's business. While I love Arlington, right now I'm really glad we moved because it made it much safer for my husband to run his business. Before this all happened, we made my parents move to an independent living facility less than 10 minutes from our new house. They've had a lot of medical problems since they moved so I'm glad they're finally close by.

I tried to convince my husband that we needed to buy a tall, standing freezer but was unsuccessful.

Ha! My husband is going full prepper on food storage. He has ordered a whole bison to be delivered, which necessitates a huge chest freezer. And he wants a second freezer for veggies, fish, fruit, etc.

As for me, I wish we had a mud room. That would be excellent now.

We cleared off some storage shelves in our garage and made an emergency pantry in the garage. I also moved some underused IKEA storage from the play/media room down there for that purpose. I also have extra cleaning supplies, paper towels, toilet paper, and over the counter medicine stored there. I have multiple people in my family who are in high-risk categories, including me (asthma).

This new temporary lifestyle is making lots of us rethink how our houses are set up. I’ll be interested to see if changes do occur in future homes. Might depend on how long this virus remains and affects our lives.

When we were looking for a rental to live in while we build, we considered a couple of teeny tiny houses, thinking it didn’t matter because our build would be done in about a year, and because there are only 4 of us, and my husband works and kids are in school most of the day. We ended up leasing a house that was way bigger than we needed or wanted, because it was the only one we found where they were okay with our two big dogs. And now BOY am I glad. Our build won’t be done until at least September (almost a full year past when we expected), kids are home through the summer, and husband is working from home. We’d be killing each other in a tiny space - not to mention if one of us gets sick we’ll have an easier time isolating them.

Mudrooms are so practical! We’re putting one in the new house with laundry attached and I can’t wait to use it.

We don’t anticipate leaving our current (and large) home anytime soon, but Hubby and I bought a little plot of land in the PNW that is kind of out of the way. We will be empty nesters pretty soon, and have raised a larger than average sized family. (5 kids) For a little while I thought “well, maybe I won’t keep buying in bulk once the kids leave,” but when we are able to build our house on our plot of land it will make more sense to keep buying many things in bulk because any major grocery stores are quite a drive away, and the small community is set up to keep it that way. So my home that we eventually build will have many large family friendly ideas... and most of those ideas go hand in hand with a lot of the things people are saying they wish they had now. I will have a large mud room, and hubby wanted a shower in it... basically he wants a wet room, not such a crazy idea now! I have always loved having a walk in pantry and will have another, it’ll be big. I want a large column fridge and a large column freezer... I’ve always had to have multiple fridges and freezers with my large family, but I would like to simplify with fewer appliances that can handle bulk. (Might still have to have a chest freezer) I started thinking I’ll still buy in bulk when we decided on that location for our retirement, but after all this covid fiasco, I will DEFINITELY keep buying in bulk and rotating my supplies! I will still have a pretty open floor plan, because IF/when my children and their future families decide to visit us all at the same time (and they likely will since it’s near the coast) I want to be able to push furniture around so we can seat everyone at tables and eat together... I want it to be very flexible for enough seating for large groups. But I want storage areas easy to close off. (I want a storage to accommodate a few plastic round 8 person tables and chairs to go with them instead of trying to cram large groups around one long table)

We just moved in mid December and this house is perfect for quarantines. Plenty of communal space and areas for alone time, five bedrooms and DH is turning a downstairs room he was using as his “catchall” room into a virtual reality room. There are cameras in five or six places to triangulate the person wearing the gear, and several screens on the walls. The room is about 12 x 13, and is an interior basement room with no windows so it is perfect for that use. It has a 9 ft ceiling so it doesn’t feel cramped. We will be able to play tennis, golf, basketball, take trips, and sit in on pre filmed surgeries, among many other VR activities, in that room.

OT -- my youngest will be a TCU 2020 grad! We LOVE Fort Worth! So thankful they rescheduled graduation for August.

Well, my grandmother’s house was ideally made for this. You can come in from the garage or the side porch to a large “utility room”, which had a big concrete double sink, bathroom, and back stairs by the side door. The stairs lead to the upstairs hall, with the “maid’s room” as the first room, and two halls before the next bedroom. The utility room also had washing machines and a fridge-freezer, then led to the kitchen. It would have been perfect during this time.

My parents’ house wasn’t so different. As long as you have a place to wash up, and maybe change clothes and even shower, you can enter the rest of the house clean.

@ks92

I feel bad for those graduating this spring. I have so many wonderful memories of things like the senior toast, graduation parties, etc. :(

Consider that whatever problems we face in the future aren't likely to be copycats of our current pandemic. The last scare of this sort was 1918-1919. We're quite fortunate right now that we have utilities and communication -- it's possible that a future problem could mean no water or electricity, and that brings a whole different set of problems.

It makes sense to plan for generalized emergencies.

I would find a way to put in a self-contained mudroom that could also function as a disinfecting room.

This would be useful for someone who is working /coming home each day, and it's something that's useful in everyday non-crisis life, so -- yes -- this makes sense.

It would have a wet room area ... There would be a place to safely store clean clothes and deposit dirty ones.

Wouldn't it make more sense to place the master bath off the mudroom so you could walk straight into your own bathroom /on into your own bedroom ... without duplication of spaces? If the laundry room could be nearby, all the better.

I question the idea of storing clean clothes in an area you plan to use for cleaning up /dumping dirty clothes.

I would figure out a way to put a temporary door on my husband's office.

Sounds like you're describing a pocket door. Pocket door with a transom? Even before this crisis, we've seen more and more people working from home, so an at-home office (maybe even two) makes perfect sense.

Something I'd never considered before: With Zoom and Microsoft Teams taking over the world, whatever office area you have ought to be designed with a "professional backdrop". I've been video-conferencing in front of my French doors, but a few of my colleagues are chatting from some interesting locations -- beds visible in the background, laundry rooms, etc.

3. On the plus side, we have a downstairs master suite that I plan to set aside for quarantine if necessary.

I can't buy into this one. You've been living with your spouse prior to the illness, so IF one of you gets sick, the other is all-but-certain to get it too -- and you're still sharing a kitchen. I don't see much value here.

I tried to convince my husband that we needed to buy a tall, standing freezer but was unsuccessful.

Food storage of some sort just makes sense -- is your husband against a large freezer, or freezers in general? I bought my freezer from Craigslist, and it only cost $40.

Regardless of what type of emergency we face in the future, having food on hand is going to be useful. Consider that food doesn't have a forever lifespan, so it also makes sense to have some sort of "rotation plan". Consider, too, that in a crisis you want some comfort foods, and you may or may not have utilities with which to cook -- it's best to store some things that you could cook on a camp stove or grill. Ideally you'd have a variety of foods -- if you have loads of frozen food, and the electricity goes out, you may lose a lot of that food. If you have a variety of stored foods, you're mitigating your chances of loss.

Along with food, storing basic medicines, cleaning supplies and paper products is smart. We've all heard about toilet-paper being hard to find -- at least this particular virus doesn't bring diarrhea; the next one might. I had never once considered that masks and gloves might be useful as well.

As I said above, some future emergency could include loss of utilities. We're fortunate right now that we're enjoying lovely spring weather and can get outside -- but if it were mid-winter, would you have something to keep yourself warm? If it were summer and you couldn't run fans /air conditioning, how would you manage to stay reasonably comfortable? Gas, batteries, etc. could be the items we really want in whatever emergency hits us in the future.

Last thought that makes me sound like a crazy prepper: Consider that stocking up like crazy isn't the be-all, end-all -- your next emergency could be personal instead of world-wide (that is more likely). Your next emergency could be a house fire that destroys all those nicely planned items, or it could be loss of a job /all that stored food would be very welcome then. So you want to balance a-house-full-of-stored-items against money-in-the-bank. And you want all your critical documents to be in a fire-proof safe OR scanned /stored digitally so you could retrieve them. You can't easily predict what you'll need in an emergency. The two things my brother needed most immediately after his house burned? Eyeglasses and shoes to wear home from the hospital. His next needs? Replacement ID (couldn't get money out of the bank without it) and replacement keys to his car.

Generalized preparation just makes sense.

This new temporary lifestyle is making lots of us rethink how our houses are set up. I’ll be interested to see if changes do occur in future homes.

I doubt we'll see houses change much, but I do think people may start keeping their houses a bit better supplied -- we are awfully spoiled with our "pop out to the market to pick up this or that out-of-season item for which we're pining".

