Your dream house

[breadcatcher101]

Holy cow, our dreamhouse would be one with more than one closet. My poor wife has to contend with a 3 bedroom house made in 1949 when closets were not all that common.

One of the rooms is for my HO train layout but we use the other two, and it is a trip trying to stow everything away and have to take everything else out to find something.

Oh, and a two car garage would be nice, too.

We joke that if we win the lottery all we would need would be a couple of closets.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Well, this: http://www.ussubmarines.com/submarin...enix_1000.php3

Or something like it.

Ooooor: a really, really robust airship.

[Catfish]

Hello Neal,
you wrote:

" ... First is a cottage in the mountains of Colorado, or maybe Wyoming. Nicely wooded acres, with a lake downhill about 100 yards away. My cottage would be study and rustic, and inside very warm, plush with lots of heavy paneling. The ground floor would be split into the kitchen and living room, wrapped around the big stone fireplace. An open staircase would lead to my bedroom and study. It would snow me in 4 months of the year, so I would not have to go anywhere until spring. Isolation! ..."

Apart from the mountains of Colorado, or Wyoming, and a missing lake (yet - we are at least planning a bigger pond) you just described our house very well . Including the snow we have this year
And a sturdy heating system, plus warm water prepared by tubes or a water jacket around the fireplace - hope to install this next year (2011).

Regarding airships, THIS would be MY dream house:



Greetings,
Catfish

[Dowly]

Hmmm... I have to say I'm perfectly happy with my little apartment.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

How often do fortifications by the beach come up for sale? I always thought I'd like that. If money were no object, I'd just get a complex of bunkers on the coast in France/Belgium/The Netherlands, somewhere.

I once saw a show where someone had one of those watchtowers by the ocean (I think in Cape Cod) converted into a house. Like four different levels, and the observation deck at the top. No elevator.

[Castout]

A 100 million boat, she's bigger than you think...and the interior is just stunning![as seen on tv]
but would probably still too small compared to the bigger land property that's the only gripe but she's mobile . . .and you don't have to greet the neighbors too though there will be problems with reading newspaper so they will have to be digital.



A very expensive floating house . . .quite handy to escape the IRS straight into the Caribbean or even China...the Mediterranean Monaco, Italy or Spain...or Turkey and of course comes with a helipad. Just make sure to bring a lot of guns when passing the Somalian waters.

[Schöneboom]

The tropical island fantasy, only with modern conveniences:



I've walked by this place, actually. Just beyond that fence is the seawall path: instant access to the warm ocean! And Honolulu just far enough away for comfort. My only extra preference would be elevation: the high-rise flats down the street provide the same views, but with better privacy.

[August]

We're actually planning our dream house right now. It will be our retirement home and I plan to build it in 15 years (when I get to 65) on land that I already own up in Maine. No sense building it now and have to deal with a 15 year old roof, furnace, water heater etc and I figure the technology will improve significantly in the interval. As a result we're keeping our options open but some of the aspects Mrs. August and I believe are important would be:

1. Mobility. Although I love lofts and lookouts (and underground bunkers ) we've decided to go with a one floor design. Stairs really suck when you're old and i'd hate to have areas of the house that I couldn't get to easily. Along that line of reasoning go wide doorways and hallways. Walkers and wheel chairs require room to operate and that will be accommodated in the floor plan. Basically we're designing it for the ages in which we'll be living in it.

2. Spare bedrooms. We have no kids of our own but we do have a host of friends and extended family who visit fairly often. When not housing guests we figure we can use the rooms for other functions, office, sewing room, library, etc.

3. A heated workshop. There is no end of repairs and projects around a household, especially out in the woods and I want a place to work on them in comfort.

4. Interior access to the garage/workshop. ATM I have to go outside to get to the garage. That sucks when there is snow on the ground and i'm in my "jammies" already.

5. An easy to plow driveway. Something that is a necessity up here in snow country. Front walkways, porch and back decks will be accessible to the snow blower so as to cut down or eliminate having to manually shovel them.

6. The latest in solar and wind power generation and heating systems. We're presently beyond the edge of the electric grid up there but even if it is extended out to us eventually I don't want to have to rely on it. I want to be as self sufficient as possible.

7. That includes a big garden and fruit trees (the latter are being planted already). I may even keep some livestock which will require their own barn and facilities.