What is your dream home?

Subject: What is your dream home? Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:47 pm

I thought it would be fun for everyone to describe what their dream home is.
Is it where you already live?
Why is that your dream home?
Is it somewhere far, far away from where you live now?

My dream home is a thatched roof cottage in the lake district. It must have white bumpy walls on the outside, with teeny tiny windows. There must be a real fire in every room and a aga cooker in the kitchen. Wood beams must go across the ceiling, and they must be loads of little hidey holes all over, loads of nooks and cranies. The fitchen floor must be stone flagged, the sitting room floor must have wood floor down, which I would put a vintage rug on. In the bedroom I must have a huge, wooden four poster bed with vintage bed curtains draped round it and vintage quilts thrown on the bed. The cottage must be full of old treasures which Ive searched for and bought, window boxes stuffed with sweet smelling herbs must furnish every window, the garden must be full with beautiful flowers and tasty vegeatables, and it must be situated in a tiny village, where everyone knows each other, right in the middle of now where, where shops cant be got to unless you drive quite afew miles to get there, and the shops must be family run (no chain stores), I wonder if I will ever live in such a place, maybe only in my dreams.
What is your dream home?

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:45 pm

My dream home would be a little two bedroom cottage of yellow painted wood with three steps leading up to a deep wooden porch where baskets of red and pink flowers hang. The windows will have white shutters and all the trim will be white, there will be big wooden rocking chairs on the porch. The house will have hard wood floors with vintage rugs and the living room will have a fireplace. I'll have a big, slightly worn vintage couch of some blue and white design with a soft blanket across the back and oak tables. There will be one bedroom down the hall with a bed piled with pillows and a yellow and white quilt. The bathroom will have a deep claw footed tub. Upstairs would have a little attic bedroom for company. The house will be set far back down a little dirt road lined with big trees and wild flowers on the outskirts of a little country town.

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:53 am

It is stone-built, and nestles under the shoulder of a hill, facing south-west to avoid the worst winter gales. It has one huge room downstairs, with a solid-fuel range at one end, and all of the back long wall is covered in dressers, built joined-up, if that makes sense, so effectively a wall of shelves with cupboards below and a broad shelf made by the tops of the cupboards. There is a huge ancient old refectory table, which normally has my eating-area at one end, sewing and calligraphy in the middle and all my other stuff at the other end, like woodworking and painting and carving and engineering bits.
The floor is slate so it can just be mopped, with animal-skin rugs for comfort. The walls are rough plaster painted white and there are comfortable mismatched old armchairs around the cooking end of the room, so people can sit chatting while food cooks. The windows have long heavy wool-lined curtains. There are two large baskets for the cats, because I intend to have a kind of cat-hospice and take in the very old or injured cats that cat rescue places can't re-home, so they have a home for their last few weeks or months. The three dogs (a black labrador, a brindled lurcher and another that keeps changing breed depending on what dogs I've met lately!) have their kennels outside but are allowed inside during the evening and in bitter weather.

At the cooking end of the room there is a small room with sink, fridge, freezers (in plural) and so on; and at the other end is a small bathroom with toilet and shower. An alcove of the big room can be partitioned off for guests with couches that can be made up into beds.

Upstairs is my private space - my study, my bathroom with a huge old bath and a fireplace in the bathroom, and my bedroom with the big antique rosewood bed I currently have, made up with my vintage bedlinen and vintage quilts, and set beside or under a window so I sleep by starlight and moonlight.

Outside is the herb garden, full of apothecaries' aromatics, and beyond that a walled garden filled with produce. There is a small set of stone steps leading down to a cellar used as a game larder for pheasant, deer, hare and pigeon.

A very battered Series Land Rover sits outside, along with a tiny 98cc James motorbike from the 1950s.

I have the dinner cooking, a stew of homegrown vegetables and game-meat which I've shot on my land, and I'm wearing a long woollen skirt, hand-knitted socks and a cosy pretty wrap-around fine woollen top, in shades of soft grey and old-rose. My hair is still damp after my bath and is coiled up in a top-knot with tendrils spiralling down my neck. I'm padding round the kitchen, sorting dinner, talking to the animals and listening for the sound of the Landie as my [entirely fictional just now!] man comes home to me.

Not that I spend any time at all thinking about this, oh no, I just made all that up on the spur of the moment, didn't have it all thought out already, not in the slightest ;-)

laura

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Sun Oct 14, 2007 9:57 am

Your dream homes both sound perfect, I wonder if our dreams will ever come true?

