LehiNephi's Journal: Ideas for a dream house

At some undefined point in the future, my wife and I want to build our dream home. We have lots of ideas and opinions on what we want. The purpose of this Journal entry is to serve as a temporary repository for ideas, wishes, requirements, and fantasies for our dream house, and to collect ideas from anyone willing to share. Here is the list so far:

Rooms we want:

• Kitchen
• Dining area (my wife wants a formal dining room, although I think it's a waste)
• Living room (this plus the family room plus the play room = 3 living spaces? too many, methinks)
• Family room
• Master +3 bedrooms + guest suite
• 3.5 baths minimum (4.5 if guest suite is on first floor and all other bedrooms are on the 2nd)
• Den/study/library
• Play room/theater/game room (maybe the "family room" can take the place of the formal living room, and this will be the informal room)
• Workshop for me (either separate room or space in garage)

Things to avoid:

• Two-story rooms
• Wasted space
• Rooms that are too big, especially
  • Family/Great room
  • Master bedroom
• Extra rooms that add little usability
  • sunroom
  • big central foyer
• Tile in the kitchen and eating areas (I installed it earlier this year and it practically pulls food onto itself!

Other features:

• Must be extremely energy-efficient, especially with respect to climate controls.
  • Double or triple-paned windows
  • More than the normal amount of insulation
  • Skylights where practical
  • designed to let light but not heat in
• Double oven
• Breakfast bar
• If adjacent dining and living rooms, ability to segregate or join the two in a way that's not obvious (really big pocket door? pocket *wall* like in that one episode of Monster House (the gangster house)?)
• Ideally All bedrooms upstairs except for guest suite
• Kitchen close to garage
• 3-car garage
• bathtubs in every full bathroom (no bathrooms with just showers)
• garage doors not visible from front
• Big pantry immediately accessible from the kitchen
• Mudroom area by garage
• Kitchen close to dining room

Other ideas:

• Desk/mini office in the kitchen for mom
• Outlets placed for Christmas lights (D.U.H.)
• Some place for the kids to do homework (possibly a table that folds up against the wall in an existing room when not in use?)

In a way, this is a bit similar to the Dilber Ultimate House, but what I'm looking for is a subset of what Scott Adams was looking for. At this point, I'm thinking on the level of "what rooms do I want, and where do I want them?" rather than "we should put hooks by the garage door to hang keys on!"

Please feel free to post any ideas or suggestions you have. This could be things you would like in your own house, things you have done that you really like (or that didn't turn out as well as you thought), things you wish you had done or are glad you didn't do, etc. I'll include them in the lists above and, of course, credit the contributor.