I feel bad for those graduating this spring. I have so many wonderful memories of things like the senior toast, graduation parties, etc. :(

Yes, my youngest says she'll be satisfied if I just make her a German Chocolate Cake on May 8th, which should've been her graduation day, but I know she's feeling bad that her diploma will just come in the mail.

I'd definitely want storage for bulk items. I've been trying to get us an emergency supply of food, water & batteries, first aid, etc in case of the 'big one' they say we'll have sometime. So I'd definitely have a built in storage area in the garage where bulk items could live and where I'd be able to access them from the kitchen.

We don't have a need for a mud room, but I could see where a wet room would be excellent!

If I weren't planning to retire this year, I'd definitely convert my home office into a better working space. It's currently set up as a personal office/craft room but my actual WORK is a different animal. I'm lacking a good space to spread out, keep my essential reference books and tools. Plus I would want a much more ergonomic set up and a bed for my dog, so she wouldn't be lying under the rollers of my chair.

All I can say, as the mom of a college sophomore and hs junior...thank GOD we didn’t downsize! We are so grateful that we have comfortable spaces for dh, ds, and dd to do their work AND the fact that we have a nice yard and outdoor living spaces. We have friends that downsized to a townhouse, and now have both of their college students home. My friend said they are on top of each other, and since all of their planned travel was cancelled for the foreseeable future...she is a bit depressed.

I think that one takeaway from this forced time at home will be that people will start moving away from the “tiny house” trend.

We don't have a true mud room but our house is a basement entry house with the living space and bedrooms on the second floor.

We walk through the front entrance and then straight into the laundry room that has a fridge, a table and a sink and a bathroom right beside it. That is where we are unloading and washing up before heading upstairs with our clean groceries.

Downstairs is also where my DH has his office so he's out of my way. (Did I just type that?) And I'm upstairs out of his way. :)

While it isn't ideal and I certainly wouldn't plan a house in this way it's working well during this time.

We have been expecting that we would put our primary home on the market when the youngest graduates HS, so next summer. All of my friends in NYC say that, if they don't already have one, NY'ers have learned they "need" a weekend place and/or that they may choose to work from home more regularly and just need ready access to the city.

I can already see the real estate ad in my mind's eye. Our house has always offered a lot for those who want privacy and space, and some degree of self-sufficiency I'd say. We have good acreage and most of it is fenced in. Social distancing is automatic ... we are on 10 acres and so is the house across from us and the house behind us. We have a whole house generator with a very large, dedicated underground propane tank. We have our own well and elaborate water filtration system (the water is excellent quality but hard). We have a good sized fenced garden with raised beds, a large pond stocked with trout, and the PO used to keep chickens (maybe we will again). There is a ton of recreation, with a private pond big enough to kayak, swim and fish, a second koi pond, a tee box, and indoor pool. Our house has an unusual meandering layout but partly as a result we have a means to enter from outside right into an area with shower and laundry, and of our 6 BR we have two "quarantinable" bedrooms at opposite ends of the house that are not near anyone else and have bathrooms. For WFH and HS, we have a home office with two desks, a sitting room now being used as an office, and even a dining room that can be used as an office ... all have doors that shut.

I always say, if the revolution happens the whole thing will be carved up into several apartments for well-connected comrades. Otherwise hopefully it will continue to be a well loved family home, perhaps for those with an above-average survivalist bent.

I always thought one of the best things about our old house was that it was self sufficient. And electric gated. We didn’t stock the pond with anything other than carp but the POs had bass and bream. And catfish :( We were about to convert to 80% solar so we would have no public utilities, until DH got sick. We had always told our kids they could come back and ride out the revolution there. At the time I was joking but it Now it doesn’t seem so funny. There is already resource related unrest in several parts of the world.

We got lucky in just having finished our basement a month or so before the self-isolation recommendations started. The basement rec room area has gotten more use that I could have imagined with virtual dance, gymnastics, and yoga classes through Zoom, as well as karate practice and other activities that require a large space. With a tiny living room, it would have been next to impossible to participate in some of the activities that are keeping us sane.

We've always purchased dry goods like hoarders because I bake a lot and my husband lives by the boy scout motto "always be prepared," but with the basement finished we now have a nice canning/dry goods closet with plenty of space for the 50 lb. bags of flour and grains that we order in bulk. We also have a chest freezer in the basement and a beverage fridge with some extra fridge space for stocking up on groceries.

