This is just an odd little story from my life.
Waaaay back when I was in
my 20s, for a while I had the idea of moving out to the Dakotas, or
somewhere. Someplace where my nearest
neighbor would be ten or more miles away.
And instead of buying an existing house, I’d build one. I don’t know how long I spent designing this
dream house, but it was a relaxing, escapist fantasy. Eventually, I moved on to other escapist
fantasies, and I didn’t think of this dream house for twenty years or so. But recently, I remembered it, so here is
what I remember of what 25ish-year-old me thought my dream house would be like.
The front door would open
into a mud room. From this an inner door
would open to the first floor, which – except for the mud room and bathroom –
would be entirely open. There would only
be some pillars, and there would be couches or bookshelves to break up the
kitchen, dinning area, and living room. The
other odd thing about the first floor, is that it would be a few steps down
from the mud room. I distinctly remember
that being a feature, but I can’t remember why I wanted it. I think there was some idea of it driving
home the idea that the first floor would be a big open space.
The basic layout of the
first floor would have the mud room in the center with the bathroom to the left
and a pantry to the right. The inner
door from the mud room would open to the kitchen/dining area, with the back of
the first floor being the living area.
Except for the front, the first-floor walls would be large windows, to
let in as much light as possible. On
both sides and the back of the house there would be doors that would go out to
a covered patio. On the sides, this
cover would maybe only be ten feet, but at the back it would be twenty or even
thirty feet.
There would be a set of
stairs on each side going up to the second floor, the one on the left would go
to the front of the house, while the other would go to the back. This would be because the second floor would
be in two sections. The front section –
over the bathroom, mud room, pantry – would have another bathroom and the
bedroom. The back part – over the living
area – would have a study and a spare room.
The central area of the second floor would be open, with a walkway and
railing going all the way around. There
would also be several doors to go out to the deck that would go around three
sides of the building.
I think at some points in
the plan there would also be a third floor – perhaps just covering the front or
back half of the house – that would be just for storage. There might even be one spot with an opening
all the way down to the first floor, just to be extra cool, I guess.
The big open space open
to the second, or third floor, for some reason I thought it was really cool. And I think that was the whole point of the
steps down, just to make it seem even bigger.
I’m not sure why I thought that was important.
That’s as much as I
remembered. But if I had to build this
now, what would I change? First off, the
steps down into the main room. I could
live without them now. Also, while
having a big, two or even three-story open space would be cool, I don’t really
feel the need. I could still see a
little open space on the second floor, just above the dining area, but it
wouldn’t be necessary. Instead of a
third floor, those storage rooms could just go on the second.
I don’t remember where
the garage was in the original plan, but I think it was detached just because
that’s what I grew up with. Now, I’d
rather have an attached garage. At first,
I thought about swapping the mud room and the bathroom, but the first-floor
bathroom would only be a half-bath, so instead of a squarish mud room, there
could be a stubby panhandle hallway leading to the attached garage. I also don’t know if I thought of it all
those years ago, but this new house would have solar panels. And depending on how bad the winters are
wherever I built this, I’d probably cut back on the windows. Unless there are some really well insulated
windows that work as well as walls to keep the warmth in.
I think the only other
change I’d make would be the garden. I’m
sure there was one in the original plans, but now it would be much larger. And there would be a greenhouse, possibly
attached to the house either behind the garage or on the other side of the
house, depending on how the house was orientated. The greenhouse would let me grow stuff
through the winter as well as warm weather crops. And I’m sure I had house plants in the
original plans, but now there would be far more of them. Possibly even used with bookshelves to break
up the first floor into little nooks.
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