When our kids were little DH was all over the idea of hog grates and SS floor to ceiling in the kitchen and baths.

Bathrooms with floor drains are not uncommon in Europe. My hotel room in Italy had one. It was a wet room. Nice idea for a small space. Unfortunately evrything in the room gets wet when you shower. Had to keep towels and clothes outside the door. Maybe you learn to have good aim with the shower head and not splash much.

My neighbors put in a sauna and love it.

Any pictures of your dream rooms?

When my folks were planning their house, my mother had a book called ”The House in my Head”. The writer had designed her kitchen with a drain, to make it super easy to wash. My mom didn’t end up getting one in the kitchen, but the utility room has a closet with a tile floor and a drain, for letting laundry drip dry and mops and buckets to dry out.

I would love one of those hospital bathroom floors, that curve up the wall. I lived in a house where the bathroom floor tile had a similar curve where it met the wall, very easy to clean.

I visited friends in Sweden who had a sauna in the bathroom, I thought it was awesome and they said it was normal; if not in the bathroom, then somewhere in the house.

My favorite feature in many European homes I visited was the shower control: the dials had the actual temperature on them! (and a opportunity to practice the quickie-conversion of “double it and add 32”. Good enough for the shower, if not for science)

Sounds a lot like a "wet room"

The dish-drainer cabinet in the kitchen seems to be rather common, at least according to the old HGTv series of house-hunting or vacation-hunting in Europe. Not a bad idea, but i wouldn’t like it over my head at the sink. And what about the pots and pans etc? I guess they get dried the normal way, on the counter.

I love the Corian counter with integrated sink that came with our house! The stainless steel one would be cool, too.

All hard surfaces can seem very 'clinical', actually be cold, and and be noisy, too: Bang, clang, "Ouch!"

I've read about the concept of whole houses with interiors that could be 'hosed down' -- probably 1950's home magazines.

Old buildings often have visible piping and electric lines. These were add-ons to homes built prior to such conveniences. The 'loft look' was big in the US for a time, with everything exposed, including the brick walls.

We see-saw between excess and extreme minimalism.

I like some of those ideas but not my clean clothes in the bathroom where a toilet is flushed.

We lived in a rental once that had a "wet room" bathroom. Had anyone ever used it, the shower spray would've hit the person and toilet equally. In practicality, we never used it due to the awkward design. I also thought that it's bad enough squeegeeing or dealing with hard water deposits on shower walls, but dealing with hard water issues in an entire wet room? no thanks.

Between the two, I’d rather have the washer in the bathroom than in the kitchen, where it often is in Europe.

So, why cant we have some of these options here in the US? If you want something different like that here in teh US, you are going to have to get very creative on your own, or get some high end speciality design service.

There it seems to be pretty much common.

I love really practical and simple stuff and ways of doing things.

Why anyone ever thought that it made sense to run water pipes through walls and ceilings is something that I just cant understand.

My dad built a couple of the houses that we lived in and he alwasy put all of his plumbing back to back and all in one area. This tract house that we live in had water pipes running out to a faucet in the back that went through so much dry wall that could have been damaged if it leaked, and the hose bibb that it serviced was not even in a useful place. Just ridicuous way to build something! But it matched some plan for the tract house and didnt have to make sense because no one was ever going to held accountable for sloppy and poor design.

I've seen this company's products on Instagram, and I must say I am intrigued. Faucets that display the temperature, sinks with watefall faucets, etc. Pretty neat.