I would love to hang an octagonal gazebo off the living room for year-around tropical plants. It would have a brick floor, a potting bench, and some wicker furniture with big, comfy cushions.

After that I would build a new master bedroom over the garage, since that is one-story when the rest of the house is two-story. It would have a much larger bathroom than the single bath I have now, which is tiny.

We added the rooms that we thought were neat (3 story tower), but what the house really needs is either another bathroom (only have one), or a living room that is bigger than what we have. We can fit the couch, coffee table and tv in the living room. No extra chairs, loveseats, etc.
We're big on TV and movies, but don't have the room to invite friends over to watch.

There's a stairway in the expanded part of our living room, which makes the usable part maybe 10X15 - quite cozy.

Right now my idea is to complete the castle look of the house by adding a second floor over the first. We'd planned for it to be a master bedroom/bathroom (would incorporate the 3rd bedroom anyway). Now I'm thinking maybe our living room can be on the 2nd floor....

Jennifer

Here is a link that might be useful: Addition

This one's easy for me - we only have one (tiny) bathroom! Another bathroom - even a powder room - would be wonderful.

Only one room......hmmmmmm....since it is just me in this tiny house, I would say a screened back porch, the mosquitos and flys are horrible here!

i'd add a sunroom onto the back of my kitchen. nothing huge but enough to fit a small dinette set and maybe a comfy chair. i'm really considering it. my dad is willing to do it for the cost of materials... but i'm just not sure yet.

Another bathroom! Could be a half bath or powder room.

A two car garage so I can pull my car in would be nice too. Our single car garage is really my DH's tool shed/workshop.

Even though I wish the bedrooms were bigger, and wish I had a garage, a basement wins for me. I have good attic storage, but since it's not climate controlled, I can't put certain things up there. A basement would give me more storage, and a place to go when it's tornado weather!

No doubt about it, I would add a dining room. I lust after dining rooms ;o)

Mrsmarv,
I am lusting after dining rooms with you. I would make my dining room bigger, it is too tiny to be usefull at its current size. The same size as the eating area in the kitchen, why would someone build a house with 2 eating areas, both too small to be usefull.

Another bathroom or at least a powder room. Three people, incl. an almost teen girl sharing one bathroom is a teen girl too many!

I don't exactly want another room, I want a greenhouse.

#1 on my wish list is a 2 car garage with an attached greenhouse. In my dreams, this would replace our current 1 car garage with carport. The current 1 car has been driven into so many times that it's crooked, causing the car port to lean, and drainage problems to be working on rotting holes in the carport roof. We're building the finances now but the account isn't growing fast enough! (Never does!)

A walk-up attic.

A sunroom or screened in porch.

Diana ~ Your home is so lovely and your pergola/deck/gardens wonderful! You and your DH are a great team. I get inspired everytime I see pictures of your place.

Bellaflora ~ It is NOT pathetic to have plans and ideas drawn out. It's part of the magic of making it come true. For years I had the 'scullery' off our kitchen in my head. Didn't quite know how it was really going to look, but the place is a reality now and I love it. We've drawn out plans on paper for years, now in DH's computer. Putting your ideas on paper where you can see them, gives you even more ideas or ways of making things better.

Since we've done some remodeling in our tiny cottage, I love it a lot more. We've still the bedroom to do and when that's done it will be so much nicer. The way it is now is there are two teeny-weeny bedrooms, one we sleep in the other is loaded with 'stuff'. We are going to take out the wall between the two giving us a larger bedroom. The stuff will go in one of the outbuildings.

I would like more room for craft stuff. We may be making DH's workshop, into a great room, which will be great for crafting/painting/computers, lots of light and high ceilings. He will move his workshop to the polebarn.

When time and $ allow we're hoping to screen off the jacuzzi area right off the back of the house, we also have an outdoor shower there and a clawfoot tub. Mosquitoes are horrible here and you have to do something to keep them from eating you alive. Got the tub for free, too big for our bathroom. I want to cement shells to the outside of the tub.

Keep your hopes and dreams alive, anything can happen to make them come true.

FlowerLady

a sunroom off the back of the kitchen/breakfast nook!!!

