W.r.t. my last house, the following come to mind... (1) Master was at opposite corner of house from the water heater, so it took a long time to get hot water. I would've added a small heater near the master. (2) Really wish I had high-amperage 220V wired in the garage. (3) Glad I didn't wire it for ethernet. Wireless worked well for me. (4) Wish I had many more skylights. (5) Waterfall shower? (6) I used X10 automation, but wouldn't have minded a wired home-automation system to control other things, or plan in advance to have outlets where I needed them. (7) House was wired for surround sound. That was nice. (8) Perhaps you might want to run wires for satellite in case you want it later. (9) Didn't need it then, but probably would look into solar or some other alternative energy next time, (10) Strip out grass and replace with turf. :-) Lawn is a 4-letter word. (11) Always wanted to build a nice complicated multi-level deck with somewhat of a high section (like a lookout). (12) From scratch, my ideal house would be a 10-car garage with a room and bath attached, and an air-strip. Actually the room and bath could be a tent and a port-o-let. :-) (13) Doubt you'll be able to get a useful landing strip on there, but save some space for a heli-pad later. A vehicle test track would probably be nice too. (14) Waterfall in backyard (or in living room, if I didn't get the tent) would be nice. (15) Moat. (16) Wire for door/security cameras -- those 2.4ghz wireless cameras pick up noticeable interference. (17) Used to have a roof-top patio back in the caribbean. Neighbors seemed to dislike when I brought my friends over for band-practice up there, but my mom was happier than us practicing inside the house. (17) On the subject of home-automation again, I got single-station voice recognition working decently, enough to consider multiple ceiling-hanging microphones with a gate-limiter. But wiring that later would've been messy/ugly. (18) Would definitely automate the bathtub to the phone line like I did last time. Very useful. Stick around, I'll think of more... Cheers, -Neil. > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [OT] Building a house - help me brainstorm! > From: "M. Adam Davis" > Date: Mon, September 18, 2006 6:02 pm > To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." > > So I'm moving to a bit of dirt about 15 miles south of ann arbor and > building a home. I've long been interested in home automation and > other such projects, and it'll obviously be wired for 1000baseT, > phone, cable, etc with space for future wire runs. It'll also be > suitable for wireless use, but frankly I hate moving DVDs across slow > wireless connections. > > So I have a few questions to brainstorm about: > > 1) What would you change about your house if you could? Or more > specifically, what would you change that is easier to do at the start > than it is to retrofit later? > > 2) Assuming unlimited "dreaming" budget, what would you build into a > custom designed house? > > 3) Any new or old homebuilding technology that I should really look into? > > 4) What would you do with 10 acres of land? > > So for my first thoughts: > > 1) I like home automation. Would be cool to be able to control > electrical items using more than just a switch on the wall. Would be > nice to have whole house sound, security... > > 2) Theater, rooftop gazebo or sod roof, passive solar heating, > cooling. Geothermal heating/cooling. Skylights, lots of natural > light. > > 3) Insulated concrete forms, steel frame construction, pole > construction, log home... > > 4) Orchards, gardens, animals, wood/metal shop, english gardens (hedge > maze!), small landing strip (land is around 1200' x 350'), wind & > solar electricity... > > Of course, I won't be able to implement much dreamy stuff(time and > money), but the more stuff I think about before designing/building it, > the better off I'll be in the long run. > > This is brainstorming! No negative stuff! I really do want to hear > your wacky unobtanium ideas. > > Thanks! > > -Adam > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist