Our (Pipe) Dream House

We’ve now lived in our little house for almost 7 years. I must say I really really love our house. But as much as I love it, it is not 100% perfect and Matt and I have always wanted to build our own house at some point in the semi-distant future. With the housing market the way it is now, we can’t/won’t sell, but we are thinking about buying some land and holding it until we can build up some equity and then eventually build a new home.

Anyhow, we’ve been looking casually at land and hatching this scheme and then today, I saw a great post at Ohdeedoh about what you’d ask for if you had a home makeover show at your disposal, which got me thinking about my “wish list” for our Dream House. Overall, I don’t want anything too big. I really like the size of our house and I do NOT want much more to clean. Still, there are some definite things on my wish list.

• Author of the inspirational post on Ohdeedoh, Janie Lee, cited an outdoor shower as her personal fantasy project. I must concur. We had one in the house we stayed at in HI when Tabby was a baby and it was heavenly. I would love it on an upstairs deck, perhaps just outside of the master bedroom.
• A REAL pantry. If you’ve been hanging around for more than a minute, I’m sure you’ve heard me bitch and moan about our black-hole pantry that I despise. I wish for a large closet with shallow shelves. The pantry Pioneer Woman installed in her “lodge” a couple of years ago still makes me swoon. I would want baskets as well for storing things like potatoes and squash.
• I am a huge fan of outdoor rooms, the type that are covered porches with a wall or two. I would want one with a fireplace or fire pit (probably a fire pit for roasting marshmallows), nice seating areas, a ceiling fan and of course a grill.
• I would love to have a mudroom and/or landing area for the STUFF. Bags, backpacks, coats, mittens, hats, boots … all near laundry facilities. Our kitchen sort of functions in this way right now, but it would be nice to have it a bit more portioned off.
• Nix the dining room and living room. I have no use for formal rooms. I am not into formal entertaining or wasted space. I would ideally like a dining area attached to the kitchen with a giant stone fireplace.
• A nicer kitchen. We are super lucky to have the great kitchen we have, but ideally, I’d like a slightly larger kitchen. Just a few more cabinets would be nice and, of course this is a bit silly and specific, but I would love to have a faucet at the stove for filling pans. I think it would be fun too to have the stove on an island with some seating around so guests could hang out while dinner was prepared.
• And since we’re talking DREAM here, I would love to have a really cool personal space. It might be attached to the house or it might not be. But I’d love a space to chill out with my computer and my crafts and maybe my treadmill. It would be primarily mine, but I’d love some spots to work with the kids on this or that or to curl up and read books. This treehaus workspace is particularly cool.

There are of course, a few other things. I would love slightly bigger rooms for the kids and a guest room. An exercise room would be cool. A girl can dream, eh?