Our mudroom is tiny, but we're fine with just washing hands and taking reasonable precautions on the rare occasions we venture out to grocery shop.

We moved to our retirement home nearly two years ago. DH really wanted a screened porch, but we never sit out there as he imagined we would. I think he’s sat out there for 15 min. once in the two years. It’s really just a repository for his plants. He’d rather be up in his loft puttering or watching TV. We watch some movies and series together but usually have different tastes.

My plan is to turn it into an addition to the house—-a sunroom, but one that can be closed off and will serve as my TV room. I watch now in the LR but it’s open concept so if he’s in the kitchen or going in and out I’m interrupted.

I was going to start getting estimates but now will wait until the end of summer depending on how things go. I’d also like to make some modifications to the kitchen so may tack that onto the sunroom project.

@Mrs Pete

The location of the garage where I want to make my mudroom makes much more sense given our house layout. We have two kids who bike a lot and they could clean themselves in the mudroom before coming into the house to do so if we had one. Our master suite is at the other end of the house. It's a pain to do so but we can get to our master suite through our storage area off the driveway and all the way across the patio to the patio door to our master bedroom. I'd prefer to just disinfect in a mudroom.

While we're only on 0.48 acres, our neighborhood is great for sheltering in place because it's gated so we don't get through traffic, solicitors, or outside people walking their dogs in our neighborhood. We got a lot of solicitors and outside dog walkers in our previous two neighborhoods. I feel safe allowing my kids to bike ride every day and walk the dog because social distance is easy. Our neighborhood also has a catch and release fishing pond and a nature trail that we can enjoy.

If I weren't planning to retire this year, I'd definitely convert my home office into a better working space.

Yes, we're very close to retirement too, so our "home office" in our new house will be one large desk in the mudroom ... but if we were younger /had years of work ahead of us, we'd definitely make a home office a priority.

My friend said they are on top of each other, and since all of their planned travel was cancelled for the foreseeable future...she is a bit depressed.

To be fair, I think a lot of people who aren't living in close quarters are a bit depressed right now too.

Our mudroom is tiny, but we're fine with just washing hands and taking reasonable precautions on the rare occasions we venture out to grocery shop

Reasonable is a good word.

Our master suite is at the other end of the house. It's a pain to do so but we can get to our master suite through our storage area off the driveway and all the way across the patio to the patio door to our master bedroom. I'd prefer to just disinfect in a mudroom.

I hear what you're saying, especially since the house already exists -- but if you were creating this from scratch, your plan could be more streamlined.

I feel safe allowing my kids to bike ride every day and walk the dog because social distance is easy.

I live in a large neighborhood connected to several other large neighborhoods, so we've always had lots of walkers ... but I think we have more people walking /walking dogs these days. I don't think people are coming in from other neighborhoods ... I've been here 20 years, and I know most of the people's faces, if not their names; rather, with everyone being at home, people are taking advantage of one of the few ways to get out of the house safely.

We farm (beef cattle and crops) in western Canada and finished building a new house the other year. Family, friends, and neighbors thought we should have downsized, but the house has been perfect for our family of five, even before a pandemic.

Some things that have been a huge improvement over our old house, a small 1950s bungalow, and that work well during the current situation -- our garage includes a large mudroom, a full bathroom with shower, a secondhand restaurant supply stainless steel sink, the refrigerator from our old house, three large chest freezers, and an old secondhand washing machine for chore clothes. Under the garage we have a cold room for storage for home canned goods and root vegetables. We also have three large tanks to store rainwater, because we've been through droughts over the years (including a three-year drought in the late 90s-early 2000s). Hopefully we don't get a national or global emergency where we *need* water, but just in case it's nice to have.

The new house has a walk-in pantry just inside the garage/mudroom door, off the kitchen. I've always bought in bulk on sale because when things get busy around here with farming, there's no time to go shopping. So the pantry was well stocked in February before we started calving. Across the hall from the pantry is a full bathroom with shower, which has always been handy. That bathroom contains our broom/cleaning closet.

We planned a lot of things -- the shower and washing machine in the garage, the shower by the garage entrance -- to be a first- and second-defense at keeping farm/garden dirt (soil, chaff, and things like motor oil and grease) out of the house.

