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So, you have no designated area for cleaning supplies and appliances; yet you have a hall closet, a linen closet, a walk-in pantry, and a large back-hall closet? So, assuming the hall closet is for coats/ guests, the pantry is for food, the linen closet is for, well, linen.....what is the large back hall closet for?
Personally, I would assume it would be for these cleaning items. Because you choose you use it differently, it doesn't mean the storage isn't there.
The back hall closet is two closets really, with one set of sliding doors. One side has a coat rack which we use. The other side has fixed shelves. So there is no place to hang brooms, mops, etc.
As I posted, I suddenly realized that we could take out some of the shelves in that half of the closet, and create a space for vacuum, floor steamer, wax applicator and broom and dustpan, not to mention cleaning cloths. We will need to measure and make sure the closet is deep enough, but I think it is.
We are having a contractor replace a floor and that will be a perfect time to have a little demolition done. I think we can install things on the wall ourselves.
We have the grandkids’ toys in that closet now, as well as some cookbooks. So I will have to rethink where these things need to go.
But, no, there is not a cleaning closet in this house. Nor is there a place in the laundry room for an ironing board.
When we were house hunting a few years back we looked at a house that had 1 closet on the entire first floor and not in the foyer. It was in a small mudroom and wasn't particularly large. No pantry either so any storage needs or guests with coats entering from the front door you would have to go to the back of the house to put their coats away.
Our current house has two "cutouts" in the walls. Pretty sure these were "custom" for the old homeowners. Neither one is centered to the wall it's on. So the one in the dining room steals about 3 feet from the garage and is off centered in an other wise symmetrical, rectangular shaped room. Just very odd. I plan to get rid of it and reclaim back my garage space!
We had a ton of these in our house renovation work. Mostly the work done by the contractor. The work I did, I had the time to stop and think things through thoroughly. Contractor on the other hand:
Put light switches and outlets too close to doors or windows or corners and did not leave enough room for plates and molding. We had to move some, other places we just cut the plates down to 2/3 to make them fit. One outlet in a corner, not very visible, we just have no switchplate.
Forgot to consider the impact of which way a door opens. Does it completely block the person coming in from getting to the area they are likely accessing? Does it prevent access to a light switch, sink or something else?
Failed to consider maintenance. For example they installed a pocket door. They used a cheap pocket door kit which cannot possibly last more than a few years (maybe that is all there is), but they left no access to get at the railing or mounting to make repairs or replace. In fact, it would require tearing out a substantial amount of stuff to get to it (instead we just quit using the door).
I did the wiring in the old part of the house. I added a switch at one location and never wrote down what each switch does. This switch, I have not been able to figure out what it does for ten years, despite the fact that I installed it.
On room has fur different exits. It has two light switches. Normally, when you walk though a room at night, you turn on the light on entry, and turn it off as you leave. That way you do not have to walk through a dark room after turning out the light. We caught this in a room with three entrances, but did not catch it in the one with four. IN the kitchen, the switch on one side is perfectly placed, however on the other side, if the folding double doors to the dining room are open (which is almost always, unless we are having a formal dinner or have some other reason), you cannot get tot he light switch at that exit.
One of our upstairs hall lights shines blindingly right into my eye if it is turn on our door is open, even a crack. Could not hve been anticipated without knowing where the bed would go and laying in it as a test.
Some flaws are simply lacking in flexibility. We laid out electrical outlets, Cable TV outlets, phone jacks, etc based on how we thought we would use each room. Turned out the TV did not work for us on that particular wall. Now how do we get cable to it? (new TVs with wireless was the lifesaver there). That really cool charging station I put int eh back of my closet was an awesome idea. 8 double outlets - 16 total plug capacity. All right along a shelf in the back of the closet where the roof slope down so it is otherwise useless. What I did not consider, is when the closet it filled with suits, you cannot get to the charging station without removing half the suits.
I am starting to think a tile shower in a second floor bedroom in a wooden house is just plain dumb. Maybe it is just bad workmanship. However leaks have basically destroyed the room below. We fix a leak and another one pops up. Now we are tearing it all out and having it re-done. Hopefully that will solve the problem, but I am concerned. Wood moves and flexes, tile cannot.
There are "architects" who are basically space planners who address all of these things. Some of them are really excellent at this. I wish we had found him before we were 3/4 done. They charge very little and can really make a huge difference in daily living.
I am another person with a poor thermostat location. The front door opens into a foyer and the thermostat is right in the middle of the wall opposite the door, where I would like to hang a mirror. I will probably have this relocated before I paint.
The house is near a lake. The best lake view from the house is from the big window over the garden tub in the master bath. So, unless I plan to spend most of my time standing in the tub......
The toilet and shower are behind a separate door in the master bath. You have to at least partially close the bathroom door to open the door into the shower area or the doors will hit. It's a nuisance when going back and forth cleaning.
Let’s be realistic on thermostat locations. Commercial environments have thermostats in almost every room for a reason. Most houses only have one, but the simple reality is that hot air rises and this creates different zones in a space.
My thermostat is on the ground level, so in the winter the upper level becomes quite toasty while the ground level is still cool. In the summer, a similar thing happens where 5e ground level temp is satisfied, but upstairs is a bit warm.
Putting the thermostat upstairs would have similar but opposite results. In the winter I would achieve a comfortable upstairs, but ground level would be cold, while in the summer the system would keep working to cool the upstairs while freezing the ground level.
You could say that having and open stairwell and only one heat pump is a design flaw, but fixing it would require a second heat pump and thermostat, plus extra ducts for forced air, and doors to my stairwell to eliminate the chimney effect.
The master was 12x26 and I had a very large (6x8) walk in closet and my husband had a 3x6 walk in closet. There was a linen closet and a large closet in the hall bathroom. Our master bath wasn't huge, but the layout was nice. We had a good sized kitchen with a pantry and a nice eat in area. We called the formal dining room the "dog room" because we had it set up as a sitting area, but all the furniture was dog friendly and our dogs liked to hang out in there. We also had a really nice sized living room. The whole floor plan was just nice, in my opinion. It was a nice house for almost 15 years.
The drawbacks were that the two spare bedrooms were pretty small (10x10), but it was just the two of us, so really not a big deal. We had a laundry closet; I really want a laundry room eventually. It didn't have a garage or basement and the lot was tiny. We are on 3.5 acres now.
My current house master bedroom has a double window roughly centered in the room facing front, and a small window looking sideways over the garage. The second bedroom, adjacent to the master on the back of the house, had a small window looking sideways over the garage, but a single window all the way on the left of the room. Since the third bedroom (adjacent to the second on the back of the house) has a double window, this didn't make sense on either the inside or the outside.
Fortunately this was ea$ily solved. I had the opening for the single window closed and a double window installed in the center of the room, now inside and outside are symmetric.
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