my dream home

giving up on perfect is doing a great series this month about working through fairy tale dreams in comparison to adult life. today she’s asked us to compare our dream home from our childhood to our present home.

my brother always wanted to be an architect, so the two of us spent a great deal of time perusing those “floor-plan magazines”.  homes were sorted by size and you could see how each floor was laid out.  i always thought I’d simply buy the blueprints to one of those plans one day and build my dream house. and these magazines helped me set some high expectations for my future home.

 

i always thought i'd live in this house.  (source)

said dream house would be large.  3000 square feet or more.  (we lived in a house that was around 1400 square feet and to me that was just way too small.)  i wanted a gigantic master suite.  a chef’s kitchen.  a wrap around porch.  a library, office, family room AND living room.  a fully finished walk out basement.  and of course this house had to be on a piece of land that was gigantic.  with an olympic size swimming pool.  and basketball/tennis court.  of course there would have to be people to take care of the house and property.  basically I wanted to be a gazillionare so that i could have these things.  who knows where all of that money was going to come from, but that’s what i wanted.

this would fit in my backyard, right? (source)

 

fast forward to today.  i actually have a home that is pretty close to my present-day dream house.  believe it or not, i actually think it’s too big (2600 square feet plus a finished basement which brings us pretty close to a total of 3600 square feet of living space.  WAY too much to clean.)  but i do like it. 

we have a sunroom.  it’s nothing fancy, but it’s three walls of nothing but windows that let the sun in.  the sunroom has a table and 6 chairs in it and that’s all.  no electronics.  no toys.  just a room that we can eat in, do homework in and play games in.  during the fall and spring.  otherwise it’s too cold or too hot in there, but that’s ok with me.

we also have a fireplace.  something i always wanted growing up.  we spend a lot of time in front of it during the winter, all cuddled up on the floor watching movies or playing board games.

a kitchen island is yet another thing i always longed for growing up and i really enjoy ours.  it’s big enough that i can prep meals on one side while the kids eat snacks or do homework on the other (provided it’s not covered with junk mail, toys, and other miscellaneous items that need put away).

there’s a lot my current home doesn’t have when compared to my dream home of my childhood.  we have a postage-stamp yard.  we don’t have a library.  we have an office but only because we decided we didn’t want a dining room.  our home isn’t decorated well.  i am not good at that.  it’s often messy (didn’t get the full time housekeeping staff that I was hoping for).  but it is our home. it meets all of our needs. and hubby and i expect that we’ll be here for a long time and i love that!