Our three young adult kids live with us. Our sons, who are 19 and 21, farm with us and the older one just finished up another year of his carpentry apprentice studies, and have their bedrooms and a living room in the basement, which has a separate door to the garage. Our daughter who's 23 had been working in events in the city for a company that started to struggle, so she changed jobs/moved home in December and is living in the granny suite. She spends most of her time with us in the main house. She's the only person working in town (she was doing events/marketing for what is now an essential service and has now transitioned to crisis comms). I make meals for the whole family three times a day (also sending food over to my mother-in-law and some neighbors regularly), and two of the kids like to bake. A lot.

I'm glad I didn't give in to Marie Kondo lol. We are very well provisioned with books, dvds, puzzles, and games, and are basically running a no-contact lending library for the extended family, neighbors, and friends : ) .

Becky wins!

Interesting you mention Marie Kondo. We are so much a product of our times. Can you imagine a depression-era person trying to decide to keep, say, a pair of socks, by checking if they "sparked joy."

My DH used to love to go to Costco, i never went and always hated the place. Not so sure there are deals there anyway. He would go pretty much just for paper products, trash bags, cleaning supplies and water. I would always complain. Why do you need to buy so much? I am not a warehouse! He's a nice man, he has not brought that up to me once.

I agree, Beckysharp FTW! But we are all extremely fortunate we can do any of this. So many people have no choice. Heck, even in our house, we only have 1.5 bathrooms. Our "master" bath is only a half.

Becky wins!

Only because farming in the back of beyond means we live a fairly isolated and self-sufficient life most of the time lol, and also have pretty strict biosecurity measures in place with all of our animals (cattle, sheep, chickens, geese, etc). I learned to make pizza at home 25 years ago because there was no takeout : ) . This is pretty much the way we live all the time. Depending on the time of year, I need to be able to feed a small army with little notice, whether we're calving, seeding, moving cattle, making hay, or harvesting. We also don't want the mess or smell from farming to make it into the house, ever.

Interesting you mention Marie Kondo. We are so much a product of our times. Can you imagine a depression-era person trying to decide to keep, say, a pair of socks, by checking if they "sparked joy."

This is something I think of often. My late grandmother, who lived through the Depression and WWII, came to live with us in the sixties in our small NYC apartment. She ended up staying in part because postwar life in communist central Europe had been so difficult, with some things rationed and others impossible to get. She was incredibly frugal until she died -- making amazing meals out of the cheapest cuts of meat (tripe, packages of turkey wings), darning socks, never ever paying full price, and saving useful bits and bobs (she was the original re-gifter lol). It was an incredible education, esp since I ended up living somewhere where it's not always easy to find what you want, when you want it, at a good price.

My latest handy save was my daughter's hair detangler spray bottle. It's small -- the perfect size for isopropyl alcohol. So I washed it and repurposed it.

Last summer when my husband realized the package of athletic socks he'd bought were too small with lousy elastic, I started wearing them. He'd worn several pairs before he realized that they were no good, which means we couldn't take them to the Goodwill store, and if they were too small for him they were too small for the boys. But they're fine for me in the garden with rubber boots or sneakers, and it means I get to save my newer, better socks for trips to town : ) .

I am not a warehouse! He's a nice man, he has not brought that up to me once.

More than once since moving here, and especially during the pandemic Great Toilet Paper Situation, I've thought about how my mother and grandmother used to buy toilet paper in Manhattan. We had a Sloan's supermarket around the corner and for our family of five with one bathroom, they would buy one or two rolls at a time, individually wrapped in paper. I laugh every time I think of it!

We purchased 3.5 acres 11 years on one of the Southern Gulf Islands, BC/Canada (PNW) we started our build in March 2016, with us first doing the house lay out, and then clearing it with his own excavator. The house is an ICF build, we had a contractor take it to lock up, with hubby working along side of the crew almost every day. Once they were done to lock up, Hubby contracted out the insolation, drywall & electric,our eldest son did the plumbing rough in for us.

Hubby is a PEng and this was our 2nd build, so we were not new to the process, but living off an island of another island, did present a longer time to get stuff done,

There is only the 2 of us, as our 2 sons live in different areas of the province and being retired makes things a bit easier, because it is an island off another island, we were fairly well stocked when we were told to "stay home" order by the province of BC, I have been shopping locally at the little grocery store, I go once a week. The good thing is that this has made me use all the items that are in my fridge/freezer. I haven't had to go down to shop yet & use items out of it.