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:17 pm

Mine is a log cabin nestled in the woods with a non paved driveway (my hubby would love that come snow time). Real fireplaces, plenty of closets to put stuff away and not have to invent a home for all the clutter like we have now. It doesn't need to be massive just enough so each room has a comfortable amount of space in it. I like the real wood beam idea you have there. I'm a nature girl so anything with pine, pine cones, apples, cinnamon smells and nick nacks are perfect for me. I want a vintage kitchen with plenty of space to bake cookies and a "normal" refrigerator (i.e. one that has the freezer on the bottom. When my eye level is at 5'6", crouching in to the fridge is annoying.) Plenty of yard space for the kids.

Actually I fell in love with the cover of Rachael Ray's magazine for this month. I know it's just a facade but that's what I picture!

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:00 pm

Your dream home sound's lovely Michelle, absolutely perfect.

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:06 pm

I love the sound of all your dream homes, and hope you all achieve your heart's desire some day!

I don't presently live in my dream home exactly, but I have tried to adapt it to be as near to dreamy as it can be (for a 90's built standard 4 bed detached in a small town). It was our first house we bought together (having lived first in my husband's bachelor pad, which was a lovely first home for our daughter to be born in, but not in an ideal location). We couldn't believe our luck when we bought, what seemed to us in our twenties, the dream home we'd been looking for since before our daughter was born, and that we had to double the size of our mortgage for! (alot in those days, just as house prices really shot up). We have lived here 9 years and have just about got each room to our own spec - and now we need to start again! My favourite room is our bedroom we have just finished - that is the nearest to my dream decor so far, I love it!

My imaginary dream home is a large stone built farmhouse, maybe old limestone, or rendered brick and painted cream. Slate roof. It would be double fronted (two eyes and a nose, with dimples in each cheek?!) with big traditional sash windows, maybe shutters, and the big wide front door would have a porch over it with sides with rails and that sort of decorative wooden 'fringe' round the edge of the roof (I'm sure that's got an official name?!) painted white, or maybe sage green, like the front door, to contrast the rendering.

Inside would be a big entrance hall (big enough to have a christmas tree in at christmas!) with solid wood or the original flag stone floor, a central sweeping staircase, and there would be two equal sized reception rooms either side of the front of the house, both with real fireplaces and high ceilings, and built in bookshelving from floor to ceiling. One would be a posh dining room, the other a cosy lounge.

There would be a big flagstoned country farmhouse kitchen, all cream painted units, solid oak worktops, a cream Aga set in a chimney breast recess, a cream Smeg fridge etc, white ceramic butler sink, and room enough for a massive chunky and battered old wooden farmhouse table and chairs, ready for daily family gatherings and impromptu dinners with friends, family and kids in and out, baking, arguing over etc! The decor would have to include lots of red gingham (I have sort of achieved this kitchen on a very small scale, minus the Smeg appliances and the Aga.... oh, and the table and chairs....) There would be lots of mis-matched china and glassware adorning an aged cream wooden dresser, and MUST have a walk in pantry for storing all my ingredients and home-made preserves, marmalade, chutney etc.

I don't know about other rooms. A music room with our beautiful old vintage Baldwin piano in (or would I want this in the lounge?) and all my daughters music stand, instruments etc would be essential. As would an office for my husband to work in, and utility/wellie boot room.

I don't picture the upstairs much (strangely) but a landing big enough to have furniture on would be great, as would a bigger version of my lovely bedroom I have now - with big french armoirs and with the window seat I have yearned for since childhood! My daughter would have a beautiful pink and white/cream Laura Ashley/Cath Kidston/Shabby Chic style room, with her own little en-suite and with lots of fairy lights (I LOVE fairy lights - they would be all over the house!). The bathroom would have to feature a claw footed bath. And plenty of spare rooms so any family and friends who wanted could stay for the whole Christmas holidays!!

Outside there would be garden enough to wrap round the whole house and to have a walled kitchen garden for growing all my organic fruit and veg etc. South facing. I would transport my gorgeous summer house from the bottom of my garden now to here - it's my mini dream home! I would have plenty of mature apple, pear, and plum trees. Like the idea of chickens, but have a bit of a bird phobia....

The dream would start with the sound of crunching gravel which would be the sound you hear as you drive up the village road and into the gravel driveway at the front of the house. I have loved that sound since I was tiny!

