Has anyone ever put some thought into mentally (or actually) designing their ideal herp or animal room? My fiance and I have been talking about our plans for 3 or so years in the future once she is working full time. We are hoping to move a bit out of the city, buy some land in the country and drop a modular home on it.

I have recently become intrigued by floor plans that offer a "bonus room" on the upper floor. I think this could serve very well as a reptile/exotics room. Right now, I use our basement and most of the free-ranging pets are kept out of it, except my lonely black cat, Siren, who hates all other mammalian life. The basement is okay, but has several weaknesses, among these a severe lack of ambient light. All of my cages down there have lights on them, which are expensive to run. In addition, Siren doesn't have access to much window area to sit and bask, and this pains me. Lastly, because it is a small space, there's not really any sitting area down there to really enjoy watching anything. That's a bummer.

But a bonus room would have at least one big window, maybe more, with the potential for skylights too. It would be a much larger space than my basement, both in square footage and height. With more ambient light I could even do something like build in a finch aviary, to keep some finches I've always admired but never been able to keep because... cats. (Siren is fine with all animals and does not hunt) I think I would try to keep a line of PVC cages to one side of the room, with some larger display cages that would let me keep some bigger animals on the other side. I'm dreaming of some nice, zoo quality, cages-by-design-esqe cages for a larger boa, a Savannah monitor or tegu and perhaps an iguana! I am not a breeder, so I just need comfy and pretty places to house my pets.

I was thinking also I could put a nice old couch or maybe a couple of comfy chairs in the middle of the room to provide a place to sit and enjoy my critters. It would need to either be close to a bathroom with water or preferably have it's own small sink. I'm not sure how hard that would be to add to the room. In addition, I'd have to check on insulation and other such things related to a bonus room, particularly in the floor, as a lot of them are above the garage.

Anyone else ever planned out their ideal room? What would you include?