I know somebody who put an industrial grade air conditioner in the basement to keep the training room below 60 degrees.

i wish i had included an endless pool.
i have a big property and put in a 1km trail for running.
exercise room with large doors that can be opened to the northside of the house...i can move the computrainer out to a patio and it is still shady.

Currently building a house with a 25m lap pool in the center of the house (pool is outside and the house wraps around it).

Will have a bike workshop off the garage....also have a gym. Helps to be a contractor!

wine cellar excavated in kitchen - lift door - spiral staircase down - roof of wine cellar / floor of kitchen made of glass and bottom lit so you can see all the bottles

not my idea but cool none the less

for our home - we've a kitchen / living / dining area that has two exterior walls with bifold doors that allows the entire area to be opened up and the flooring outside / inside will be the same (construction starts in the summer) and the interior cabinetry extends outside to make the boundary seamless - so the outside has an integrated BBQ / prep area

this is the same basic design - not our house - https://kirhammond.wordpress.com/...i-fold-expectations/

it has a green roof and triple glazed windows in the roof

25m pool (single lane) and extra space in garage for the bike wall.

We also added extra space in the garage for the bike wall!

Another thing we did was put a 'grocery slider' in from the garage. Rather than track into the house with all the bags...we have a drawer that allows you to put the groceries in from the garage and slide them forward to a space in the mud room/entry.

Great thread idea - lots of good thinkers on this board. Curious to see additional thoughts

A workout area with enough space for the bike, treadmill, TV, and internet access.

I'd give the rest of the house to the Wife and let her do with it as she pleases. Hopefully, she'll put in some stuff that'll keep her happy while I'm training.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Building a 25M pool along the side of the house, enclosed inside the house. 8ft wide with a 5ft drop from the living room down to the pool. Our old house, we used the pool 10 times a year while i drove 20 minutes both ways to swim at the gym I'm paying for. I figured I might as well build what I will use, then I have no use for a gym membership. My 4 year old will use it more because it's inside. Obviously I can slowly brainwash my son that he should also be a simmer/triathlete.

best idea is to keep it simple so wife doesn't notice. I have a fitness room and a "pain cave" for the bike. Bought a endless pool then i moved. Now back to simple

Vhz - sounds awesome, got pics?

Heated floors in the bathroom and surround sound wired into all the major rooms. I've never built a house but always wanted these =)

The most basic thing I always wish was different is a higher basement ceiling -- maybe 9', but 10' would be awesome.

Higher ceilings is a must. Also along these lines, extra wide "handicap" doors and halls. They have special doors and builders know the width for halls for people in wheelchairs. These are great as they allow for more room when carrying gear and bikes through the house (in and out of the pain cave) etc.

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Jeff Abbott - @run1fast
jabbott@headsweats.com
Headsweats - Custom Team singlets $8 / Cycling Jerseys $25
Abbott Event Solutions - Brand Rep and Event Manager

at the bottom of our garden - facing the house - we're putting a work-out room - all opens up to the garden with treadmill, bike, concept 2 with media, so I don't have to be in the house causing problems.....

Lots of first world desires in the thread.

As an architect, I used to hear all kinds of crap that people wanted in their buildings. Doesn't mean that they should be there ......

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Rick, "Retired" hobbyist athlete
Trying to come back slowly from acute A-Fib

A bed
A shower
A fridge

The rest I can do outside

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Tim

Less rooms. More garages.

A 4' x 8' spot in the basement I can set up my trainer.

No idea what your budget or space constraints are, but definitely check out www.houzz.com for ideas. Or google "houzz exercise rooms" or "houzz indoor pool" or whatever your interest is in. It allows you to save pictures of things that interest you. Also, the website 'gardenweb' is amazing for ideas. Google anything that interests you- "gardenweb kitchen drawer layout" "gardenweb pantry design" "gardenweb laundry room" "gardenweb towel warmer" etc. LED lighting is very affordable now, relatively speaking, so every nearly light in the house is LED and we have lots of dimmers for the lighting. Added built in LED guide lights in hallways and bathrooms, that are stand alone or have an outlet too- much cleaner than plug in night lights. House generator- if you are in an area that loses power a lot. Tankless water heaters- if you want longer showers or need more hot water. Spray foam insulation. Outlets/USB outlets hidden out of the way- so you don't have all the charging junk out in the open- phones/ipads/ipods/carmeras/etc. Example- a kitchen drawer with outlets or usb/outlet charging station, outlets in medicine cabinets for shavers/toothbrushes, etc. Google "houzz charging station" , a nice sized mudroom, kitchen pantry, panasonic whisper warm bathroom fans- quiet and offer a heating option for a warm bathroom. We just finished a whole home addition/renovation- some things we did- more sport/exercise related:

