My husband and I have a general plan to look for a new house sometime in the next couple of years. The thing is, there’s no REAL reason to leave this house. It’s a good size for three people (even if it feels MUCH too small for all our stuff), it’s got everything we need (three bedrooms, two office spaces, a laundry room, a non-creepy basement), it’s close to Carla’s school and my husband’s offices, and, most important, it’s in a lovely neighborhood with lovely neighbors who all have dogs and who are all extremely generous with their time (and their dogs’ time).
And yet sometimes we do dream about finding The Perfect House, the one with allllllll the things we love about our current house and all the things that would make it so much better. (Recognizing, of course, that owning a home at all is a privilege and having enough space for our small family is a luxury that many, many people do not have.)
One of my biggest wishes for a new house would be a real, honest-to-goodness mudroom. Right now, all we have is a tiny square between the garage and the kitchen.
It has a small closet (although the door no longer works) and that’s it. Our shoes and bags and coats are always spilling out of it. My husband stores his work satchel on the floor of the kitchen because it doesn’t fit in the entry space. My daughter’s backpack is usually on the floor as well. There’s no space for grocery bags or my purses or anything, really. So I would love a beautiful single-purpose mudroom. Maybe one that has those tall cubbies, with individual hooks for coats and cubbies for shoes. But my ideal mudroom would also have a closet or shelving for storing hats and mittens and sports gear, and it would have a hook for my purse and a hook for Carla’s backpack and another for my reusable grocery bags (which inevitably hang on the garage door knob until I return them to my car, falling off the knob and onto the floor several times per day).
Another wish would be a separate space for Carla. If money were no object, I would want her to have a playroom and a separate craft room with a long table and lots of storage. Her bedroom is fairly small and she has WAY too many toys, and they spill into the dining room, living room, basement, kitchen. I am constantly bothering her to clean things up. Maybe if she had a designated room for her stuff, I could simply shut the door.
In general, I don’t think I have overtly extravagant, MTV-Cribs-style wishes for my dream home. I don’t need a movie theatre. I don’t want a bowling alley. But I would like a swimming pool. Only since the pandemic began have I understood the value of having a pool. Before the pandemic, I would have said never in a million years. But now that we are home so much more often, and now that the preferred way of interacting with other humans is in small groups in outdoor spaces, I totally want a pool. In my ideal, make-believe world, the pool would be in an enclosed, heated space for year-round swimming but could be completely opened up for entertaining.
While we’re dreaming, I would like a dedicated library. Happy sigh. A room with shelves and shelves and shelves of books… and some comfy, well-lit seating areas… heaven!
Oh, and it would be wonderful to have a separate space for guests. A real mother-in-law suite (or, why the hell not, mother-in-law outbuilding) with a small kitchen, a full bathroom, a bedroom, and a small sitting area. Our parents stay at a hotel when they visit, for a variety of reasons, and it would be lovely to be able to have a separate place for them to stay with us.
Of course, no house will ever be Completely Perfect. I doubt that any house at any price has the exact specifications I would want (not to mention what my husband and Carla would want) in my dream home. I think even if you designed and built your own house, it wouldn’t be perfect perfect. Some of the things that end up driving you nuts don’t reveal themselves until you have lived in a space for awhile. Sometimes you don’t realize just how much you want a big, beautiful mudroom until you find your entire family crammed into a tiny square, all trying to remove their muddy boots at one time.
I want to know the things you dream about, in your wildest house hunting dreams. And I also want to know the things you love – and hate – most about the place where you currently live.
Ooooh yes. A lot of your dream house items are also my dream house items. I just built lockers for my kids out of bookshelves but I had to build them in the kitchen because we also don’t have mud room space. I have always wanted hard floors in my house because I like how much easier they are to clean and we DID get hard floors in this house when we moved last year and I DO love them as much as I hoped I would. (Except they are wearing out everyone’s socks. I have bought three entirely new sets of socks for Elizabeth in this last year.) I want a splash pad in the backyard. I want the permanent Christmas lights that you install on the house and then can just flick on and off with an app. I want allllllll the storage. I am with you on the separate guest house, I would love that. I want a huge garage with room for all the bikes and outdoor toys. (Our bikes are currently stored inside my house and I have to carry them upstairs by hand for the kids to use them. It’s the least handy thing about our house.) I want a screened in porch outside. Oh and we have a library in this house and I am sitting in it right now. It’s supposed to be the formal living room I guess but I put all my bookshelves in it and we call it the library like we live in an Agatha Christie book. I adore it.
