Our master bedroom was on the main floor in the last house, but upstairs in this one. We have three children ages 6 - 15, each of whom have a bedroom on the second floor. I much preferred the master on the main living level. In our next house, the master will definitely be back to the main floor. Chisue, Not to get off topic, but I hope you don't mind answering a question. I read your post above about building a 2 bedroom home with a large attic for future expansion, for resale. We are kind of planning that with our next house but for financial reasons. My DH's job requires relocation every few years. This is our 6th house in 16 years. Chances are good that he will get transferred in the next year. Now that the kids are older they do not want to move AGAIN. So our plan is to sell the current home (4500 sq ft) and build a smaller home in the same school district, with 2500 on main level with about 1300 unfinished on second floor. We would buy a townhouse for DH in the new location and he would only come home on weekends. The financial burden of operating two homes is the need to figure out how to cut costs. The kids and I would live on the main level and I would GC the finishing of the second level, while doing as much as possible of the work ourselves. So now that I have given you too much background, my question(s) is(are)... how much did you have to pay per sq ft for the unfinished attic space? It would be nice if I could just figure 2500 x $X sq ft, but I'm sure the extra framing and higher roof line will cost something, as well as materials to cover the extra exterior height. I'm sure it seems silly to ask questions when we don't know if/when a transfer will happen but once it does he is usually gone within the week and the company only covers his expenses for 90 days. I always have a file on hand with as much info as possible so I will be prepared when the time comes. Besides, I love the planning aspect of a new house!

My current house is "reversed" as well. It's 3-stories/five levels to maximize the ocean views. First level is the foyer/garage, half-flight up is the master facing the ocean, half up from that are two guest rooms facing the street, half up is a story-and-half great room facing the ocean (over the master bedroom footprint). Half-flight up from that is the kitchen, dining room and library, all with ocean and street views. Every morning, looking at the sunrise and dolphins in the waves I know it's worth it to carry groceries all the way up!

Technical writers are woefully under-employed in all fields! We didn't find the manual for the heater, found most of the others that we filed when we moved in here. And finding a schematic on line for our furnace, Armstrong Air Ultra V Advantage 93. Last winter we had to empty some tube that kept filling up with water, a pressure valve I believe, because the heater would stop firing when the water was full. We'd take a cup and pull the plastic hose off, let it drain into the cup and put the clearish plastic hose back on. Now my husband is finding another hose full of water, and it seems to be leading back to our humidifier, an Aprilaire 550. We've never (I know, I'm ashamed to admit it) done anything to service the humidifier or change the filter. This weekend we will spend some time reading up on the proper care and maintenance of the humidifier, including how to change the water panel evaporator (he just came upstairs saying those words--Google help me!) He's looking for some way to identify the circuit damper. There is no error code with the lights, they are blinking "normal." Slow and deliberate. We'll figure this out and learn along the way. In the meantime, we're spot-heating with our little electric woodstove-style fireplace. 'Tis cold in our neck of the woods tonight! If we need it, the heat will work. It just doesn't blow worth anything upstairs and now that we think about past performance, the downstairs vent doesn't blast us anymore when we sit in the chair near it. The heater runs for several minutes, kicks off for a short time, then does it again. Then we're at the temp set on the thermostat and good to go for awhile. Horribly inefficient. This is why our cooling bills were outrageous. I still cannot believe that we didn't figure this out in the summer.

In our first house we had one level, and W/D near the garage entry. Next and current house is 2-story with laundry room on 2nd floor, and I love it. But, it just depends on how you live and how you actually "do" your laundry. For us, by that time, our girls were school-aged. So I was not tending a baby and folding lots of little baby things. The upstairs is just great since the laundry is in the middle of the hall, with baths and BR's on either end, so all linens and clothes just go there. You can dash and get something from the dryer to put on, or a warm towel. I don't think it's as simple as "where you spend your time" with the exception of watching small children, but maybe more about how you attack the clean clothes, and whether you have bedrooms on 2 floors or all upstairs. Or maybe as pointed out, if you do 10 loads of laundry in one day, you then are having a real laundry project, like a cooking project, and tending it most of the day. So those habits and preferences will affect what works best. I spread my laundry loads throughout the week, and so tending 1 or 2 loads in a given evening overlaps with other trips up or down stairs to do other things. With the upstairs laundry, I bring a hamper to my room and fold clothes and towels and put them directly in the closets/drawers. I may use the bed to make piles of folded stuff. I listen to radio or talk with my husband or just, you know, think deep thoughts. (Girls (esp in past years) take hampers to room and who knows what they do then? Not my problem). There is room in the laundry to fold there, so I might do some towels there, but otherwise I don't, since I would then have to just stack stuff in hamper and bring back and dig out again. So, I prefer my current system to an off-the kitchen system in which I'd haul stuff upstairs or fold stuff on the sofa. I don't have a mudroom and wish I did. I think that definitely influences laundry gameplans, since then you have other advantages of the mudroom and how your organize the flow of clothes and stuff. If one or more family members have to deal with dirty work clothes/uniforms, or maybe just active kids and sports stuff, that can be an advantage if you are organizing the clothes and shoes off upon entry. I guess you have to put on a robe or something to come trouping through the living room after stripping? But for those who have less frequent "toxic" clothes, you could just have a drop-off hamper at the entry point. I think it's less universal than kitchen design, which while still very personal, has the somewhat universal issues of work triangles and door-openings and things for the basic layout, and then moves on to more preference-based issues for how and where you eat, do homework, watch TV.