We passed our occupation permit in May 2019, we still have a few things to finish off, but after hubby & one worker doing 95% of all the interior work, he needed a break, along with he injured his shoulders removing a large fir tree that fell onto our pump/electric house- the whole island was without power for 9 days, us 10. We have a small generator that we use for power outages, the house is wired for a larger one to be hooked up & will be placed down in the shop.

We have mudroom at the back entry, which goes into a large open floor plan ( here are some photos from the build, https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/107080130/list/new-build-gabe)

if need be I guess i could go around to use the entry into the laundry room, as it has a separte entry which when building, we referred to it as the door door, room, as we had 2 german wired hair pointers but we now are dog less. The laundry room is not finished, we need to add the laundry sink & counter/cupboards, once that is done it would be easy to make that an entry point for placing & disinfecting items before bring them into the rest of the main areas, as it seals off .

We are now in discussion after 8 weeks, of going into "town" which is an 20 minute ferry ride to do a large shop for items, as I believe that we are going to be in self islolation for awhile, when we go, we will go with masks & gloves and only go to Costco & one of the larger chain grocery stores. here are the stats so far as Sunday>>

British Columbia
Confirmed
1,445Recovered
879Deaths
58

>> of this there are 82 cases on VI,

Canada
Confirmed
25,548Recovered
7,663Deaths
767

all & all, I think that there isnt much I would have changed in our house build, our driveway is long and we dont get any lookie loos up this way anymore, when we first purchased the property we did, but now that most of the lots have sold, it doesnt happen as much.

Future plans include a gate for our driveway.

Since more than a half century separates me from our last child at home, and half that for his mom, the main change would be a quarantine space for mois: in home, long-term senior care, as it were!

And an in-home gym. So far just a few weights and a pro treadmill.

I LOVE my mud room/dog room/laundry room/camping storage room!!! It is one of the front BR’s on this house, accessible from the entry hall, and slightly bumped out form the body of the house, enough that we could put a narrow door in the side for direct access off the front porch, so the dog did not have to come in the front door, and I could come in that way from the barn.

I live alone so not any real changes here... unless that would change. Actually since I am raising chickens, I consider my walk out basement to be my mud room, and there is a bath down there with running water...

Fortunately my wine refrigerator was delivered in February. So, I'm set. Can't think of anything else I need. Fast strong internet and easy, smooth wine.

French doors on the office space downstairs so DD could work in a different location than her bedroom. Today DD was in one space on a conference call and DH was in the living room talking with one of his customers.

@Lyndee Lee I think a lot of people wish they had a less open floor plan right now. My husband is working in our covered patio right now.

In order to most comfortably shelter in place I would need a bathroom in a corner of the garage.

What I have right now. We enter through the front door and there is a laundry room directly ahead of us. That doesn't work for washing up privately and throwing everything into the laundry.

This is what I wish we could have. We have a remote that works for the garage door so we could enter there and divest ourselves of our clothes and shower. A much better choice to my mind. There is enough room in our garage though the plumbing wouldn't line up with any other bathroom plumbing. There just is not enough room in the laundry room to put even a shower stall. The laundry room shares a wall with the in-law suite bathroom and plumbing though. Maybe we could put a drain in the bottom of the shower laundry room floor and add a shower but no toilet?

Another fantasy of mine is an automatic opening front door. In other words use a remote for the front door and have it open. I have to take things in and wash them in the laundry room. If I can't do a bathroom in the garage which I would prefer at least I would like to go straight into the laundry room with the door opening and then closing behind me without my touching anything besides the remote which I can wipe off.

The next fantasy situation would be I would like to have 3 in-law suites so to speak and have all of my sisters here. Two of which live alone and are unable to look after themselves very well. One has a multitude of physical illnesses and one has physical illnesses plus a mental disability. We work very well together for the most part and I would worry less that way. Not a day goes by without my thinking about how I could safely take care of them. It's not possible but it is hard not to want to do it.

I know we are having some fun with this, but do keep in mind for many people this isn't even a remote possibility.