YES to a giant garage! I want space for the bikes and I want built in garage storage AND I want a four-car garage (for the two cars we own LOL). I am envious of your library! A much better use of space than a formal living room.
I love our bathroom, giant yard, the location, and the covered front porch. I hate literally everything else about it except a few things I’m just ok with. Hate: no office space, size, lack of natural light, walls, ceilings, appliances, lack of storage, lights, kitchen layout. Ok with: laundry room, tile floors. It’s not ideal by any means but we owe hardly anything on it, so I really shouldn’t complain.
Location and a giant yard can truly make up for a multitude of issues!
The one thing we didn’t get when we moved into our house 7 years ago was a finished basement. I still really want that; husband would love to have it as a media room and I don’t care how it’s set up as long as it’s a place I could send kids and close the door!
I’d love a walk-in pantry. I DROOL over those. All hardwood flooring. A larger laundry room. A screened-in porch and a pool in the backyard, definitely. And if we had a pool I’d also want an outdoor-entrance to our half-bath. No wet feet traipsing through my kitchen!
Things I hate about our current house: The random placement of every single light switch, plug outlet and/or thermostat (the upstairs thermostat is IN the master bedroom, instead of on the other side of the same wall, in the hall — ?!)… the placement of the refrigerator against a wall, so that we can’t fully open the right-hand door… the width of the garage (too narrow)… the size of my son’s bedroom closet (tiny).
A walk-in pantry would be wonderful! And yes to the separate entrance to a bathroom off the pool!
A library with built-in, floor-to-ceiling shelves and an ocean view.
Yesssssssssss.
I live in a 1910 farmhouse. What I wouldn’t GIVE for our bathroom to not open directly to the living room…
😂😂😂😫
We have built (and sold) two houses. You learn a lot of what you want and what you don’t from building a house. Here’s what I can tell you about that mud room you dream of – it would NEVER be the orderly oasis that you dream of, I know from experience. Also, that second house we built? Horrible neighbors.
For this house – which is perfect, in theory, for the two of us I would bump out the entire back side of the house so that we could easily reconfigure the ill designed kitchen, and master bath and maybe, just maybe have room for a dedicated laundry room. All it takes is money…here’s hoping I hit the lottery.
Sounds like an excellent way to spend your lottery winnings! 😉
Oh, I know how this is. We are never moving from our house if we can help it, but I often think about things that would make the house better. Like, if the yard were 75% as large – we don’t use it and it’s so much work to keep up with it. Or if the addition with the bathroom were redone so there was a tub on the main floor so we could bath our dog easily. Or if the upstairs bathroom had a shower. Or if the garage didn’t get so many mice.
But the truth is that we have great neighbors, lots of space, and it’s an old house that was made with love and hardwood, and it’s hard to complain. We have a mudroom (brag) and you’re welcome to come visit and enjoy it if you ever find yourself in the middle of Wisconsin.
I have literally never been invited to experience someone’s mudroom before and I am delighted! I will definitely let you know next time I am in Wisconsin!
We are going through this right now; our vacation house is being transformed into our retirement house – it’s getting a second floor added on and we are renovating it to what we’ve always wanted. Small sidebar: yesterday they took the roof off and for the first time in months there was a huge rainstorm. Um. So there’s some damage to deal with BUT moving on…
We are getting a good mudroom – our current house just has a tiny entrance area, not even a closet, and it’s just…blergh. Imagine, four people, two of whom have size 11 and 12 feet, and all the seasonal gear required here for winter. It’s really far from ideal. But we are going to have a good mudroom! Even though the size 11 and 12 feet people will likely not be living there for long, if at all. We are also getting a big pantry and all sorts of cupboards and storage space, a dedicated laundry room, and three bathrooms. THIS IS AMAZING TO ME. We are currently in a 1962 bungalow and it’s small.
Our vacation home is in a warm climate so I would also like a pool but I don’t think it will be in the cards for a long while, if ever. But if I’m dreaming, then pool it is!
