Cool features for a house?

[The Artist]

Renovating a house, 3 bed end of terrace with a couple of extra rooms downstairs + workshop + lots of space outside.

Whenever I research ideas for house renovations, they are all so painfully boring. Stupid furniture with spindly legs and grey everything.

Does anyone here have any interesting ideas for a feature or thing that perhaps they weren't allowed to do?

Most rooms are blank canvas. I don't want to do a bar as I would never use it.

The only idea I have at the moment is the cellar will be a man cave with projector, speakers, sound treatment etc.

[struan80]

A hot tub maybe if there's room. I knew a guy who had two Ducati's in his livingroom as show pieces perched there.

My house is dull grey.

[The Artist]

[struan80]

Being the Artist you should have some good ideas.

[Rob Fzs]

GS125 hung from the ceiling with threaded bar
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Mod 2 Passed 09/06/2011

[Easy-X]

Spiral staircase: fiendishly impractical but visually striking.
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[stinkwheel]

Tiki bar. Even if you never use it.

Ok, a silly one I'm pleased with. I used doors with windows in for every door leading into the upstairs hall then fitted different textured/refractive "privacy film" on each door which I think looks pretty cool and lets a whole load more light in.

I also want to make the guest room more like a ships cabin. Possibly even with provision for a hammock.

Projector screen instead of a TV so the focus of the living room is on the other people in the room, not the one eyed god in the corner. Screen rolls up out of the way when not in use.

Space invaders coffee table.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Robby]

Inside:
Good big benches in the workshop with lots of plug sockets.

Arcade

Outside:
Wipe-clean orgy mat

[stinkwheel]

I am also very pleased with my kitchen/diner area. I floored it with proper linoleum (not vinyl floor covering, the actual linoleum, got a mosaic section in and everything). Had it totally emptied then did the floor to the edges of the walls and the walls down to the edges of the floor, tiles in the kitchen half with the linoleum bent up to meet it, normal plaster in the diner half.

Then I used free standing units and cupboards throughout. Made the kitchen units from welsh dressers which I painted and replaced the top with wooden kitchen worktop. Used the plate racks as bookshelves/bedroom shelving elsewhere in the house by screwing them to the wall. Set a balfast sink into one of them and a free-standing range style cooker. Couple of free standing pantry cabinets for food storage and a moveable butchers block. Microwave, pans and kettle/tea making stuff on open shelves made from leftover worktop. Kitchen utensils on a sort of chandelier thing with butchers hooks handing over the worktop.

All looks really well in our 50's ex council house and cost a fraction of the cost of a fitted kitchen. The only cabinet you can't really move is the sink unit but it's only attached by the two water pipes and the drain going out through the wall.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Robby]

Whilst I do like Stinkwheels description of using mostly scavenged or repurposed stuff to make a kitchen, a fitted kitchen is cheap.

I think I paid about £1000-1500 for a mid range ikea one, 3 years ago. I spent more than that on some decent appliances, and fitting the kitchen took me about a week.

It only get expensive when you have to pay someone else to do things.

[stinkwheel]

[RhynoCZ]

As you already mention projector, speakers, sound treatment etc., I'm going to say snooker table, a pool table if you can't fit the snooker one.
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[mentalboy]

Scrap one of the bedrooms and knock through into the bathroom, then put in a walk-in shower large enough for an orgy and the biggest sauna bath tub you can get in the house without taking down an outside wall.

I am currently in the planning stage for turning a small room that has the water heater in it's corner into somewhere tailor made for brewing, as it's a pain in the arse taking over the kitchen, setting up and breaking down every time I want to brew.
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Make mine a Corona.

[weasley]

Think about where you want plugs and othe cables and run them whilst you have the opportunity - power, Ethernet etc.

Outdoors kitchen - pizza oven, tandoor and/or similar.

Open plan living space - we knocked a load of walls down to create a kitchen/dining/living space.
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[stinkwheel]

[The Artist]

[virus]

[stinkwheel]

British Heart Foundation shops provided a lot of my furniture and white goods when I moved in.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[The Artist]

[virus]

[P.]

I have grand plans in our place. The garage/workshop can fit 3 cars so size wise its massive but thats an ongoing project. Trying to get a small part as a gym in there, nothing mad just cross trainer, softer floor, few weights and a little bench, but the rest is going to be epoxy floor, little workshop and bike storage.

Inside though, if you are renovating, I am currently working on automated lighting via LED strips in recessed areas, like staircase, the wood trims along the edge have been routed ready for diffused light bars, but aim is it runs through the whole house (time permitting)
That all gets controlled via 2 touchscreens.

The aim is to link it into the emergency batteries if the power goes out so we have some lighting as we live in the darkest place I have ever seen and when lights are off there is ZERO light pollution from anywhere else, if the moon isn't out its pitch black.

Lighting and tech is cool for me, its all home written code (so you can do absolutely anything, literally) for dimming, zones, all haptic touch/swipe and switches for the rooms so you can dim the lights but running your finger over.. it really makes the older house we have feel a bit more fresh.

I'd like an arcade cabinet room but we need the kitchen and floor sorted first

tl;dr - if you are ripping things out, do some cool lighting shit.

[Robby]

Hot water store is a good shout.

Solar therm panels are a possibility, but I wouldn't bother. Just get as many solar PV panels as you can, storage battery, heat pump. You'll need an immersion heater if you go down this route, heat pumps don't make enough heat to provide it on demand.

You can get heat pump immersion heaters, they're quite sweet but too pricey to bother with still.

Electric car charging point on the driveway.

Assuming you replace the consumer unit, get one with a lot of spare sockets to expand into. The future is electric.

I'm a fan of doing surface mount plug sockets with the wiring running in metal surface mount conduit. Future alterations are a lot easier without having to channel into walls.

[Dave....]

Fitted a central vacuum cleaner system. Dont get excited about much but this is great.
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[Nobby the Bastard]

A feck off gert slide down the stairs.
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[Ste]