Whole house audio- using Sonos connect amp boxes

Exercise room- with a rubberized floor- we looked at: ceiling height, air conditioning placement, windows, lighting, a powerful ceiling fan
-TV display area- with cable/outlets/ethernet- set up for a clean TV wall mount
- in-wall/ceiling speakers, floor mounted outlets (cleaner hook up for treadmill / exercise equipment- versus cord running along floor to wall.
- a mirrored wall
- walls and ceiling of the room is sound insulated- so if noise is loud- trainer/music/TV, it isn't transferred to the rest of the house
- two exposed metal 'I' beams in ceiling to add exercise equipment from ceiling and swings for the kids
- added reinforced 2x4 boards/plywood in strategic areas behind the sheetrock to easily attach any exercise equipment to the walls- such as a pull up bar
- I have a full bathroom nearby- nice to shower / clean up, etc.
- Built in cabinetry to hold towels, among other things
We considered a water fountain, but passed
We considered high mounted (just below ceiling) corner of room mounted fans in addition to ceiling fan. Wife nixed the idea, even though she works out.

Oversized attached garage to our house- with high ceilings- 12.5 feet. We attached - Garage Gator GGR220 220-Pound Capacity Residential Motorized Storage System- http://www.amazon.com/...rds=garage+gator+220 simply amazing for storing bikes (and other items) on the ceiling, including tandems. Make sure you have outlets in the location in the ceiling and reinforce the ceiling if necessary.
- We used a bunch ofT5 High Output light fixtures in the garage. Turns the garage into daylight and great space to work. Super efficient lighting- on par with LEDs.
- We have did an 8' garage door height, which allows us to to drive into the garage with an SUV and a yakima or thule roof box mounted on the roof.
- Oversized garage allows plenty of space between cars and also storage on the walls- whether you are hanging or putting shevling along the perimeter.



Added multiple ones of these in the garage- http://www.amazon.com/...;keywords=racor+lift Our rooftop yakima box is stored on one of these and to mount it to the car- it's as easy as rolling down the racor and sliding it onto the roof.


We have a workshop off of the garage (my man cave)- with a door to the garage and doors to the outside it has the same high garage ceilings 12.5 feet and an additional bike lift as listed above. This one has 8 bikes stored on it. Things in the workshop:
- It's own zone for heating/cooling
- Frenchdoors to exit and it is next to the garage, so we can literally roll our bikes out on the driveway and take off for a ride
- a door lock that can be opened using a code, so we never need to carry a key when we go on a ride or run or outside of the home. I haven't actually used a key to enter my house, since we moved in.
- a good sized metal utility wash sink
- a toilet closet (I wanted a urinal, too, but not enough space)
- a full size fridge and freezer, with icemaker. Ice is great to add to waterbottles, dump into the cooler before we go on a trip. Nice to keep waterbottles stored right next to the bikes, so we don't have to go back to the main house fridge and get bottles.
- sonos system connected to ceiling speakers
- outlets on ceiling for garage gator lift, retractable extension cords
- air compressor hose attached to ceiling to make filling bike tires, quick and painless
- lots of wall mounted pegboard and slatwall for tool storage // bike // tri related gear
- dedicated wall outlets for higher amp tools and wall mounted shop vacuum
- T5 high output lighting
- Windows- higher up than normal- to allow light, but not take up prime wall space
- Cable jack and Ethernet jack for wall mounted LED TV
- USB charging wall outlets mounted slightly above workshop tables- (8 ports total)- great for charging bike lights, phone, bike computers after each ride. Minimizes clutter.

No regrets with any of the three rooms I described above.

Sound proofing for the workout room will be a must in my next home.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

I love this idea. All I've got for my dream home is a window over the kitchen sink & a pantry. Heated bathroom/kitchen floors would be great too.

I would say this, except maybe some people live really far away from a pool.

I'd rather pay the local Y to maintain their pool and swim in it than worry about my own. Giant time sink IMO

Space for a workout room that has windows and also has a concrete floor. That was an absolute must for me. I can drop weights on the floor without shaking the house, run on the treadmill or ride on the trainer and no one knows.

We have a 5 level home, laid out more or less like this: _____ 2nd floor
____ level with master
_____ 1st floor
ground level---------------------------------_____ level with gym
______basement
So my gym is half below ground level, has a concrete floor, but also has large windows

What we didn't do that I wish we did, door to the gym level from the outside so I don't have to go through the house and door to the basement from the garage so I don't have to drag stuff through the house.

If in doubt, bigger garage and bigger basement, no one ever complains about having too much storage. Run wiring for anything you think you might ever want wired, so coax and network cables anywhere you can think you might want them.

And one that everyone wants after they come to my house - 2 person-sized shower with 2 shower heads. Ours has a 4 x 5 shower pan with a foot wide Corian bench.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I'd like to add:

a place to hide from the zombies.

