lol... I will be wowed when we actually get to begin building! :)

I guess our special thing is that we have a room 2.5 stories up that will be our "view room." it has windows on three sides to take in the panoramic views.

The impulse to wow factors should be viewed with skepticism towards its end effect of visual overload. And budgetary overload. Restraint is a far more powerful tool in creating a home that will be enjoyed for decades to generations.

TOTALLY agree, Mark! "Wow factors" lose their "wow" quickly (and often break quickly, too), but good design that functions properly. That's a daily "wow" for the owners!

On the other hand I designed a fire pole in a cottage to go from the second level down to the first level by the owner's request. The wife accused the husband of wanting it for other reasons. I try to stay out of those discussions.

I am hoping that our overall design and how it fits into the site and accommodates the way we live is the wow factor. We are adding a few special elements within our design to help us achieve our overall goal, but they aren't flashy like heated front steps.

Our wow will largely be our view out the back of our fields. We farm everything the eye can see from that view and in the far background is the river bluff. Up on a little hill in the distance is the cemetery where 6+ generations of both sides of our families are buried which overlooks the lands they owned and worked over the last 150+ years.

Great responses! @shead, that sounds so beautiful! We also farm, mostly in the Mississippi River bottoms. We live on the bluff and our view of the farmland is just amazing. Your spot sounds heavenly. When do you plan to build?

@Mark Bischak, Architect, that is a great answer, and I am in total agreement! I don't have any "wow" features, but I am going to love our functional home!

@Lynn Heins, we are just getting started. Subfloor is down. Walls hopefully will start going up next week.

Ours is not exciting... but fully insulated & dry walled garage, with drains in the floors & hot/cold water spigot in the garage. Dream come true in the winter!!

Lynn, add a heater to your garage! My dad has drains in each bay, and a heater, and the cars stay so clean, no icy globs in the wheel wells. And the cars are just warm enough when you get in. The heater takes it to about 35 or 40, just enough.

Dad also has a built-in tool shed. It’s attached to the house. It means the car bays weren’t taken over by garden equipment, and because it also faced the lake it could hold that stuff, too.

He has a sunken wet bar. Very 70s, but it’s something that everyone raves about.

Other than that, good design, that makes the approach to the house beautiful and welcoming, and a natural flow of spaces inside, is the best “wow”.

One of our "wow factors"...a front door that will actually be used by guests. The common way of installing driveways inherently leads guests to the garage where they will naturally want to walk through the garage into the house. We were very particular about site layout and how the driveways would function so that the non-resident portion leads to the front door.

This is the WOW factor in my current home...the view from my BR window. Unfortunately, I can’t take it with me to the new home we are building. I’m hoping I can create a nice garden, but I’ll miss my sunrise view over the Atlantic.

Our wow factor is our view. The rest of the house is simple.

My whole house is a wow for all the reasons Mark mentioned, plus a spectacular garden designed by a visionary

Cpartist, would you please post photos of your garden?

our view from Southern Gulf islands BC/CANADA

@Cheryl Hannebauer, that is gorgeous! I would dream of having a home there or anywhere along Vancouver Island :)

We put a towel warming drawer in our first build - right outside the shower. It's been a simple luxury to have a toasty towel ever day for 20+ years. In this build, the shower is large enough that we put a wet rated / outdoor warming drawer IN the side wall of the shower.

I would dream of having a home there or anywhere along Vancouver Island :)

A pair of ex-royal twits couldn't leave fast enough!

The wow factor from the house plan we "plopped" on our site is the view of the lake from every room, other than the master bath and mud/laundry.

A pair of ex-royal twits couldn't leave fast enough!

LOL.....I'm sure the locals were glad!

I'm hoping our beams and fireplace will be cool.

Our wow is the its front tower, and its 'castlehaus' vibe. The way the circulation paths let us roam without dodging furniture or other obstacles. The way the rooms are located so that sunshine wakes me up in the 'early bedroom' in the east, lets me sleep in in the master suite in the west, and lights up my home office at 2pm when I need a pick me up of sunshine as a boost. It's my office really being a library, and the fact its energy efficient and I don't have to turn on lights until the sun goes down.

Wow is in the livability! :)

shead,
yes the brother in law, who lives 5doors down from the property that the Sussex's were leasing has said the lookie loos have all gone away now.

Everything is a WOW! From the moment you stand at the entry porch and entry to the time you leave, it’s stunning. Even high end Seattle realtors were blown away and had ready cash offers from sportsmen looking for a home, an entertainers dream; despite being a very large home, not an inch of wasted space however a very open and spacious layout. Very meticulously designed by yours truely. At this time we are getting landscaping done hence can’t claim beautiful lawns etc. just yet.

The wow factor I like to design into homes is one that not obvious . . . a well done layout that meets needs and fits the site.

That's the best answer.

One of our "wow factors"...a front door that will actually be used by guests. The common way of installing driveways inherently leads guests to the garage where they will naturally want to walk through the garage into the house. We were very particular about site layout and how the driveways would function so that the non-resident portion leads to the front door.

I've said before, I don't think driveways /the approach to the house get nearly enough attention -- yet they're a guest's first impression of the house.

Totally agree with MrsPete about front doors, in the 26 years at our last house, very few guests used our front door entrance, I think the problem was the steps down from the garage to the lawn area, it was easier to take the sloping path on the other side of the garage to the back door. we haven't finished the front entrance steps & railing here yet, so it will be Interesting to see how it will work out here.

