I was just looking into this a couple of weeks ago because I hate so much stuff on my counters! We will be adding this feature when we get new countertops and sinks!

I also wanted to add a suggestion. Go with a higher quality countertop if you can afford it. I really don't like our laminate because of the dulling and the chips and scratches. We had our house built 7 years ago and I really regret a lot of the "cheaper" choices we made just to save a few bucks. If you can, paint before they put up the trim, cabinets and flooring, it will save you time in taping everything off and worrying about getting drips on things. Good luck!

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If you want to put extra money into your house it pays off to add extra insulation...it will save you on electric expenses. Add a fireplace...I love ours. Have a couple of extra closets or add some extra space to your garage for storage/shelves. Have a little mudroom for coats/shoes/vacuum/brooms...etc. Just a few.

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Heather
Mom to three dd 14, ds 8, dd 5

I know a lot of people hate Berber carpeting, but we had it installed with the house and I will ALWAYS have some type of Berber in the family room!! This sounds absolutely crazy but in our 'old' new house (we were there 4 years) we had light carpeting. I'm very tidy, and we didn't eat in there, I'd be very careful, etc. It still got dirty, from what I have NO idea since we were so careful, no shoes, etc.

So when we built this house I went around and 'studied' the spots on the old carpeting, their colour, I mean. I fixed it permanently in my brain and when I picked out our Berber I matched up the colour of our spots to the same colour Berber! It has worked for us. I'm sure there are some spots on there, but heaven knows where. It looks Fantastic.

Also dh put in laminate flooring bought at Home Depot. It was called, something like "Italian Villa". It is darker brown and looks like brown 'slate'. It hides dirt SO WELL! Not that I would, but I could sweep the floor once and week and wash it once a YEAR and no one would be able to tell. It has saved me so much time agonizing over my kitchen floor. With children, you are going to get dirt, and our old light coloured floor was my nightmare.

If you don't want hardwood floors or don't have the money for the real hardwood- i suggest pergo floors. We have the pergo tiles on our kitchen and bathroom floors- simple to clean up- just use water. I hope you are having a pantry of some sort to stow away kitchen appliances (so you don't have to take up all your cabinet space) and dry and canned goods and so on. I definately would try to have at least 2 bathrooms- maybe 2.5. It is always nice to have a powder room for your guests. Nice size closets for everyone. I also recommend the soap in your sink. Corrian (not sure if I spelled it correctly) is a nice counter top but not as expensive as granite.

Great suggestions!!!!

What kitchen sinks work best for everyone? I was kind of thinking of just a plain old stainless steel sink?

If you go with a Corian or something similar you can have an integrated sink! Then you wouldn't have to worry about cleaning around the seams. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about the water spots on the stainless steel!

I also think the pantry with pull out shelves is a great idea. You won't "lose" things in the back.

We also just put Pergo wood flooring in our kitchen over top of our white/cream laminate flooring and it was the best thing we could have done! It is so easy to clean and hides so much if you don't have time to mop everyday!

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Make sure if you get steel that the guage (I believe this is how they rate the steel) is a high enough one. Otherwise I was told the sink flexes.

I ended up going with a porclain (sp?) one- because of all the bad things I read/heard about in the steel ones.

I also like the under mount sinks- so you do not have to worry about cleaning around the grout and you can just wipe your counters and wipe into the sink.

I heard stainless steel is better. Porcelain houses bacteria. I didn't know this before.

There is stuff that we didn't have the builder put in our house. We figured we could do it for cheaper later. One thing being the AC unit. We moved in during the fall and figured we didn't need AC yet. I got pregant and the next summer was so hot. We ended up having to finance the AC unit and it was installed the day we came home fron the hospital with our dd. It was crazy.

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Austin
Mom to 3 beautiful girls

We have a stainless sink now and live on a well. In our new house we are NOT putting in a stainless sink. We have very hard water and it spots something terrible and we get a white film left when it air dries. THe new house is within 7 miles of our old one so I bet the water will be the same. Either way we are not chancing it. I am leaning towards the built in sink at the new house.

Quick quetsion on the soap dispenser built in. Are they easy to clean? Can you talk the pump part out and wash it? I wonder if the soap clumps up like it does on the sqeeze bottles?

I can't stand our stainless steel sink! I miss the porcelain one from our old house. The stainless steel always looks dingy. I would fill my porcelain sink up with water and a little bleach, let it sit, and it would sparkle for days!