Thursday, January 21, 2021

Dreams

 We have ordered some plans for the retirement house. They aren't exactly what we're looking for (and we knew that)  but it is fun to pore over them and discuss the changes. 

We decided to have the back door come into the laundry room instead of the kitchen. That way guests can have a place to hang their coats and take off their boots. There will be a bathroom there for quick use, nice for days when everyone is outdoors. 

"I really don't want a separate dining room. It is wasted space, a mostly unused room..."

"If we had an eat-in kitchen...a long narrow island with the butcher block at the end of it, a place where people can pull up a stool and visit while the meal is cooked. 

"We could have the kitchen open to the livingroom..."

"Folding tables and chairs could be extended into the livingroom from the kitchen, if we had a lot of company..."

The second floor will have the two guest rooms. 

"If we back those bedrooms up and make them smaller, it would leave the front of the house open for that cathedral ceiling in the living room that you wanted so badly, " I say. "And I think we really need a bathroom there. It is nice for guests to have their own bathroom, especially if they've brought kids along..." 

We both want a screened in porch facing west, a place to watch sunsets while visiting with the neighbors. Friendly games of scrabble. A place to watch the deer drink from the little pond in the cool of the evening. The little wood stove cheerful for chilly nights. When winter comes, we will simply put up the storm windows, cover the furniture until spring, and then come into the house shutting the door behind us for the winter. 

We also want a covered porch on the front, open, like a greeting.

On and on we plan, spinning our dreams like gold, two middle-aged people in the middle of a pandemic, planning for the days when masks are worn once a year by trick or treaters, where a cough does not give you pause to think, a time when once again, people come and go, babies are cuddled, and hugs are exchanged...and nobody gives it a second thought. 

13 comments:

  1. I like your plans. Each person in a household now must have their own bathroom. I would not tolerate otherwise. My advice is don't have guest rooms. It only encourages visitors to stay. Cathedral ceilings are great for spiders to remain undisturbed and if there are lamps in the ceiling, they are very hard to change if the globe blows. But isn't it fun to dream on.

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  2. Funny, Andrew. That was the very reason that I don't want cathedral ceilings...how do you dust up there. But Tim has his heart set on them. Since I am not budging on a couple points, I feel like I have to concede a couple for him. He wants a walk in basement with a place to stash all his hunting clothes. I want a 'canning kitchen', a rudimentary kitchen where we can cut up deer meat and do the food preservation work out of the main house.

    I want people to stay. I miss people. I'm not what you'd call a social butterfly, but I. miss. company.

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  3. Is the front porch going to be like The Waltons or Little House On The Prairie complete with a rocking chair?

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  4. These are pleasant dreams. I hope you are able to see them to fruition.

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  5. The rocking chairs will be on the screened porch, Northsider. Lots of skeeters there which will limit the front porch usage. If you come visit, we will definitely put a rocker on the front porch though. You can rock to your heart's content while swatting blood sucking bugs.

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  6. It's great to have something to look forward to, isn't it?!

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  7. I'm a habitual house designer and have dozens of house designs on my hard drive. But I have slowed down a lot as I have grown older as I realized that house designs are never perfect and can never be perfect because our needs change as we age. A classic example is that most of my plans are for four bedrooms, to accommodate two kids and a guest. In as little as three years, I will have two spare bedrooms and in nine years three. Who needs that?

    Another thing I have come to realize is that I can make just about any place I live work and be a home for me. It doesn't have to be perfect and others don't have to like every aspect. I just want something well maintained and comfortable to come home too.

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  8. We had a screen room built on one end of our house by a builder and my late husband added one to the other end. The one my husband put up has a much finer screen on it and the rain does not come through and we get no bugs on it. The other has bugs and rain both. I did not realize the different grades of screen. I am so pleased with the one since I can be out there even if it rains and no bugs in the evening.

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  9. It sounds lovely. I enter my house through the garage and into the laundry room. There is a bathroom right there and it certainly comes in handy. I have cathedral ceilings; I just had my house repainted and what a chore! But they look great at the moment. I have a telescoping tool for any spider webs out of my reach. :)

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  10. It's great that you're plotting and planning. Hopefully by the time it becomes reality, you'll have it just like you want it. I drew up the plans for the house we live in and though I've always loved it, there are at least two things I wish I had designed differently.

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  11. I love your dreams/plans too.

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  12. I like your list of things to look forward to. I would add to, a time when spare rooms are used for guests and not for storing all the junk that would have required unnecessary journeys to get rid of.

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  13. I want to book a room in your dreams there Debby!

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