Cpartist, would you please post photos of your garden?

Here you go. We're on a city lot. 9100 square feet lot. Pics are in no particular order. We're on a corner lot so you're seeing front, side and back.

The oldest part of the garden was put in December 2018 and the newest the front was put in December 2019.

Gorgeous, cpartist! I wish horticulture was something I was interested in because I love seeing beautiful gardens but I have a black thumb and not enough time/interest in keeping one up. We used to own a lawn and landscaping business and DH would prefer to have none of it.....lol! I'll be lucky to get hydrangeas planted!

Thank you shead. I can't take credit for the gardens. I have a fabulous horticulturist. I gave her my wants and this is what she came up with.

I wanted it to bring in butterflies and birds.

I wanted it to look and feel like a cottage garden. No lined up plants in a row where all have rounded balls for the tops

Lots of color.

No grass! (The patch of grass in the backyard for the dog is fake grass.)

While I did do my own gardens in NY, I knew enough to know I had no clue about FL gardening and even more so, I had no clue about how to create a welcoming environment with hardscaping. That pathway in the last photo winds around from the bridge over my swale around to the side of the house and the driveway. (We are on a corner lot.)

While I'm fine pulling weeds and doing some light trimming, she and her assistant come once a week to do the majority of the work including fertilizing, etc. What I save in what I pay a landscaper, goes to her instead.

Our wow is the 16 foot slider that opens up on both sides letting in so much light and air. It was an excellent choice. I'm also exceptionally glad we flattened the lot and have a gigantic playing space for our kids and dog but also managed to have space for gardens.

And @worthy while there would have been something somewhat exciting about the royals settling here let's be honest a secluded spot on Vancouver Island doesn't really give them the public persona they are going to need to bring in the big bucks now that the purse strings are a little bit tighter. It is really no surprise they ended up in the US.

Cpartist, thanks for sharing the photos. Your garden is wonderful. I’m trying to figure out what to tell my landscape designer when she asks me how much time I will personally spend keeping up a garden. I know whatever I say will probably be a lot more than I’ll really do. 🤫 So, then the question is how much can I afford to have others do? After doing a lot of research on raised bed gardens and hothouse hydroponic gardens, I figured it will be more realistic for me to buy a couple of Miracle Gro AeroGardens so I can pretend to garden and have nice, clean lettuce and tomatoes. I am in zone 7a. Most of my neighbors have most of their lots devoted to grass. I’d like to avoid pesticides. I love how you devoted your backyard to an informal garden with no grass.

@cpartist your garden is really very stunning. The thing that is most impressive is that it is young, big picture, but looks so mature. I am in awe.

Mtpo, thank you. I'm in zone 9B. Big difference. My house in NY was 7A.

I know myself well enough to know other than walking around and pulling some weeds as I see them, or watering my container plants once or twice a week during the winter, (summer it rains daily) or clipping some of the vines so they don't overtake my palms, I'm not doing much much more of anything. I have some oregano, 2 pepper plants, 2 Florida cherry trees, and a potted Meyer lemon tree. Otherwise everything else if flowers and green. At most I'll spend 1 hour a week and that's plenty for me.

If I had a lawn, I would need someone to mow it and my horticulturist costs about the same for her weekly maintenance as it would have cost for someone to cut my lawn and botch cutting and weeding my garden. LOL

Actually the front and sides are the areas with no grass. The back has the pool and the fake grass for the dog. So much easier and no pesticides ever.

AS, thank you. It's easy here for a garden to look mature after only a year because it's sunshine year round and warm temps.

Here are a few pics from when it was first planted.

January/February 2019

January 2019

This was taken in Dec 2019

Wow that is wild! So amazing the growth. Beautiful.

@cpartist, is that lantana in the second pic? I love that plant because it is so easy to maintain, spreads easily, and attracts butterflies! DH would always put some of that at the end of our driveway at our old house because it fills in an area so nicely :)

CP really lovely. It's like an oasis. We have deer here to contend with. They'd have a feast on some of those plants.

https://www.houzz.com/user/cpartist

Looks lovely CP,

not sure what we will do here, as we have deer & wild rabbits &cant see us fencing off everything as we have 3. 5 acres, first step is to get some more fill in around the house and decide what to do along the front side/south , as it has the view to the pacific ocean, but we have left enough room for hubby to drive the truck or tractor across it to get to our wood sheds.. etc.. lots to do this spring/summer on our exterior landscaping.

Cheryl, the best thing I did was hire someone with expertise to figure it all out for me. She has a masters in horticulture and knows her stuff

Agreed that a well designed house is a wow factor in itself - you can tell when it works well and just "feels right". That is the priority

Once you get that right, shooting from the hip here are some things that I like/notice in new homes:

• Garage shop space - we spend a lot of time in our garages over here
• Heated garages, in floor heat, linear drains in garages. When people incorporate their garage space into entertainment
• really taking advantage of a good view. Making a great entertaining space
• landscaping you can tell a landscaping architect designed. Makes a huge difference for curb appeal and in areas you spend time outside
• 3 season rooms or screen porches
• multi-doors (not sure term?) nesting doors, folding, french, double sliders
• home theaters (when well designed)
• actual wine cellars
• secret doors/rooms/cupboards
• I'm a sucker for integrating vintage/reclaimed elements into a new house

I don't give a crap about huge bathrooms, steam showers, saunas, exercise rooms... there's probably more