So, I have a pinterest.
And I’ve been putting a lot of house ideas on there.
That, and talking to friends talking about their dream houses, leads me to thinking about that dichotomy.
So, over here, we have ~~the ideal house~~ Mine is a 2-story-with-attic in a style common around here which so far I’ve been unable to put a name to, with 3 bedrooms and a closet office, a wide, open kitchen, and a lot of light.
And over here, we have the house I own. It’s a short squat farmhouse that currently has very bare walls – unpainted drywall in one room, bare “studs” in another- bad linoleum, and strange room shapes (It does have, technically, 3 bedrooms and a closet office).
Of course, the advantage of the house I own is that it’s mine. And I’ve been working on thinking about Dream House that way – not about the house I might have some day, but about what I can do to my current house to make it My House.
(First step, as soon as we can afford it, is obviously getting someone in to fix the walls.)
So when I think about Dream House, I’m going to work on thinking Dreams For This House.
But that’s me. What about you?
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Well, I have two different trains of thought about this. 1. Very practical and pragmatic, and your house can be turned into the house you want. 2. Dream big. Then make your dream happen. Could your house be turned into the house you want, or could you build the house you want? Could the house you want be located on your current land? Alternatively, could you build equity in this house and trade it up for the house you want?
I currently live in a house I want to keep, but as a family house: for letting my kids play in the yard during family holidays, for vacations in the country, for renting out some years and living in as my life stage changes. My cat is buried here. I want a cute little Victorian with trellises.
I miss Gatsby… I picture you in a cute Victorian with trellises. This makes sense. That’s an interesting idea, the family house. I wonder about my parents’ house, smetimes
Parents, grandparents, etc.
We sold my grandparents’ house. Still makes me a bit sad.
1. There’s something very ratifying about it, too. 2. We’ve thought about building Dream House on the other end of the property in a few years. Or selling House and moving south where we could buy Dream House. (And not freeze). So …. *laugh* exactly what you said. My house could probably not be turned into the house I want, although it could be made closer. It’s bones are wrong for the Ideal Layout.
It sounds like the improvements you want to make will make it a better house overall, so yay, house value?
Ratifying? Gratifying, Lyn. Yay house value! Yes, anything we do has “building equity” as a secondary purpose/bullet point.
Does T keep a ‘initial purchase + cost of improvements’ folder? I like those.
Yep. For a while, he was keeping a spreadsheet, not sure if he still it.
I could so engage your fellow in a few-hours-long discussion about money. Might even stop us from getting to the few-hours-long argument about politics.
I shall be sure to have knitting ready when you visit 😀 Or pack it when we meet somewhere midway
We should really arrange that.
yes, we should
So! This weekend is E.Mc and next Friday Rion and Trix are coming to visit. The 2-3 February would be back, but any other weekend is fair game. Where and when is good for you?
After my brother goes back to China, so after January.
Okay! After January my schedule opens up a lot more!!
I would find it difficult to put as much work into a project as you are putting into your house and then let it go. On the other hand, you are building equity, so if you’re considering it paid work rather than nesting, perhaps that works. (My dream house notions still have leftovers from childhood scribbles of castles with waterfalls and suchlike lurking in them. Not practical at all.)
i have some of those, too. Secret passages! (I think I figured out where to hide one of those in our house, actually). As for nesting v. building equity… Only I Don’t Want To Live In NYS forever keeps me going on the latter.
Secret passages. A tower or three. A central courtyard with trees. All kinds of impractical things! (If I take out most of the impractical things, I wind up with something like a three-story tower of modest size, and that’s only … mostly impractical.) Where do you want to live?
Virginia! (Or thereabouts, but no further south) (A swing state woudl be ncie) Towers!!
Most of the things I dream about go outside the house. Like a big brick oven. And a forge. And a spring house! And a duck pond. And a firepit where I can put tripods to try out medieval cauldron cooking.. Inside, I mostly want a big kitchen and a big fireplace and a big living room all together in some combination. Skylights and basements would be nice, too. Bedrooms less important.
Ooh, big brick oven. We have an area behind the house that we will probably put a patio over (Drainage issues)… we’re thinking of making it an outdoor kitchen. Bread in summer!!
