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Dilbert's Ultimate House
angkor writes "Dilbert's Ultimate House (DUH) is the product of the combined wisdom of thousands of Dilbert readers, plus the help of real world experts, and it's online for viewing at dilbert.com/duh. Are you tired of tripping over the cat's litter box in your bathroom? Dilbert's house has its own bathroom just for the cat. Do you hate dragging a Christmas tree into the house every December just to throw it away in January? Dilbert's house has a huge closet off of the Great Room where he stores a fully decorated artificial tree on wheels..."
If you aren't organized, having a giant house won't help you. The closet for the Christmas tree will get filled up with other stuff and you won't be able to get at the tree when you need it. One of the first rules about labor saving devices is that labor saving devices don't. They mostly just occupy space.
I have spent some time on ships and have always been impressed by how neat and orderly they are. Everything aboard is necessary and gets used regularly because there is no room for unnecessary stuff. (Unfortunately, I am surrounded by 'stuff' because I didn't learn from the experience.)
Methinks you're over-thinking that just a tad. I have two cats - their litterbox is under an open spiral staircase (fails two of your criteria, since they can't see the whole room from it, and the open staircase it rests under is prime for predatorial leaping), and it sits directly next to the food bowls (though it faces away from them, of course). The male tends to sleep directly above it on the stairway, because that's the best possible location for tripping the humans. I've never had an issue with out-of-the box cat poopage. And the 2.5 foot stairway? You'd like the poor kitty to have to jump with a full bladder? Bad enough they have to go to the loo in a box of dirt, now they have to perform gymnastics to get there? tsk tsk.