Tag: houses

Is There an Ideal Home?

What does your ideal home look like?

Today’s prompt is something I think about often. I’ve designed a few homes and liked each, but none are my dream home. The Hermits’ Rest ranch house has a floor plan I like, but things have happened to make it less than ideal. That’s fine. Life happens!

I do like my bed

When I envision an ideal home, I quickly realize the setting is more important to me than the house. Ideally I would have:

  • Enough acreage that I can’t see neighbors who aren’t family
  • Woods, with paths
  • Pasture for horses and hay
  • A lake where one can swim, fish, kayak, and look at birds
  • Barn with stalls, tack room, and hay area
  • Horses and donkeys (reasonable number, but in Ideal World I have a helper who gets to ride with me)
  • Indoor horse arena
  • Meadow or prairie area, with paths,
  • A creek going into or leading from the lake
  • Treehouse/bird blind
Glad we get to come.

The house will feature much wood and iron. There are windows with views of the lake, the woods, and if possible, the horses, but they may be a little ways down the road.

Vaguely like this Georgia house from One Kindesign

Porches and decks to hang out on and enjoy the view are a must. There will be a little path leading to a guest house and swimming pool.

By the way, the lake will NOT feature poopy cow butts

In the house I can have all the colors and patterns I want. There will be much Jacobean tree of life prints on the furniture and walls. China, pottery, paintings, embroideries, and glassware will be wherever I want it. My beautiful dining room table and chairs will look great in the cheerful dining room.

That’s the idea! (From Architectural Digest)

I will be able to see to read in any of the many comfortable but not ugly seating areas. I’d have plants if I weren’t so bad with them.

From Veranda magazine.

My office will have Native Anerican rugs, pottery, and baskets by people I know it at least know of. I will display my silver there, along with paintings of horses and canyons and mesas. There will be tall ceilings to hold all my bookshelves, with those ladder things to climb to get books.

I could hide the shelves among Jacobean tapestries.

And if you know me, I won’t have a white kitchen and there may well be cherry cabinets. I like cherry and don’t care if it’s fashionable. I will have an induction range and cast iron cookware. If I can’t lift it anymore I’ll hire a cook.

My goodness. These things are $400 now. I’ll stick with my black 1986 one.

Bathrooms? Cheerful. Colorful. Functional. Attached to a huge closet no one will make fun of me for, with much shoe storage and a jewelry vault or giant storage thing.

I have no bathroom examples, but look, more English florals. My happy place, too. From the Architectural Digest article, “Happy Place” with photographs by Max Burkhalter. September 2023, pp. 89-101

I’ll need a yarn room or outbuilding. Then I can sew, weave, and quilt. People can hang out with me there. Yes, that will be great.

Like this, only with space for crafts.

I enjoyed imagining this impossible house. It’s really impossible because I want it not too big and in a pleasant climate. Ha ha.

No, there’s no ideal home. Let’s aim for comfy.