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The goal is to have a house with the best design for the money, not necessarily the cheapest. But you could easily add or subtract from this design to hit almost any budget.

If you aren’t interested in house plan designs, and most of you aren’t, I hope you are interested in the process of “open design,” where hordes of people essentially guide the design. I started with a basic idea, and your comments have guided it.

Many of you complained about my two-story house plan. Having recently injured my knee playing tennis (not badly), I have a new level of sympathy for that view. What follows is a single-level design, with an optional basement, based on your comments.

Click to enlarge.

Based on your comments, I put the laundry room near the center of the action part of the house, so you can watch the kids and prepare meals without traveling to laundry Siberia and back. I even designed a rolltop window in the laundry room where you can do the ironing while facing out to the big screen TV. Noise wouldn’t be that big of a deal if you soundproofed the walls and only opened the rolltop window when others weren’t around. I retained the closets that open to bedrooms and to the laundry room. This house makes doing laundry almost fun. (And realistically, the person who does the laundry usually decides what house you live in.)

I moved the guest/kid bathroom to the end of the house. No one wanted it anywhere near the kitchen or living area.

I added a front porch because those are relatively inexpensive, energy friendly, and provide lots of outdoor enjoyment. This is the large and useful kind of porch, not the purely cosmetic type you see on new houses these days. And it faces the primary sun direction to keep the home cool.

I kept the storage room concept adjacent to the main living area, and added a door from storage to the garage, based on comments. This is the room that keeps all your party stuff, exercise equipment, holiday decorations, extra chairs and tables, and anything else you need to change the function of the living area on the fly.

If you aren’t sold on the storage room concept yet, and you have kids, imagine that it also contains what I call Toy Jail. Anything that isn’t picked up by the kids gets thrown in a big box (the Toy Jail) in the storage room.

There is one dining area, casual enough for every day, but imagine it designed with a restaurant ambiance, so you wouldn’t be embarrassed entertaining friends there either. And after dinner, the big screen comes down from the ceiling for a movie. A home theater seems like an excess, but prices are dropping fast, and if it is included in the original design of the house, and you plan to use it a lot, it makes sense.

The front entrance is off the family room, with a mud room, and a small foyer that is business only. Every inch of the home that gets heated or cooled is useful.

The Cat's bathroom is in the master bathroom. If you have allergic house guests, just lock the cat in the master bedroom and it has all it needs.

The home office is moved off toward the garage and kitchen side, and is on its own heating/cooling zone. It's close to the kitchen for convenience.

The optional basement steps are moved to near the entrance from the garage.

The game room is moved next to the family room, separated by a two-way fireplace.

All bedrooms have windows now.

Bathrooms reduced from five to two. You could always add them back to bedrooms without changing the overall design too much.

The master bedroom got a retreat/sitting area just to square things off.

So there it is, the ultimate house, designed by you. How’s it look now?