"-I always wanted a huge single fridge and freezer that attach together, but now I'm thinking it will be an eyesore since the plan calls for it to face towards the family room. "

I see this in "parade of homes" houses all the time, and every time, it makes me shudder. Personally, I don't think it's a good look. If you can buy a fridge and freezer that can blend into the cabinetry, it would be ideal. If not, putting one in the laundry is much better. (We did the latter.)

"Shower door-I like the idea of not needing a shower door, but is it cold without one? "

Depends - how big is the whole room the shower is in? We have a large shower in a large room... (I think the shower is 5 x 7 or similar----large!) If I leave the door open on the shower, it never feels warm. If I close the door, it's just fine.

My husband and I are waiting for about 12 months before we start building, already have the land picked a builder now just working on saving for a nice down payment. In the meantime we are activty looking for ideas... I have a friend who built a house recently, and he has a glass shower door...he said that it is such a pain to keep clean and he wishs he had one without a door.... my suggestiong would be to have a partial wall to keep out the cold??

Thanks for the input!

I already nixed the huge fridge. It will just take up too much space, especially since the large vent hood on the same wall takes out a couple of cabinets. The laundry room is right off the hallway of the kitchen so it's no big deal to store extra in a fridge there.

I think I'm going to ask the salesperson if he has gotten any complaints from people about the shower being cold. It's only open about two feet where the door is and surrounded by walls so it might be fine. I remember freezing in them when we were in Europe. Those were completely open though.

Brick. Practically maintenance-free, looks good, energy efficient. I would never choose anything else.

Good call on losing the oversized 'fridge.

As for the shower door, I'm going with a no-curb option (no lifting up your foot at all to enter -- I'm thinking of my grandmother, who had such trouble lifting her foot even a few inches), but I'm going to put in a door for warmth. Note that your shower must be at least 48" interior if you're skipping the curb.

As for cleaning the shower doors, put RainX on the doors when they're brand-new, and they'll not require cleaning. RainX will require 15-20 minutes of your time . . . maybe four times a year, depending upon how heavily your shower is used.

We had originally had mix between stucco, brick, and stone, but builder moved us away from stucco because it's expensive and as you mentioned, the maintenance

For the fridge, we are doing a French door fridge in the kitchen, and our older black side by side will be going into our laundry room..

We start our retirement home build on Tuesday of this coming week. We are planning on the walk-in shower with no glass doors. The house we are in now has a large shower with no doors and have no problems with this type of shower and I am cold-natured!!! I do not want glass doors and the upkeep. I know what you mean about decisions. Lots to make in a short amount of time. We plan on buying appliances this weekend.

ditto on the brick.....might use some stones to accent areas. In this area, brick is actually less than stucco and basically maint. free.

For the fridge/freezer, consider how YOU use the space.
For us, we use our fridge & freezer for EVERY meal, so I'd never move the freezer to another room, as I'd be cursing that decision every day. So go practical over pretty.

I have a shower curtain on my walk in shower. Easy to clean in the laundry, plus you can change it easily. We are renting a HUGE house and it has a huge bathroom. It is very cold leaving the shower to dry off. So my plans on the house I am building is to have a low roof over a smaller bathroom to keep the heat in. I live in TN and it gets cold here.

Of course other ideas would be radiant heat in the floor of the bathroom or walls of the shower.

i really like not having a shower door in the master bath i was sure i would freeze to death.....that is totally not the case
be sure your shower is big enough so that water won't splash out

We had in our last house a 6 foot vs 6 foot open shower with no door and only a half wall on two sides (no glass) in an 18 x 16 bathroom. The shower had two heads and four body sprays. There was never water splashed outside the shower nor were we cold (the shower heated up the whole bathroom). I love having no shower glass and we will have no shower glass in any future houses we build.

Thanks for the input. I lucked and found someone who built our floorplan. She said it doesn't get cold in the shower as long as all the doors are shut in the bathroom, but water does splash outside the shower unless the showerhead is pointed to the back corner. I'm going to see if we can move the head a bit or just put a door on the shower.

I decided on the brick. I really wanted the stucco, but I couldn't find a good paint/stone combo. No one else seems to that has this elevation either by the looks of the neighbors. I know if it looks horrible I would be miserable and find a reason to move. I found a brick and stone mix on someone else's house, which is great since I'm usually not a fan of them together. It's nice. I don't love it, but I'm noticing I just don't care for almost all of the exteriors being built around here lately. The only exterior I liked was on a house twice the price of mine! So, what I picked will work and I'm relieved I know what I'm getting when it's built.

Gas lanterns: our whole community was built with gas lanterns. Everyone has converted to electricity. Gas lanterns are always on, except when the mantel burns up and you don't have a spare, and then there's the gas leak...

We put glass shower doors in when we remodeled our old master bath. It wasn't a lot of work to squeegee them after a shower but we are going doorless in our new house. Our plan is to put radiant floor heat on a timer in the bathroom so we can sleep in a cool bedroom but have a warm bathroom when we get up in the morning.

I'll be going from a regular french door refrigerator to counter depth and am a little worried about the loss of space. I'm thinking about adding just an undercounter beverage cooler around the corner in the pantry. That would also keep people who are just looking for something to drink out of my work area. (I don't want to give up the space required for a full refrigerator.)