My central vac is my friend! We have hardwood floors throughout (tile in baths and laundry/back hall). No carpeting, just orientals I can send out for cleaning. (You can substitute a bound piece of carpeting if you want. I find the hand-knotted orientals hide a lot of little spills and wear like iron.)

I have no flouncy 'window treatments'. We have wide casings that provide trim and Pella windows and doors with shades between the glass. In BRs and one bath I have fabric roman shades (inset) for blackout and additional privacy. One window has inset shutters; I got talked into wood ones, but would have been just as happy with the 'Pollywood' type that we have in our condo.

If you can use in-floor heating, do it. Less dust blowing around. We have filtering systems on our furnaces; that helps. (Flow-thru humidifiers, too.)

Get whatever style appliances YOU like. They will probably need replacing by the time you sell if not before. I'm no fan of stainless anything. I ripped it out of our first house many years ago: wall tiles, countertops, sinks, wall ovens, the works. It looked so institutional.

That is so exciting!
Questions:
How big do you want the house
Are you going to have a basement?
What state are you located at? (House styles varies a lot)

Our new house is going to be mostly accessible.
Basicly, a house with good resale is well located, has 3 bedrooms, a fireplace, accessibility is a big plus, the master bathroom and masterbedroom are generous and the kitchen is nice!
An open concept is good, younger people like it and is easy to get around with a wheel chair

about your questions, the electric outlet and switches needs to be at a certain height. The doors needs and space next to the frame (at lock area) of 18" if you open the door toward you and if you open the door away from you (push) it needs to be of 12"

Code varies but the garage slab should be 4" lower than the finish floor in the house so you need a ramp.
The doors should have a low profile thres-hold

We built our dream house expecting to be in it for the duration. Here are a couple of things that we did which you might find helpful:

1. Eliminate threshold drops at your outside doors. This proved to be very difficult for us to get accepted by county inspectors. Our house is stucco and the inspectors wanted an air vent running along the base of the stucco coat. They made us raise the stucco two inches above the patio and porch pavement.
2. Put a dropped shower pan in your shower so that the drain will be below the level of the bathroom floor. This will allow you to roll a wheel chair into the shower, should that become necessary. While we have a curb in that shower, it can be fairly easily removed when needed.
3. Consider installing home-run wiring in your house with programmable light switches. This allows you to turn off every light in the house with a single switch next to your bed. And it will provide lots of other efficiencies in controlling lights as well.
4. As chisue mentioned, radiant heat is a great idea. Not only does it help keep your house clean, but it keeps your extremities warm...perfect for when your circulation declines.
5. We have a garage on the lower level and installed an elevator. We had thought we'd rarely use it unless/until we became disabled. But we find it invaluable for bringing in groceries, etc. We put everything on a rolling cart in the garage, bring it up the elevator and wheel it into the kitchen....so easy!
6. Get atomic clocks. They set themselves automatically and don't require daylight savings time adjustments.
7. Install electric self-lighting gas fireplaces. A wall switch starts the fire and your "all off" lighting switch can turn it off if you've forgotten to.

Bob

A walk in pantry in the kitchen that is big enough to enter with a walker. You can easily see everything that is in there and then you can have open shelves between hip height and shoulder height which are easy heights to access. If you anticipate a wheel chair in your future, then make the pantry big enough for a wheel chair and make sure you have open shelves at the height that would be accessible from a wheelchair. Also, make sure that you will have room to add a ramp to at least one entrance to your house as you need a lot of space for a ramp--I think a 1:12 slope (i.e., 12 feet of ramp per foot of elevation) is the maximum slope recommended for a ramp but that 1:14 or 1:16 is preferred.

I also like the idea of an elevator, a friend suggested this to us when we were designing: if you think you might want an elevator someday, add one closet on each floor and have those all line up vertically, so when it comes time to install an elevator, you just lose those closets, and you already have room for the elevator shaft. Of course make sure you have plenty of closet room otherwise so it won't be a big deal to lose that closet space. Good luck!

jenk2008, your recommendation would require a good deal more engineering to ensure that the space was prepared for installation of an elevator. Even though our elevator only goes up one floor, the shaft had to be lined by a slew of 4x6 posts that ran the full distance of the shaft. And the foundation of the garage had to include a depression to accommodate the elevator car base. Finally, there is elevator equipment which must be housed within a specific distance of the elevator. So, yes, you could build a house that was elevator-ready, but you'd have to do lots more than simply align the closets.

Bob

Use undercounter carts instead of cabinets, especially in the kitchen [when in a wheelchair, one can usually only reach the first 8" to 12" of a low shelf]. If the carts are finished on one end with a cabinet-type door to face outwards, no one will even be able to tell that you've made such a convenient decision. Sliding shelves are a good alternate, but very expensive in comparison.

A refrigerator that has a bottom freezer is far more convenient than the usual top-freezer.

Keep in mind that sinks are a PIA for the wheelchair bound. (To see what I mean, sit in a dining room chair with a thick pillow on your lap and then try to wash dishes!) You don't have to start with a convenient w/c height sink-counter, but have the plumbing installed to the rear and the sink in a separate cabinet should it need to be lowered at a later date.

Consider that a toilet will need handbars on both sides -- don't skimp on the space now. It also should be accessible from the front, that means there should be enough floor space to turn the wheelchair to face the commode.

Grab bars for the shower/tub should be part of the building process now, because they need to be installed into the studs behind the tile or wallboard. Yes you can do them later but the cost will be considerably more.

Mirrors, and the lighting for them, are different when you are sitting down. Try make installed mirrors go from counterheight up, and make the lighting adjustable heightwise as well as in luminosity.

A chair lift which uses the rail area is available (and not outrageously expensive) for stairways. A flat landing [spacious enough for the wheelchair] is required at the top and the bottom of the steps. I recommend making any steps wider than average, but check with the manufacturer's requirements. Remember that the lift needs electricity and will be useless if the power goes off during a storm unless you have a generator backup.

It cannot be emphasized enough to have at least two exits usable (two choices are safer than one in event of fire); one of those should be from the bedroom. Carolyn53562 gives the average ratios for ramps, but let me tell you that when pushing a wheelchair, even a 1:16 ramp is STEEP.

If one expects to use an electric-powered chair, all access-ways usually need extra width.

As said before, all shelves need to be reachable while sitting down. This means about double the usual storage space is required for everything from linen closets to the pantry.

Thanks to all who replied...good ideas and very useful. We will not need an elevator...just one level. We are planning a 2500 SF open-concept house, no basement and we live in Kansas. Those grab-bars and an hadicapped height potty will certainly be installed.