My Home Dreams have changed as I grew older. As a child (5 or 6 years old) I imagined owning acres and acres of land and having all the endangered species on it. Surprisingly, at this age, the house itself didn’t really materialize. As I grew older, I realized how hard that dream would be to accomplish and had to scratch it off.
My next Home Dream was to live near the mountains living off the land, with a small meandering stream-fed lake beside a log cabin. In this dream, I was a fisherman and a hunter (just for the record, I’ve never hunted). I imagined that I wouldn’t really have many neighbors. I had this dream until college, when I realize I had a bad allergy problem and how difficult and lonely this dream would be. This dream was more feasible from a cost perspective, but very inconvenient and an extremely hard life. Scaling back my dream, I still would like a cabin in the woods; but I currently have more important things to save my money for. Actually this dream is partially fulfilled by renting a cabin in the wood occasionally (we did that last year).
An occasional Home Dream would be to live by the Delaware River like my Uncle did. But those thoughts have always been squeezed out when I realized that I couldn’t afford such a plot of property.
Today, my home dreams consist of owning a small rental property, preferrable a 1 dwelling house (although I’ve heard this isn’t the way to go). I would like to find one dirt cheap that’s in great shape in a great market. Yeah, this is one of the more feasible dreams, but still hard to obtain the perfect combination that is profitable. Plus, I don’t know if I really would like to deal with tenants…
How have your dreams evolved of what your perfect home dream would be?
-MR
As a child I wanted an old mansion like my wealthy great aunt had. Complete with roll-top desks and a live-in attic and if I was lucky, secret passages.
We have since bought a lovely 3000 sq ft home and it is too big, though we love it. We don’t need separate offices like we thought we would. Now the dream is more like 2000 sq ft with only one living room, one dining room etc. And with lots of fruit trees in the back.
In the dream we wouldn’t have a HOA and we’d be living someplace with a really nice climate.
@Nicole
Sounds like you are trying to strike the perfect balance with respect to size, location and climate!
We’ve talked about house size, often thinking of getting a bit larger house (ours is only 2,100 sq ft). We think the maximum we would like would be from 2,400 to 2,600 sq ft. The main thing I currently want is more land, and for the land to be very flat and level!
I was a pretty simple kid. I thought having a two-story house would be the best! I have that two story home as an adult and now pine for a sprawling ranch.
I too think a home in the woods would be wonderful. I think it would have to be a second home though as the isolation would probably get to me.
@Everyday Tips
A sprawling ranch sounds like a great idea! We live in a two-story too, but I think a sprawling ranch would be much more enjoyable and practical!
As for the home in the woods, I think I watched too much TV… It might make a great story, the day to day stuff would bite 😉
Living away from the conveniences of society would be a too much of a major pain.
I always thought it would be fun to live in a small apartment in a major city. You know how they have those 600-1000 sq ft mock apartment set ups at Ikea? Something like that.
Every time we go into the city I think how fun it would be to live in an area with such diversity, vibrancy and energy. Then, I realize I can’t parallel park to save my life and the constant crowd gets suffocating after awhile. I’ll stick with the suburbs.
@Jin6655321
That was my wife’s dream too! She always wanted to live in New Your city, in a nice little apartment.
Some day, I’ll have to take my wife to visit New York. So far we’ve only been to Chicago as a big city vacation.
Okay, I think Nicole and I must have read the same books. 🙂
After years of Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, and the secret passageway in the Babysitters Club, I totally wanted the huge mansion with secret pathways all over the place. By the time I hit college, I was fine with it being a regular-looking house with secret passages but my hubby-to-be thought I was joking. We ended up buying a normal house with no secret anythings (but I still have a few hollowed out books that I like to keep stuff in…).
I am planning to have a secret room in our next house – it will just be a guest bedroom, but I’ll have a bookcase attached to the door so it’ll be cool-looking to enter by swinging the book case out. I’ve seen a similar setup once and the bookcase was used for glass figurines that were actually glued into place – it looked immoveable without breaking something but looks can be deceiving! 🙂
@Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
Sounds like a super idea! And affordable!
I use to think it would be cool to have an escape passage with a small panic room that would go to the basement, then from the basement to a secret tunnel to escape from the house in case of fire or burglars… I even thought to make the tunnel full of water to block the smoke from getting in the tunnel. Of course, I now realize that water would get really disgusting so I’ve scratched that idea.
I thought a bat cave would be cool, but I never took that idea seriously…
I’m currently home hunting for my first home. So something to call my own is all I want right now. Definitely in having a nice “retirement” home on a mountain or by a beach. Haven’t decided where yet…
@Jenna
Well, it’s a good time to be looking! It’s definitely a buyers market!!!
Both the mountains or beach would be great! I wish you the best in your house hunting!!!
@Suba @ Wealth Informatics
A castle would be pretty cool!
I would like to have a cottage or cabin in the woods by a small meandering stream too.
I would also like a cabin by Lake Tahoe if I lived in Cali!!!
@BFS– I’m older than you so no babysitter’s club, but yeah, definitely the Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown.
@MR: My grandma had a cabin by Lake Tahoe. It was ok. Better than the Chillacothe, MO place but not as nice as the country club in Vallejo… I don’t think I’d want to do more than visit, to be honest. Too rustic, and driving to the grocery store was a pain (especially with the crossing the state line).
@Nicole
Yeah, they would be great vacation homes, but who want to drive 50 miles for a pizza!?!…
@Kay Lynn @ Bucksome Boomer
True, that will be an exciting day! That’s for sure 🙂
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My original dream home was a traditional Japanese house with a traditional Japanese garden. Now it is a hip, renovated studio, loft, or one to two bedroom (depending upon price) in Mexico City, near the Zocalo, behind the National Palace.
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