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Tim

I'd like to second a decent shower / shower bench- we have a fairly large shower with multiple shower heads, with a 15" deep floating shower bench that runs the width (4'). It's great for comfortably sitting under shower heads and also for shaving purposes. We did a simulation of a 12" and 15" deep seat- and went with the deeper option for our uses. http://www.houzz.com/floating-shower-bench for ideas. Built in soap/shampoo niches work well, too. No regrets.

Awesome. As a contractor you probably already have this mindset but my opinion on building a lap pool is if you are going to do it, do it right. That means it has to be:
1) Not shallow (not deep, just not shallow).
2) Wide enough for 3 lanes though the outside lanes can be narrowish.
3) Get non-turbulent lane lines.
4) Get spillover gutters.
5) Get a big digital pace clock.

In the process of building right now - should be done by the end of year.

Lot is 3 1/2 acres, so there's room for lots of future stuff - just building the main house right now as that is what we can afford at the moment. But, I'm thinking something along the lines of Studio Shed (http://www.studio-shed.com/products/) for future gym, music studio, guest house, etc.

The house is very basic. Not huge, but open and airy (living in SoCal so we wanted lots of windows, open space, outdoor deck space, etc). Big garage for "temporary" gym / trainer space and perhaps the coolest feature is putting electrical outlets in the top bathroom vanity drawer and kitchen island drawer.

This exactly.

Our next house will have:

>1000 sq ft of garage: workshop, gear storage, bike storage for n+1 bikes.

On-demand hot water heater in garage, for washing muddy bikes in frozen mud season.

Large mudroom / gear room / laundry room on 1st floor. Close proximity to garage.

Screen porch. Most people with both a screened porch and patio/deck will generally say- I wish my screened porch was bigger and my patio/deck smaller - if you have space limitations. We built ours to that truism, and are extremely happy with it. If your county codes allow it, a wood burning fireplace on your screened porch, is even nicer.

Natural Gas hookups for patio heaters or patio BBQ.

Always said that was my dream house. 800 sq foot house and a 5 car garage. I gots some stuff, and don't like to clean house. I did see a house with floor drains that you could hose the floors down.

I sure would like to know what "type A" has to do with home construction? True type A is actually regarded as a personality disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. That's taught in any Psychology 101 course. The majority of triathletes are actually not true type A's.

But to answer your question, I've just built a garage with a heated floor. Its more for storage of a couple of vintage cars than for working out, but the heated floor is a good idea for a work out room.

1) Minimum 6ft deep (except stairs obviously, but they come off the side of the pool and not the main section)
2) A bit over 2 lanes wide
3) Planning on it
4) Done. Building a Launter edge pool
5) Digital? Didnt even know you could get a digital pace clock. Pace clock is a must

X2 We are beginning dry wall week on our house, and the two things that are most exciting are the screened in porch, and the "pain cave".

Elements that I have considered important:

1.built in closet for the pain cave (storage of wetsuits, and endless supply of "workout" clothing)...will also be extra space for my "civilian clothes" as my wife has the larger portion of our main walk in closet (for single guys out there, one day you will understand)
2. wiring for television in the screened in porch. (We have a large deck outside, but I'm certain that the screened porch will get most use, since we are in a northern Michigan wooded lot.
3. large beam access on ceiling of the pain cave for TRX, etc.
4. pain cave on first floor, so I can have lots of windows to provide natural light.

Elements that my wife considers important:

1. pantry
2. large tub in the master bathroom
3. expensive stuff

type A considerations:

all living space is on ground level with the exception of my two daughters rooms. When they are eventually gone to college and beyond, most all of our time will be on the first floor. No basement, except for storage. Apparently people eventually get old, sometimes...

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Not everything is as it seems -Mr. Miyagi

50 m pool, velodrome, 400 m track.

I'm an Archirect. Hire me so I can afford this hobby.

Wind tunnel!?

That may be true, and where our house is, there'd be no demand, nor space for a pool or other things such as hot tub due to the climate.

On the other hand, a garden room, separated from the house has lots of benefits and effectively allows us to not clog living space with exercise equipment and assorted paraphernalia - especially given that homes in the UK are generally smaller than the US

Certainly the trend with inner city homes in London is the creation of basements and extensions - most houses don't have them, and given the cost of trading up for most people from their current house to a larger one, or one with a basement in "central London" would be probably close to 750k US (generic 2.5 bed, 2 bath, semi-detached town house) - depending on the area, the cost of extending becomes far more attractive - would still never make sense for a pool in our neighbourhood

that said, new apartment developments in London are now including owners lounges, spa's, gyms and at one hyde park the concierge service from the Mandarin Oriental so there are people with cash that need or want these things irrespective of whether they make sense

This. Seriously this.


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