Yes! I love baking bread, and cooking outdoors. 🙂 It occurred to me that visiting my dream house might be like visiting Cya, except less “we willl need this in the future” and more “I’ve always wanted to try making sheep’s milk cheese.” 😀 I don’t know how much use each item would get.. we’d end up using a spring house one year to age cheeses, then later on to age beer.. might even try making our own soap a couple of times, then take up spinning for a while, then tanning…
Yes, yes. There’s definitely some of that in my dream house (And in my current house. Although right now there’s “Is cheese cloth a towel or a canning supply?”)
Cheese cloth is a cooking implement. 🙂
Yes 😉 But “cooking implements” are all over the kitchen, where “towels” and “canning implements” have distinct homes.
With canning implements rather than towels, IMO.
But the canning implements are in a box under the cat food behind the jars…. /whiiine/ ;-D
Do you use the cheesecloth (or the canning supplies) often enough to justify a more accessible location?
Hrrm. I may. I need the canning shelves.
I’m right now dreaming about a flat. Definitely smaller than a house, but ALL MY OWN SPACE. Absolutely dreamy would be something with a big open-plan kitchen/living room with lots of light (maybe a balcony, they tend to come with huge windows), a separate bedroom, and a bathroom with a tub and enough space that it’s not utterly cramped when a washing machine’s put in there. I can’t quite decide if my dream house is huge and convoluted (two-storey living room/library! secret passages!!) or sort of a bungalow.
*nods* Own Space is important. I would love a kitchen that opened into my living room. I’d love if we had things organized enough here-where-I-am-now to have company.
I’d love to have less stuff, so I have an easier time organising the rest. Sometimes I’m tempted to just throw away a good deal of it, but it seems like such a waste. :/
Do you have thrift shops, consignment shops where you are? Hrrm, Get Rich Slowly had a good article on that concept… I wonder if I can find it.
Lyn, this series? http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/06/04/clutters-last-stand-the-cost-of-buying-things-you-will-not-use/ http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/08/10/the-tyranny-of-stuff/
You’re my hero! That series!
Yay me.
I also have a Pinterest, and I also keep pinning things I want in my house someday. But currently the boy and I are still renting, 1 bedrooms nonetheless, in Boston. Which means a lot of what I am posting – big,airy kitchens, kick-ass living rooms, I cannot do yet. But the smaller things? I can. Like the idea of buying a a single window shutter at an antique store and using it sort mail. Or hanging awesome art. Or finishing my own table to double as counter/storage. It’s dreams, and I’m ok, if I never get my dream house. So, yeah, incorporating bits of my dream house into what I have now.
Re. the smaller things – yes. There’s a lot of that going on. I’m hanging my art on unfinished drywall because not having any up makes me sad. Once spring comes, back to the hard work, though. Painting. All The Painting. Posssibly built-in bookshelves, <3<3<3
if you follow me on Pinterest, I shall follow you as well!
Followed!
Umm.. I too have a pintrest…[under my real name/usual username]. So far, it’s just blue-sky-ing but then that’s what pintrest is for. My personal theory is that any house can be great, depending on how much you want to work at it… upto and including levling it and starting over. [but usualy that’s reserved for something that’s about to fall down anyway.]
if you follow me on Pinterest, I shall follow you as well! I started it because a friend wanted to know what colors we were doing our new house in. There’s a lot of fun to be had in making this house /ours/
Found and followed! So far mines just a hodge-podge of stuff.
I don’t have a specific floorplan in mind but I’d love to have a semi-submerged and earth-sheltered house. All that mass surrounding the walls would make for nice temperature stability. A library room to stuff with shelves, a deck on top that I could have a telescope on, and perhaps a server closet. Also a porch area with a grill and spacious brick oven would be really nice. Probably would be easiest to do it if I moved a ways outside of town. Which comes with the downside of a longer work commute and an increased probability of scorpions (*shiver* I don’t want scorpions, the occasional roaches that get inside are bad enough). (*pouts* initial reply Friday was eaten by the public wifi deciding it was time to expire my signon and force me to click a pointless button again)
Oh, I love earth-sheltered houses!! If you moved to the North, less chance of scorpions /innocent/
My ideal house has evolved a lot, as my idea of the number of people I’d live with has evolved. RIght now we rent, and most of my things are in a 5X15 storage locker anyway. So any and al houses are dreams, and I don’t know if they’ll ever be a reality. But I tend to cede kitchen planning to the people who cook more than me, and want library space and different craft/art/hobby space. But it’s all vague. Your house has a lot of potential, and is working towards realizing it. Yay!