[Captain Ahab Jr]

What a great thread, I just checked and my mountain house is 1400sq ft.as mentioned I don't see the point of having big empty unused rooms in a house. Better to make more effecient use of something smaller. Extra room usually just means more junk that you don't use very often.

All the rooms are small, we have 3 bedrooms, 2 double, 1 single and abathroom upstairs, a kitchen/diner, living room, down stairs toilet downstairs. Could do with more storage space but with a bit of clever interior design don't think this will be an issue. For me it has a garage big enough for one car and be able to work around it, a small workroom (man cave) and storage space for outdoor toys.

With the outdoors on our door step we don't really need anything bigger but that doesn't stop me dreaming about adding another floor on top so I can have a large room with lots of glass to make even more of the views.

No plans to go as extreme as dropping off the grid as it is in a small village so no need to make living any harder. I will add triple glazing, a lot of insulation on all the walls and roof, solar panels to reduce electricity consumption, wood pellet boiler, underfloor heating, rain water harvester, low energy appliances and lighting, glazing the south side to help heat inside using the winter sun.

I really want to go green with this home to try and make up for my working life of automotive sin.

To make the house feel bigger by bringing the outside in we will also add plenty of decking on two sides with easy access straight on to it. This will also give me room to build a wood burning heated carbon fibre hot tub.