AAah. Do I have to come back to earth from this lovely reverie??? I strongly feel (don't know why) that I will have this dream one day, even if it means loving some ram-shackle house back into life, with lots of hard graft! I have spent it feels like a lifetime sort of 'collecting' the bits and bobs I will need for this home - this alone makes me happy, working tiny bit by tiny bit towards my dream! I have yet to find the house though, or even the village! One day...

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:34 pm

This was for sale in 2005 - may still be... how's your DIY and are you anywhere near N.Yorks?!

http://www.nymcam.co.uk/050605.htm

Scroll down til you find Midge Hall, a corruption of mid-gar, from mid-garth meaning the middle farm. A keeper's cottage in the woods overlooking a river gorge... pure heaven on earth....

laura

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:56 pm

Sasha your dream home sound's beautiful, if you ever get to live in your dream home, can I come round to tea lol.
Laura, that house you posted is perfect. There is a derelict, fantastic house in Appleby that I would love (I love Appleby, John and I go camping there as often as we can), we can but dream.

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:17 am

Yes, let's buy Midge Hall as a Brocante consortium and we can all go along at weekends with our friends and O/Hs and restore it to a home...

Imagine logging on and instead of the screen loading, your actual real surroundings shimmer and shift and change, and you find yourself walking up the path to the house, with the setting rays of deep-orange golden autumn sun coming almost horizontally through the last leaves; the windows shine with lamps, and the dark green door is slightly ajar - the dogs are nosing their way out to greet you with wagging tails, and you can see the cats curled up inside on windowseats; a smell of baking drifts out to you, and you hear the happy sound of all of us chatting and laughing in the kitchen...

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:22 am

Sounds so perfect Laura, we can be like branch of the Womens Institute, The Brocante Institute, that sounds good. I watched a programme about the WI, and each year, they all meet up in this beautiful big manor house, and do all sorts of different activities which looked like so much fun, wouldnt that be wonderful if all us Brocante girls could do the same? How utterly perfect.

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:07 pm

Oh my goodness!!!! Laura, the picture of the front of Midge Hall is almost EXACTLY how I picture my dream home! It sure needs a lot of love!

Methinks you're a rambler?? Am I right?

Unfortunately, I live down on the Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire border - BUT my husband's business is based in Cheshire, and he has a lot of customers in the Yorkshire area. I fell in love with a village called Helmsley a few years ago - we had relatives living nearby. We have pondered the idea of moving up north.......!!! I might investigate further.

Wouldn't it be absolutely perfect to have a Brocante Institute/Holiday home we could all gather in from time to time?! I love that idea! Maybe Alison should arrange Brocante weekends??? I have recently contemplated the idea of joining the local WI (I keep reading about their 'dates for your diary' in our local newsletter) but I worry that I would be out of my depth a bit, or more likely, they wouldn't get my slightly dark/quirky sense of humour and tendency to see the irony in everything and giggle...... I would hate to offend or upset anyone, and I do tend to always put my foot in it,, it wouldn't do in a room full of nice sweet elderly ladies.... having said that though, one of my very best friends is 70 and we split our sides at stuff constantly!

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:08 pm

PS: Melanie, you would be more than welcome to visit wherever I live!

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:19 am

Sasha, you might find yourself enjoyably surprised by the WI... I'm in a city, but have plenty of friends in rural England and they enjoy being involved in their local WI branch, and most of them are younger than my 38 years!

I'm not a rambler - I just spent years in my 20s dotting about all over the place, working here and there, usually in small towns or in rural areas, often camping for weeks on end, so I know few cities (London? Er... Been there once...) but can often find I know some tiny pub or lovely church in a remote village hundreds of miles from where I'm having the conversation!

Maybe we should save poor Alison the work. I think none of us has much money but several of us are within reach of, say, Yorkshire - Domestic Goddess comes north, Melanie and I head south, we've Karen just joined and also in Scotland... what about next year, perhaps meeting somewhere very easy to travel to like York itself?
We can meet at the train station and have a long lazy lunch somewhere, wander round shops chatting and then all head off home?

Anyone for a daytrip next year? Early booking can get you five-pound train tickets... day returns...

I'll undertake to organise a very informal meet-up if people are interested?

We can wear polka-dots and pretty ribbons as a badge of recognition!!!

laura

Subject: Re: What is your dream home? Sat Nov 03, 2007 11:09 am

Thanks Sasha.
Sounds great Laura, are husbands allowed to come aswell?