Building or Remodeling? Formals, Wine Cellars Are Out
Toured several new homes in Dallas yesterday, including a new, gorgeous $2.9 million spec home that has no formal living room. According to the architect/designer, Don Caperton, Caperton Johnson, two things are out: formal living rooms and wine cellars. The formal living rooms are considered a waste of space and building dollars. Unsaid but widely known: they also keep the Dallas Design District afloat and serve up to many a Dallas husband heart-attack-sized design bills. Wine rooms are also over-rated, costly to install, a legal nightmare if you have teenagers, and people never end up filling the cellar with all that wine.
They just drink it.
Next thing you know, people will be filling their swimming pools.
21 Comments to “Building or Remodeling? Formals, Wine Cellars Are Out”
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I would take that information with a grain of salt. For a family, yes,a formal living room is much better as a great room for the kids to play in and a wine cellar might not be practical. But for retired adults like my husband and I – we enjoy the formal living room for entertaining and our cellar is well stocked.
I have a client right now that I found a great $2.5M house for in Preston Hollow but this client would not make an offer because it did not have a formal living area. In this price range, clients expect to have everything even if they don’t need it. I also have plenty of clients that love their wine and their wine cellars.
I realize that this builder has made this choice based on his own research and I wish him the best of luck in trying to sell it, but I know that my clients still like their formal living areas as well as their wine cellars.
What about the media room? That should be an “outie”, too. The folks I know, who have them, never use them, after the first year and/or when the equipment breaks down.
In our new place, we are using the Dining Room as an office and we will eat at bar stools at our kitchen counter overhang (or whatever that’s called LOL). No more dining room tables!
Agree with Gadfly….the media room is a waste of space. I would rather delete that and increase the size of the other rooms if you have to max. out the square footage.
A mixed bag here. Buyers often want formal living rooms for resale but 10% at best will ever use them. I haven’t sat in mine in the 2 years that I’ve been in my house. Same goes for my formal dining room, but I’d guess 90% want one for resale. I wouldn’t mind a small wine cellar. The media room is a total bag of b.s. except for the once a year you use it to try to impress friends (and then, it is still silly). A great TV and sound system in the den that opens to the kitchen is all you need and everyone can enjoy it without having to make a special ‘trip’ to your ego-based home theatre. Just sayin’.
FYI…the house Candy is talking about has a donwstairs media room, allowing home owners to retain the media room for resale purposes and also be able to use it more frequently
one more quick note, many of these new ideas, such as taking out the formal living and wine rooms, are not concepts Caperton and the builders he works with just decided to try and see what happens, they are incorporating these ideas based on feedback they are getting from their clients who pay big bucks to have these style homes built.
As someone who designs/installs turnkey wine cellars, I do take exception to the comment that people do not fill them. Most clients always say “I will never fill up all the space” but about 75% fill it in the first year. We have gone back and increased capacity but no one has ever asked to reduce storage space. Today it is easy to purchase “new” wine at $30 and age it properly and have a $300 bottle. Not a bad investment- drink and enjoy, sell or trade.
I know someone who has started a college fund with wine- better and safer return and a heck of a lot more fun.
This has become an adult focal center for entertaining and will continue to be a demand item in the luxury home market- if the room is done properly.
Whine sellers are very in these days. And they’re stocked full with lots of whine and little sell.
A formal living room is a waste of space if it’s only 12′ x 11′? It’s often that size when the house may have 4000-square-feet.
Two-story homes are very popular. Many have similar floor plans. You open the front door and you’re in the foyer. The 12′ x 11′ living is on the right, and the 12′ x 11′ dining room is on the left. Dinky rooms! Then you walk by the half-bath leading you to the back of the house with the combination kitchen/family room which may be as big 35′ x 17′. The nook is generally next to the kitchen, and then there’s the large family room with the brick fireplace on the far wall.
I have a combination living room and dining room, and it’s very open and spacious. And I do spend quite a bit of time in my living room.
When we started looking for a house a few years ago, we specifically wanted a media room down and master up (opposite of most). We have little kids, so I wanted our bedroom on the same floor as the kids’. Also, the media room is off the family room. We use it every day. We close the pocket doors when not using it and then we don’t have big, ugly t.v.s in our family room. Yay!!!
I think the lesson here is everyone has their own preferences and tastes. If you are focusing on resale, you are going to make different decisions than if you are planning on living their for 10+ years!
Well said John, I think the stats in 2008 were that a 2-million dollar home was sold every other day in Dallas County, there are enough people buying where builders can feel confident that someone will fall in love with their house.
A wine cellar is no more of a “legal nightmare if you have teenagers” than a liquor cabinet, or say, a car.
I disagree with JG.
When you’re a parent with teenagers, having a wine cellar and a car does has the potential to cause quite a bit of mischief.
Raging sexual hormones and alcohol are not a good mix. It’s not particularly a good mix when you’re an adult, and even less so when you’re a teenager. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions.
Adults view a car as a mode of transportation, but for teenagers a car is a great place to have sex.
Parents should be in tune with what’s going on, especially in light of the Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin legal nightmare.
A wine cellar and a liquor cabinet are essentially the same thing. I should have mentioned that fact.
@John I wouldn’t call a car “a great place to have sex” even from a teenager’s point of view: it’s just A PLACE to have sex…much like a formal living room, or even a wine cellar could be. Let’s hope your kids don’t have access to the internet, otherwise they might get some ideas…
C. R, yes, going all the way can be problematic in a car. But from what I read, many teenagers these days seem to be more focused with oral sex. Lots of oral sex. You don’t have to be doubled jointed or a gymnast to have oral sex in a car.
The opportunites for a place to engage in any type of sexual activity are somewhat limited for teenagers. Having sex at your parent’s house is not always easy. Yeah, a car is not ideal, but it’s better than in your bedroom that you share with your brother.
Kids do have access to the Internet, and apparently there’s a lot of sexual stuff going on.
One of the reasons for the 6000+ sq ft houses comes from the desire to be all things to all buyers. One buyer may want 6/10 rooms another a different 6/10 rooms. SO a builder (custom or spec) feels a need to build all ten rooms.
In a custom build you can build small by eliminating the rooms you personally don’t need. This limits the market, which in itself may not be bad since you might (with thought) be creating a meaningfully differentiated offering to a particular buyer.
Or you can design some spaces to be flexible. A downstairs office that can be converted to a formal living room, or dining room, or even a downstairs bedrrom suite.
sorry, btw, to hijack this thread away from sex to real estate. Hope that doesn’t upset anyone! But i will add that a case for upstairs master bedrooms is to keep a watchful presence in what otherwise would be a teenage upstairs apartment. While this goes against aging in place, you can keep reserve a place for an elevator for later in life if needed.
Real estate is very sexy!
This is the best so far I know and I am very pleased with that.