I'd blow out 1/2 of the back of the house and add a full size kitchen. Our galley kitchen is so tiny (only 2 drawers!) and there's no room to eat in it. We have a dining room, but if/when we have kids it would end up as a bedroom. Then we could eat in the "new" kitchen with a view of the backyard. Now all I have to do is win the lottery. :(

Amy

I'd add a 3 season room (I live in the NE) with lots of windows, a ceiling fan and wicker furniture. This room can double as a guest room if needed.

I'd also love a nice deck that is usable so that we can actually entertain outdoors.

Here's one that hasn't been mentioned: A cold room! I have a hard time storing food in our house, especially finding cool places in the summer. Our propane fridge is quite small compared to regular fridges and we live a couple hours from town so we don't run in very often...and grocery shopping is a real pain anyway! I'd like to buy more in bulk and caselots as well as keep our own garden produce longer, but alas no room. I do have a hole dug for an outdoor root cellar though...but no extra cash (seems to be a trend here!) LOL! I'm torn between the cold room and a hobby/office room...paints + paper + projects = major clutter!

Toots

Not a room, but want a front porch. Mine is so small am lucky if two people can stand there. Is on my mind constantly to figure out how to revamp this entry....especially since I see it constantly when heading into the house.

Sandy

I would add a dining room. Right now my living and dining areas are one medium size room. So the dining room table is jammed against a wall, and I only have room for one couch and a coffee table. When I entertain my family, which is mercifully rare, I have to rearrange all the furniture and make the dining room table hang out in the middle of the room. I push the couch to a different wall.

I do have the screened porch --- which I had built 2 summers ago --- and am most appreciative of that. Due to mosquitoes, I had been trapped inside for almost 6 months out of the year before that. The porch enlarges my sense of space.

I want a first floor laundry room! My bones are getting too old for hiking down to the basement! LOL

I want a bigger Master Bedroom, then perhaps use my current bedroom for another bath or split it up for a combination bath and office space.

Deb in PA

Sandy, a porch is on our "someday list" too, to make our house look like this:

A library or an atrium ....would be hard to choose between the two.

Edna

I'd add an enclosed airconditioned art studio on the back of our home in the south exposure with tons of windows.

Everyone elses ideas are neat- it was fun reading all this.
RaNae

If I won a contest and won my choice of room addition, I'd choose to enlarge (somehow) my powder room into a full bathroom. I'd be a happy camper then.

A laundry room with no question. Love to get the washer and dryer out of the kitchen!

I would tear down the existing screen porch (flimsily built and facing a busy street) and use 1/3 of the space for a bathroom, and the other 2/3 for a library/den/office. We have no bathroom on the main floor, which is sometimes a pain.

"A laundry room with no question. Love to get the washer and dryer out of the kitchen!"

Ditto that! These machines take up soooo much room! Blech!

{{!gwi}}

I'm glad I'm not the only one. We added a basement and are going to be moving the master bedroom down there "one" day. The old master bed is going to be a dining room... I'm so excited! :~)

definitely a bathroom on the first floor!!!
but would depend on how much money i had.
I could easily blow out the whole back of the house for a
huge family (18x25) room with bath and laundry that would face out to our back yard, give us casual space and more storage area for our kitchen and include a fireplace and access to the 2nd floor as well as the outside.

mostly i've decided to settle for a 15x15 addition that would open the kitchen and provide space for a bath, laundry and mudroom. With our kids getting to be adults we realize that adding on a second floor for a master suite isn't necessary.

first floor bathroom, first floor laundry & mud room
and a bit more storage plus a breakfast nook would do just fine
diggerb

Pianolady: That is what I wanted also and this summer I finally put one it. It is modest (6x8 ft) attached to the house, but I just LOVE it. I hope to use it during the winter (fingers crossed!)

So now, I guess I would love an exercise room. That would be nice. We have a large garage so I hinted to my hubby we should make part of it an exercise room, if his tools were moved to the basement, and he kinda thought it was a good idea.

I am surprised to see that so many people want a sunroom/screened porch. I guess I though many people would want master baths and huge kitchens. Sometimes I forget that most people just want to relax and have simple pleasures like enjoying nature. I am right there with you! However where I live it gets cold so soon so I think I would like a sunroom rather than a screened in porch.