Housing and other inequality exposed

do keep in mind for many people this isn't even a remote possibility

To be fair, that's true for most GW/Houzz projects even when there's not a pandemic.

I empathize with Gsciencechick's article but am not surprised that more posts here haven't mentioned technology access. That's the main marker of have's and have not's in this pandemic.

This current situation depresses me because of what the suburban sprawl of the past 50 or so years has contributed to trends in consumerism, environmental damage, family life, income disparity, this mostly unwarranted need to "stock up," etc. The way we build and live in many homes is so wasteful. I was hoping the small house trend would continue so my kids' generation would recognize a more responsible and sustainable range of square footage in living space. Unfortunately, their memories of this pandemic will reinforce suburbia and the need to prepare for the worst case scenario. Personally, when this is over, I will continue to value a more urban style of living. But I acknowledge this as I ride out this quarantine in a 3-level home with healthy internet access and multiple devices.

One of the reasons we, and most of our neighbors in this part of rural western Canada, tend to prepare for worst case scenarios is that we can't count on uninterrupted electrical service (usually because of weather, or birds) and don't have high-speed broadband. Our internet service is also prone to weather-related outages. We have an incubator filled with duck eggs at the moment and the generator at the ready, since we're expecting some heavy wet spring snow tomorrow, the kind that takes down trees and power lines.

Our rural area of the province was one of the last to get broadband, and while we still marvel at the speed and ease, it's nowhere near as fast or reliable as it is in the larger urban areas. Right now, one of us works in town during the day, and three spend most of their time, all day and through the night, with farm chores and calving. If all five of us were home, with at least three out of the five of us with pandemic-related school and/or work at home requiring internet, we'd be totally out of luck. At the moment, I'm the one who's mostly using internet, dealing with orders for beef, lamb, broilers, eggs, and heritage wheat.

One thing that I haven't heard mentioned in the past month or so is the high cost of cell phone service in Canada compared to other countries,

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadian-cell-phone-bills-are-among-the-most-expensive-on-the-planet

Yes, there are geographic challenges in technology access, which you explain, Becky, but this pandemic is underscoring the financial disparity of technology access in places where it's readily available. I had a conversation with someone the other day whose answer was to hand out tablets with the free school lunches in Chicago, and I just... couldn't... even explain... how utterly ridiculous that idea was.

We have many students who are sharing computers and wi-fi with everyone in their house, and some are doing their homework on their phones. Computers were offered to students before break--extra ones were ordered, but not everyone took advantage of that. Also before break a month ago they were told computer labs would be open and at that time going to places like Starbucks and McDonald's were still options. This was going to be two weeks but has turned out to be the rest of the semester. Also, internet speeds in more rural areas are super slow and won't work with software like Zoom and GoToMeeting.

My older son doesn't go to a wealthy school district but they've done a great job with the resources they have. They are offering pick up once a day for three meals and they purchased 1.000 hot spots to distribute to district families. They also reformatted the district Chromebooks that are usually on school carts and have handed them out to families. If for some reason that doesn't work, they've offered paper handouts you can pick up when you pick up meals.

My local school district has Chromebooks. I was talking with a local teacher and she said one of her students does not have internet at home. Here the students can go sit outside the school building and access the wifi but that only works if someone has a person at home who can bring them to the location.

Once again, I'm late to the party...

Several have mentioned how thankful they are to have large houses for quarantine, but my husband and I do just fine with our very small (under 800 sq. ft.) house. Of course, part of what makes it work so well is that we're on 4 mostly wooded acres about 30 miles outside of the city on a dead-end road with a locked driveway gate. The only thing I would change about our house would be an outside door to the laundry room (my husband works in a hospital, so putting his clothes directly into the washer would be good), and a large pantry. We have always grown much of our own vegetables, but as it is, we have to plant in succession.

Social distancing is perfectly fine when you live in paradise. I gather with friends via Zoom, but socializing is limited to my husband and our dogs and horses — instead of quantity, I have quality. We also share our woodland with deer, coyotes, black bear, owls, eagles, and other wildlife, but social distancing is a given with them!

I would love a mud room. It’s not feasible in our home without major surgery.

Just saw this article and thought it might fit with this thread historical development of bathrooms due to infectious disease. https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/04/bathroom-home-design-history-disease-hygiene-coronavirus/609745/