Dream house

My friend Melody posted about what it would take to make her house her dream house, so I've been thinking about it for the past couple of days.

First, this house really can't ever be my dream house. It just isn't right. I'm going to post what my dream house would be without reference to this house.

My dream house is a ranch. Aesthetically, I prefer two story houses, but arthritically I prefer ranches. It is either brick or stone. It has a big front porch. (My children and some others will now begin to recognize this house, because it is going to sound a lot like one of my grandparents' houses.) It has lots of windows.

It has to have a basement. The basement would have a wine cellar and cold room as well as lots of basement-y space. And ten foot ceilings. We'd have a pool table and bar in the finished part of it.

The basement steps would come into the main floor in exactly the right spot. I'll come back to that in a second. The three car garage would enter a mud room/laundry room. This room would be about 16x10 and along with the washer and dryer would contain a space for folding, hanging, and ironing laundry. There would be a large closet with space for jackets, work boots, mowing shoes, and extra clothes for muddy people to change into. There would also be an adjacent bathroom with a stall shower. There would be a desk with a computer and space for keeping the household bills and information on plumbers, piano tuners, etc.

This would be connected to the kitchen by a short hallway which would have the entrance to the basement as well as a door to the back yard. The kitchen would be a large--about 30x15--eat in in kitchen. It would have a 6 burner gas cooktop with a vented hood, double wall ovens, and a small prep sink to go with the one big sink. The floors would be easy to clean, heavy duty, attractive, real linoleum. The cabinets would be maple and the counters would be quartz. It would have built-in book shelves and appliance storage.

This would flow to a cozy family room with big windows and built-in shelves and cabinets. All of this is in the back of the house. Across the front of the house would be a living room--about 26x15--with a big picture window. The pianos would be in here and one end would be set up as dining room.

The house would have four big bedrooms and two more baths. Just normal sized bathrooms, no enormous spa tubs, etc. But both would have double sinks and separate water closets to allow for simultaneous bathroom use by two--or more--family members. They would have vintagey-looking ceramic tile. The first bedroom on the front of the house would go to the lone girl. The room across the hall from it would be my office/scrapbooking/sewing room. It would have a big window with a built in desk/cabinet unit across the whole back of the room. It would have a closet for storage and one wall of bookcases and cabinets for storage. It would have a comfy chair with a little table. There would be enough space for me to open out a big table for sewing and other projects.

The two bedrooms at the end of the hall would be ours and the boys. Again lots of windows and plenty of storage. Like the rest of the house--except the kitchen and bathrooms--they would have hardwood floors. The house would sit on about five acres, but still miraculously be within a couple of minutes of church. And the back yard would have a pool, all kinds of fruit trees, rasperry canes, and a big old garden. There would be a shed for Colin to use for his wood projects and his reloader.

What's your dream house? If you post about it, leave a comment and let me know.