-renee

Ah, Bellaflora. We're just finishing up our outdoor kitchen with sink, bbq, single burner, refrig, serving bar. We have a spa that's half in and half out of the ground. A small fountain on the wall behind the spa. Patio cover, swing, assorted chairs and a ping pong table. The only thing we don't have is an outdoor fireplace. A firepit may have to do.
It didn't cost us that much (all DIY) but we love it.
What I would like is a big deck off the back of our house. We're on a big slope so this would increase the size of our yard considerable.

A master bedroom and a bathroom, wait that's 2 rooms.

A screened in porch would be nice, I have a covered patio that is 30 X 20, so it could be a nice year round room.

But, if allowed only one wish, an updated bathroom with a whirlpool tub. Sorry, my indulgences are showing.

J

A large pantry ! How nice it would be to have drawers and shelves to stash cookie sheets and trays and seldom used big pots as well as freeing up the cabinet space in the kitchen that holds canned and other dry goods.

Nancy in mich, if you really really want a place to start your seeds, you might consider a Harbor Freight Greenhouse - $329, $299 on sale, 6'x8', aluminum frame, 4mm twinwall polycarbonate. I got one last November and it was a delight all winter long. I overwintered annuals and tender perennials, put most houseplants out there (rotating them inside while at their peak), grew herbs and a few food crops like lettuce, cherry tomatoes and peas. Even if I wasn't gardening, it was a wonderful place to go sit on a sunny day and enjoy the warmth of the sun and the energy of green growing things in the middle of winter. I would give up my second bathroom before I'd give up that greenhouse!

I realize you're in a colder area up there in Michigan, but one of the posters in the Greenhouse forum has one in Milwaukee and is happy.

Diane

It would be a greenhouse, just outside the kitchen (which has an outside door).

We just sold our little house (940 sf). We did add on a 14x20 screened porch, so I had an extra refrigerator and plenty of room to entertain. A glassed-in room would've been nice, but we're in Florida so not really necessary. Best thing we did in that house--well, almost.

I'd most want to add a real laundry room. Our washer/dryer (and kitty boxes) are at the end of the kitchen, open for all to see (I've put up a little shower curtain rod with a nice curtain to "hide" it when company is over). I'd like to have a true, closed off room, with actual storage space. We have zero space to expand our house, though, so this will never happen.

I'd also like to have a larger master bath. Ours is functional, but very, very small...when you open one of the doors, it hits the toilet. Woe to anyone happening to be sitting on the potty at the time! We're thinking about replacing the doors in that bathroom with pocket doors at some point...

And finally, we have a very large converted patio room off of our living room. We use it for parties, and for when my husband's gaming buddies come over. It doesn't have any insulation, and it's been poorly converted. Someday, we're going to redo it with real construction to make it a real family room. Can't wait for it to be a year-round usable room!

Otherwise, we love our house. It has exactly the amount of space we need.

Now that my widowed MIL is moving in with us and I have lost our only "extra" bedroom, I would kill to have a hobby room with 1/2-bath of my very own.

I'd like either a laundry room (b/c the Laundry Closet is akward) or a small room off the garage that specially designed for washing my dog!

I'd add a mudroom/laundry room on the back of my house off the kitchen. All our entrances are very small. There's just no room to take off coats, shoes etc. I'd love a transitional room with space to hang coats, store shoes and boots and house my washer and dryer on the main floor, with shelves, big windows and lots of light.

I would love a screened room/porch where the patio is now.

Oh boy, just about everything listed above. A first floor laundry, a family room, a second full bath upstairs, an entry hall, more closets everywhere, a kitchen pantry.

The only thing I'd like to get rid of is the neighbors.

A bathroom to my 2/1 house. Ok, maybe a laundry room too ... and a screened porch...and a walk-in closet...and a pantry...:)

i would like to add 2 feet in every direction to every room and then i would love some closets. what i was thinking when i purchased this house -- 1 closet! i had to be out of my mind. but i do love my house.

interesting topic :)

maryanne

I would add a big room on the first floor or a finished basement (but I have no basement) to store all my file cabinets and supply cabinets to make my home office have more room and be prettier.

If I could add two rooms, I would add a room for guests that does not have exercise equipment and prior season clothes in it.

I love this thread. I just found this particular forum before bed.

Enjoy the forum Lynn. Think it has been quiet with holidays happening.

Thank you emagineer for the welcome. Happy Holidays!