Seeing Beth's photo of farfetched's pretty home the other day made me wonder, do any of you live in your dream house? If not, do you have a dream house in your fantasies? I never used to have one, but lately, I know exactly what mine looks like. If I could draw, I'd show you, but basically. . .
Drive up a gravel drive until you see the small wooden house with flowers in front of it.
Get out of your car and walk up about five wooden steps to a wide front porch and notice the friendly rocking chairs, enough for several friends to sit there all at one time.
Come on in the front door, and step inside to the living room.
If you stand there and look forward, you'll see the breakfast counter and past that the very small kitchen. If you walk to the right past the kitchen, you'll pass a booth big enough for four people--cause I love kitchens with booths. If you walk to the left past the kitchen, you'll pass the small laundry room.
Behind the kitchen is the bedroom and bath.
Out the sliding glass doors on the other side of the bedroom is the wide deck.
Beyond that is a very small yard, the detached garage, and a lot of trees.
That's it. Basically two rooms, plus kitchen, plus front porch, garage, and back deck. There's no guest room, but the couches in the living room fold out into beds, and you're welcome to stay if you don't mind sharing the bath.
What does yours look like?
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I don't know where it's located, or what colors it's painted, and I'm not even sure I own it. I think maybe I rent it from a wonderful couple who like having a real life author in their house, and who keep it in immaculate repair. The house, not the author, altough that would be okay, too. They keep me stocked in home-grown tomatoes and homemade pies, and in return I pay my rent on time, give them the first signed copies of my books, and invite them over for drinks and dinner when my friends come to call. The owners like my famous writer friends okay, but they like my blog friends best of all. :)
Oh, and goodnight. Coffee and tea on the porch in the morning.
Morning Nancy.
I'm more of a log cabin/home type person. I'm fickled though. I keep vacillating between a small cabin and a large house with compound. The reason for the large house and compound is for all the family/friends coming to stay all the time. I haven't figured out what exactly the inside looks like, but I do know I'd like a wrap around porch with a lot of rocking chairs and porch swings.
Dream House? I like yours, Nancy.
Mine? Something with people in it, I suppose. But they only wake up when I want them to.
Oh, and dogs that never die.
I live in my Real Home. It's the house we built for ourselves in the place we want to be. I can't imagine living anywhere else.
(Disclaimer: I could imagine having built it without all the mistakes we made, more electrical outlets, and a bigger kitchen.)
Morning All.
My dream house would have no stairs and 3 mother-in-law apartments. It would also be within 2 miles of both mountains and ocean.
And What ghost said: a dog that never dies.
(waving good morning to everyone)
I want something similar to a hobbit hole, sized up for Big People. Built into the side of a hill, with strategic air & light vents for the back rooms and wide windows in the front rooms. One far-back room has no light shaft, and is for food & beer/wine storage.
A walkway leads to a spacious shaded patio with an outdoor kitchen & fireplace, with plenty of seating for guests. Beyond the patio, the walkway continues for a short distance to the garden. When the weather is uncooperative, we retreat to the wide living room. Mind your step, though: a horizontal pipe, driven into the hillside, carries fresh water to an indoor koi pond. The overflow goes on out to the garden.
Somewhere nearby is the guest house. We have a spare bedroom inside for the onesy-twosy guests, but for larger crowds we need something more.
Oh. And wifi blankets the entire property. There are benches outside, and plenty of places to sit inside. No sense in having all this w/o making it easy to find an inspiring place to write!
Nancy -- This is FUN! (as I run off to be at work a little early)
Far, I love your house.
Good morning, all.
I'm living in mine mostly. It lacks a true library, though many of the walls are covered with books, and we haven't yet had the disposable income necessary to transform my summer screen office into something more permanent and year round. That's about it beyond maintenance tasks and gardening.
1921 Craftsman bungalow with 4 bedrooms and all of the original woodwork. There's been at least once where having this house was the difference between Laura applying for a really nice job at a University in a different city or not.
Kelly, yep, when you make a job and city choice, just so you can stay in your house, that's your dream house, all right.
Back soon, after coffee.
Too bad mobile homes can't be a dream house: if you need to move to another town, just get a new lot & take the house with you!
I'm trying to add a few of the non-embedded-in-hillside touches to FAR Manor… I'd originally planned to do a deck like at the old place, but somehow a patio seems more natural. I'll have to do it in stages: plain patio first, add a fireplace and then the kitchen later. Now that we've had some rain, I can go looking for more rock this weekend… probably the last "free" weekend I'll have this year.
On October 19, 1991, I married. On December 1, 1991, my bride said, "Your house is just not right. Why don't you build me a new one?" I was a lap dog and obeyed. On April 21, 1994, we moved into the dream house she made me design (212 versions). I played architect, drew the blueprints, found the land, and acted as the general contractor. We also did tons of manual labor (painting, cleaning, landscaping, staining of doors, etc.) She acted as my purchasing agent and did a great job.
It is 3,500 sq ft. with everything we need on one level (laundry room, kitchen, great room, office, sunroom, master bedroom, music/art room). The guests and relatives need to tromp upstairs to the 2 bedrooms, library (which overlooks the 36x18 great room) and play room.
The pantry is 8x18 off the kitchen that features a 10 foot island with a five-burner gas range and places for seven stools (eight if you've showered). We have two full ovens and more gadgets "Linens and Things". Everyone loves the kitchen.
