I drove back from Boise today. It gave me 4 hours of opportunity to contemplate vast vistas of empty and compare it to my packed subdivision. I really like my house and neighborhood and yard, but sometimes the place feels too crowded, so I entertained myself by creating a mental dream home. Since I’m imagining this Cost is not an issue.
Start with a plot of land somewhere between 2 and 50 acres. Howard once mentioned “thirty acres” so we’ll say 30 acres. This 30 acres is no more than an hour from a metropolitan area which contains a Walmart and a resonably sized airport. The thirty acres also contains a natural water feature, a lake or largish stream.
Most of the land will be left the way nature made it. I might occasionally do something to generate habitat for wild critters, like create a marshland or plant trees, but mostly that land just needs to be there. About 2 acres will be significantly rearranged to accomodate a house, flower garden, vegetable garden, aviary, Discgolf course, etc. The house will be about 25 years old, but built lovingly and correctly. The owners planted trees the first year they built the house and so there are beautiful mature trees on the lot.
The house has a big porch with an attractive view, it doesn’t have to be a vista, just nothing ugly. The house itself doesn’t need to be huge. The kids can share rooms if the rooms are large. It has to have a room with big windows that Howard can use as a studio/office. No more basement caves for Howard. There needs to be a big dining area so all the family can come for the occasional big dinner. An outdoor grilling area needs to be handy to the kitchen. There needs to be a mud room for hosing off the children. I want lots of cupboards that are attractively built into the house. A garage or shed large enough for cars, bikes, lawnmowers, tools, projects, etc.
There must be a fenced play area near the house for little ones. A larger wild/dirty place for older kids to dig and build forts and generally feel like they’ve got a place of their own.
As I think of it, most of the stuff that I’d really like would fit into 2 acres or less. I just like the idea of making homes for wild critters. Mostly I want a space that is big enough to feel alone in.
Anyway this is how I whiled away the time while the kids watched Dora the Explorer for the nth time. I had to do something to not be bored to tears.
Aww… no more basement cells for the Elves to cower in? 😀
Hmm… that ‘outdoor cooking area’ sounds a lot like a porch attached to the kitchen, at least to me, with a roof and maybe a mesh ‘wall’ around it to keep a lot of the bugs and some of the rain out. Some sort of den area with windows for the studio to keep Howard in, or would it be more of an area akin to a solarium?
And as far as hosing-down areas go, isn’t that what a porch or the backyard’s for? 😀 Nice idea for a house though.