Homes are the heart of life experiences. Homes are to people, as nebulae are to stars. It’s where we are formed before we leave to shine in the world. So, they’re pretty important. The arguments you have, the love you create, the joyful, shared experiences- all the these will occur in your home at some time or another. Not to mention, homes are also extremely convenient for storing things and entertaining guests.

All of which leads to me to the excellently enjoyable task of designing a dream home in my mind. If it’s such an important part of my life, I’d better create a good one. And since thought become things, well, I’ll start with my imagination.

It seems to me that every time I move, I figure out more things that I want. When I lived in a studio, I wanted a bathtub and an area for guests. Then I lived in a small 1-bedroom apartment and I wanted a porch  and more closet space. Now I live in a large 1 bedroom apt. with 4 closets, and I want a boyfriend. *grin* Actually, I’m very happy where I am. But I’m sure you know how enjoyable it is to imagine yourself in your dream home. Let’s play!

What is your dream home? If you haven’t thought about it in a while, here are a few important questions to consider. Do NOT consider cost. This is your dream home. You can have whatever you want!

• How big is it? (Remember, in your dream home you can have help- gardeners, cleaners, etc)
• Rooms? Would you like a music room? Maybe a place for all your crafty stuff?
• How much space do you have outdoors?
• Where is it? Do you have a specific location (ie. 45th St in East Sacramento) or is it more general (in the country near Napa)?
• What do you see when you look out the windows?
• How old is it?
• What style? Brick? Wood?
• Colors? Inside and out?
• Hard wood floors/tile/carpet?
• Do you have a swimming pool? Trampoline? Horses? A garden?
• Anything else?

Take some time and detail it out. What kind of experiences to you want to have in this home? Imagine it in your mind, write it down, maybe even draw a picture. I did. You can see my crayon drawing at the end of this post.

Having trouble envisioning it? Sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what you want. It’s like trying to imagine in a vacuum. Nothing comes to mind. You really need some place to start out, where you can say “I like that,” and “I don’t like that.” Start with what you already know, places you lived or seen on movies, and when those have played out, go to the internet.

One of my favorite places for looking at dream homes is on the Estate page at Luxist.com.  Every day someone posts the Estate of the Day. Here’s my favorite. I especially love the kitchen, master bath, play room, and flowers.

Another good way to view dream homes is to get on the email list of a real estate agent in the location you like.  They’ll send you an email with pictures and info of the available homes.

Take what you like from the homes you see and incorporate that into your dream.

It feels good to get the dream juices flowing.

Here’s my drawing. You can’t see it, but that’s a fancy house with 2 fireplaces, a 2-car garage, and a giant bathtub. In the back yard there’s a swing set, trampoline, BBQ, picnic table, tree house, and clothes lines.

What’s your dream home look like? Be sure to share it in the comments.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 27th, 2009 at 920099UTC and is filed under Dreams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.