I like the open concept and have a place in the great room where you can look out of the house in all four directions (north, south, east, and west). I orientated the house that way to help my geographically challenged wife.
We heat with a wood stove in the great room which is off the deck which runs along the outside of the back of the house, except where a bridge goes over the goldfish pond, which is viewable from the great room. All the hot water is solar. The house is light and airy with tons of windows.
I'll stop here. It reads too much like bragging, but I am. I'm proud to live in my wife's dream house on five wooded acres near a 32,000 acre lake on a short lane with only four other houses.
Now, if only I'd get something faster than 28.8, I'd be a happy man.
I, too, already have my "dream house," only it's a summer cottage that's been in our family for over 30 years. It's got garage sale furniture and decor, it's still even got an 8-track tape player/stereo (which hasn't been used in at least 20 years), but it's part of the TV stand so it stays. It's also got a leaky roof and the breakwall is falling apart.
But, man, what a view!
Morning all. Got in late last night -- it's so nice to be home - dream or not. :-)
FAR -- is this what you're talking about: hobbit house
Lorraine, your book cover really IS gorgeous. So exciting!
http://llbartlett.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/27/murdercover2.jpg
Welcome home, O! That Hobbit Home is amazing.
You Man People, with your building
skills are so impressive. Truly. Ghost's wife is right in there with you, tearing out walls, putting up sheet rock, and swinging her hammer. I remember when he used to flinch when he heard a crash inside their house. Now he just goes to see what she's building.
I want to take a basic carpentry class, but I can't find one.
Olivia, being a huge LOTR fan, that is a GREAT house!!
My dream house isn't quite as detailed, although I've designed it over and over again through the years.
Log cabin in the woods, by a creek/river. Big porch with swings. Screened, if there are buggies. Big kitchen (although I guess that means I'd have to cook again). Lots of storage, comfy furniture. HUGE windows. Hot tub. Big master suite. Separate guest suite. Library with TONS of books and good light to read them by. Cozy office.
And dogs. Big dogs.
Now if I could only figure a way to work a beach into that....
This is fun!! Thanks Nancy!
Like FM, I too am fickle but, many of the elements you all have listed make their way into my dreams. Nice spaces for guests, hobbity abodes set in the woods near creeks/rivers, writing rooms, libraries, a chef's kitchen, a spa-like bathroom with all the goodies.
I have the latest version of The Sims, and I spend more time playing around building variations of dream houses than I do with any other element of the game.
OH! Almost forgot the conservatory. Has to have one of those.
kb, 3 mother-in-law apartments??
Thanks for the kudos on my cover, Nancy! (I'm really, really pleased!)
You seem to be an aficionado of teeny, tiny houses Nancy. Here's a link:
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/home.htm
I adore these little houses. My first dream home was 635 sq. feet, measured from the outside and perfect for a little woman and a little dog.
My fairly new dream house is bigger. Over time additions of big cat and even bigger s.o. made this a requirement. But my new home isn't huge, still under 1400 feet, still cozy and comfy.
I still love the tiny houses.
Conda, I saw a house similar to this that a woman built who lives in Tacoma, I think. They're SO cute, and such a great idea. But I have big clunky furniture...a small weekend getaway would work, though, if it was in a pretty place where you could get outside.
So cute, Conda. I've seen photos of tiny houses, but this was the first time I've seen them on the move. :) My dream house is bigger than that, but I suspect after I lived in it a while, I'd be happy with smaller.
Lorraine, is Natalie R. your editor at Berkley?
Hey O, that hobbit house is pretty close! What a great job they did on it. I'm not sure that such a home could be built in the US, what with codes and all, though.
Library. Yeah. The last time The Boy moved out, I was going to yank all the furniture out & turn it into a library. The gables in the upstairs bedrooms could easily be fitted out as a cozy reading room with natural light.
Rick, FAR Manor was a similar prospect in that Mrs. Fetched pushed until she got it — but it was already built, and I had pointed out a bunch of flaws, describing it at one point as a pig in a poke. Unfortunately, everything I've said so far about it has come true. TFM was originally going to be about all the crap I would have to do just to keep the place standing. :-P
Tiny houses: Home Despot has this two-story barn that could easily be made into a small home. It's a tad over 500 sq ft. The upstairs area would make a nice bedroom; the area under the steps could be storage (food & linens). You'd have to dedicate one corner to a bathroom & shower, but there would be enough room to have a lounge area. The building is about $7k; I figured another $5k would be more than enough to finish it out, if you did most of the work yourself. That includes $1500 for a composting toilet, so sink water could be diverted to a garden & no septic system would be required.
I've considered doing this as a guest house if we end up having $12K that we need to get rid of. :-)
Earth sheltered, passive solar, fronted with native stone, deep in the forest, concave enough to create a patio before it. Inside clean and sparse. Quiet, above all, quiet!
I definitely not living in my dream house. I like to refer to our "house" as a shack attached to the nice room that we added a couple of years ago.
My dream house has always been a shingle style victorian like the first house at the top of this page.
I'm not concerned with the layout of rooms. I'm more interested in the wide covered verandas and the interior flow for which these houses were known. Generally, these houses avoid the frilly details of other earlier victorians in favor of a sleeker inified appearance.
We'd have a very interesting neighborhood, wouldn't we?
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