The woodwork/paneling in my foyer. It's what sold the house to me. Actually the woodwork throughout (or what was left of it); the rest of it just needed some TLC and lots of paint stripper.
Damn. I was going to pick the view. But I suppose that falls under neighborhood/community.
So, uhh, nothing. It's a tiny basement apartment assembled in haste while the previous owners were divorcing. The floors are uneven, the ceiling is low, the cabinets don't match, every blessed door knob in the place is different, but omg the view. It's worth putting up with all the other stupid stuff. And we have the worlds best landlord and cheap rent so that sweetens the deal.
Our porch is being rebuilt in march and then that will be the best feature. And it will officially have more square footage than the inside of our apt. If only we could use that extra space all year.
I don't know how "cool" it is but the biggest selling feature and the thing we get compliments on the most is our open floor plan. Our family room flows into our breakfast nook, which flows into the kitchen. Plus the family room is open to the stairs going up and down to the basement and into the entryway plus there are several bay windows overlooking our large backyard so it's really light and sunny. It's topped off with hardwoods throughout and when we saw it we knew we had to have this house!
No real stand our features except maybe our extra large windows in our family room But I guess the coolest thing I've discovered about our house is a trapdoor in the floor of a closet. We store our valuables in there. Like our original Nintendo 64.
The thing we get complimented most on is my decorating None of my friends are really into decorating, so I guess it doesn't take much to impress them.
The house itself is just like a normal house, but it has pretty hardwood floors and nice crown moulding. To be honest, what sold us on the place is the fact that it is in a downtown location in a cute, trendy town and has a nice sized yard (I know you asked about the house itself).
10' ceilings with awesome crown molding. It's a small house and the high ceilings just open it up and make it feel much bigger than it really is. Everyone who walks through the front door for the first time is surprised.
I have tons of closet space! People comment on it. Otherwise our floorplan is super functional. Our view is amazing. The kitchen kicks a$$ functional and pretty wise even though it's just avg. My house otherwise is pretty basic by internet standards. I'm okay with it.
My DH had to sell me on buying this house because the kitchen was painted this ugly dark muddy color that made the whole room dark, He painted it a great shade of apple green and I love this kitchen. It has room to roll out cookies and pizza dough, has great storage and is very light filled due to great window placement. People always congregate in the kitchen at every party.
We get tons of compliments on our stone fireplace that goes floor to ceiling and our mudroom that was custom built. Our kitchen is pretty kickass too. I love everything about our house.
We have two giant windows that cover half of the front and side wall of our main room. They are amazing and probably the only good design feature of our house next to the built in pantry from the early 1900s and a few of the original doorknobs that are still around.
I live in Army post housing. There is absolutely nothing unique, out-of-the-ordinary, or special at all about my house. Sadsies.
I don't know if you're in new or old housing, but the new housing around me is pretty nice from the outside. No idea what the insides are like though.
People love our fireplace, but we did that ourselves. There wasn't much to our house when we bought it, except it met our criteria, wasn't 1 story and wasn't over our budget.
Having a laundry room inside the house instead of the garage is a big deal around here.
Let's see. I love the high ceilings and huge windows downstairs, although it makes it cold in the winter. I also love that the laundry room is right off the master, makes doing laundry more convenient.
And it has an apartment over the detached garage, which helps pay the mortgage. So that's awesome too.
New house --- I'm hoping it will be the kitchen. We'll see after moving in and using it. I got great recommendations from gardenweb, so hopefully it will be great.
Oh, there's one room at the new house I've imagined it to make it cool one day... the safe/panic room. LOL. I've always imagined it to look high tech. Not that cool right now. All it has is a panic button that's wired with the home security system. There's not even a light in there right now. lol.
Our house is pretty plain but there are 2 features that I really like. The first one that caught my attention is the built-ins in the dining room that includes a window seat where I like to have my morning coffee.
The other thing I'm really enjoying right now is that our bathroom came with white subway tiles on the walls and white hex tiles on the floor. I'm so relieved I don't have to worry about updating my 80 year old bathroom just yet. All the neighbors bathrooms that I've seen are mint green, pastel yellow, etc.
The 3 fireplaces that are all original & each very unique.
The 2nd story balcony & there are rooms with exposed brick.
The floors on the main floor I guess are extremely rare...they are original (1900) oak, in thin planks that run the entire length of most rooms. My neighbor who is also an Architect actually pointed them out to me, I hadn't noticed how long each wood plank was, nor the fact that having floors like these is very unusual.
I love our finished basement. It's so cozy with a gas fireplace, a huge TV above the fireplace (the sellers let us have it) and our new sectional. We love curling up on the weekends with the fire going and a movie.
But I also love the hardwood floors in our kitchen, front hallway and dining room. It sounds silly but I have never ever lived in a house with hardwood floors, so it was very exciting for me.
Hands down it's our garage - it's 1200 square feet. Our house is 1305 square feet with a a full basement, so it's not like we live in a giant McMansion. I'm convinced our house must have been built by a bachelor because of the size of the garage.