I mentioned the other day that I spent most of my time in the car on our trip to Atlanta daydreaming about the house I’d love to build someday. I say build instead of buy because I have some pretty specific requirements. It must be surrounded by mature trees. It must have plenty of windows and a big ‘ol porch. It must be located within thirty minutes of both my parents and in-laws. And it must have a guest bedroom on the ground floor with an attached bathroom. Our grandparents on both sides of the family have had quite a bit of drama lately and it’s been a wake up call-I want to be sure I’m able to move a parent into our home someday if we need to, and having a suitable bedroom on the ground floor is critical to that end.
I prefer a traditional exterior and a focus on the outdoors. Behold, my favorite houses…
Better Homes and Gardens
FGY Architects | Houzz.com
Roger Moraga | Houzz.com
Oh man. This last one just gets me. I want to go to there.
No source. If you know where this image is from please let me know so I can cite it! (and maybe visit?)
But while I love drooling over photos, what really gets me going is floor plans. My parents subcontracted the construction of their own home when I was in middle school and one of my favorite pastimes was paging through their home plan catalogs, then drafting out my own designs. Yesterday while Jack was napping I got out my graph paper and drew up my dream house based on a couple of different layouts I’d seen online. My grandparents had a business doing custom home designs for many years so maybe that’s why I like it so much.
Bear in mind that I am filthy rich in this scenario. I think that this house would be about 3,000 square feet-a little bigger than I thought that I wanted but I can see it comfortably housing both an aging parent and a gaggle of kids (and someday grandkids). If I had my druthers, this would be the house I lived in until I died. But I know that most folks can’t afford to buy/build their forever home until they’ve been saving a little longer than we have so I’m not holding my breath that this dream will be realized anytime soon. Maybe someday though, right? If Nick rents a lot of cars and my student loans get forgiven and I keep on keeping on with the cheapness. Or maybe we’ll end up settling into a house that is not exactly perfect but still pretty great because, hello, we live there, and that’ll be enough. That’s probably what’ll happen.
I did get to build my dream house (also a trained architect) but it all starts with graph paper! I did the same as you, drawing floor plans on graph paper when I was little, then, life got crazy and good and hard and wedded and kidded (totally a word, right?), and I got to do it, make my dream a reality.
I’d just suggest you put the laundry room upstairs with the kid bedrooms in your fantasy house, it makes doing laundry (I think we are at 13 loads per week) *much* easier. Oh, plus 2 washers and dryers, and 2 dishwashers, while you are fantasizing:)
Happy Monday!
Jessica
Ooooh, good idea! Thanks for your words of encouragement!