Well this is fun. I enjoy living in a dreamworld at times. We had an itty bitty laundry room when we moved into our house. After a few years, we redid the upstairs bathrooms and created space for a laundry room. The itty bitty former laundry room is now an itty bitty mudroom. Happy to have it, but could use triple the space. When we did our kitchen, i wish we had put a bedroom in the space under the addition. The builder put in a crawl space but we wish now we’d made it a full size room. Everyone shares a bedroom (we have 4 plus a 1st floor study) so more bedrooms would be glorious. We have 4 bathrooms but if I was dreaming, we would have a 5th . . . that I wouldn’t have to clean. I mean as long as we are dreaming. I’d also take an indoor basketball court-under the addition, as part of the basement space. I do think Gigi is onto something. Can’t put a price on good neighbors.
We got a temporary above ground pool spring 2020 when it became apparent that we were not going to be going to the city pool or on vacation. We left it up all winter (we live in a colder climate) and used it again this summer. We will try again next year but plan to move the pool to a better spot when the hot weather subsides. It has been 75% of fun but 1/1000 of the price of a regular pool.
None of these kinds of pools are very deep – for us this is a pro (for now). Definitely limited the fun somewhat but also meant that my kids (5-9) could stand so I felt comfortable dashing in the house to go to the bathroom or weeding a nearby bed, where with a deep end I would not have felt ok taking my eyes away. You can move the ladder so no chance of a kids falling in.
Intex ultra Frame pool is what we got. All of my neighbors (most with older kids) have the easy up pools which are smaller and they use them for one season (all though you are supposed to be able to reuse).
Is it ugly? No more than the bikes and sporting equipment strewn across my lawn. Is it a pain? no pretty easy to maintain. We definitely learned a few things we would apply to a new pool if we install one (I also debate new house or renovate this one often because this house is not quite right).
Highly recommend if you are considering a pool.
Ah, it is very hard to leave a place you love (or at least most aspects of it), believing that another place could be even better! I suffer terribly from the fear of the regret of making The Wrong Decision, myself. I bet there’s no way to extend your house either. I imagine you’ve considered all possibilities. Hmm.
I like the place we live in now, but I would LOVE to have a play space for my five year old. Oh, to be able to just shut the door on all the train tracks instead of the endless evening pick-up. What else? An outdoor covered play space for play dates in these times of COVID would be LOVELY, please and thank you. The only way we could possibly convert these stables into a living space was to go open plan, which is of course marvellous for family time, but on the other hand, can I just escape ALL THE MARVELLOUS FAMILY TIME for five minutes??
It’s so much fun to dream like this! Probably why I have Zillow alerts for homes I will never buy, sighhh. There’s a lot I love about my little apartment, especially because it’s so much bigger than my little shoebox before. I wish it had a screened-in porch because I think I’d use it a lot more if I didn’t have to worry about bugs. I really want a second bedroom to use as an office/reading nook. And I wish my view out the window wasn’t of a highway (and had to deal with the accompanying highway noise, sigh).
Oh… I don’t see us moving because it was so hard to find this place. But in my dreams?
Things we don’t have that would be nice: a library room, an exercise room, a guest house, and solar power with a battery backup.
Things we do have that could be better: more storage in general, larger kitchen/pantry, HVAC that evenly heats/cools the entire house (some rooms get too much, others too little), raised bed garden with irrigation (current is hand-watered and too critter-convenient), better noise reduction between the bedrooms and the rest of the house (light sleepers, including me), a bigger office for me with better noise reduction, too.
I’m a bit surprised at the number of people wishing for a guest house. We do have a guest house- a completely detached 1600 sq ft, 1 bed, 2 bath, super modern loft. Our house sat on the market for a while (in a highly desirable area) before we came along and bought it and I always assumed it was because people didn’t want the hassle of maintaining basically two houses. But maybe I was wrong? Or maybe Covid changed things?
We had dreams of it being available for family whenever they wanted to come visit us and doing AirBnB the rest of the time. But AirBnB was just way too much work and friends and family didn’t come to visit as often as we had imagined. Renting it to a long term tenant made way more financial sense. So, it’s a space we don’t get to utilize personally. Which is kind of a shame, because it’s really, really cool. But it would be foolish to let it sit empty.
About 90% of my house dreams involve the kitchen. I want a positively huge kitchen with soaring cathedral ceilings, bathed in natural light from sun up to sun down. At least 2 working sinks, a gas range AND an induction top, a huge workspace island (or two!), and a coffee/beverage nook with small bar sink and an instant hot water spigot. I would use absolutely every inch of it. My dinner parties would be off. the. hook. Everyone’s invited.
Yes, I want the kitchen you describe!