A few years ago I bought 6 acres about 3 miles outside the city limits. Than I got sick and feel the need to be closer to family (not to mention the hospital!). It has a 60 x 45 metal barn perfect for the big riding lawn mower or to turn it into an apartment for the handy man I would need to hire. Oh well, this is life. I always pictured a "compound" house like Kellyeng's above but a little more modern.

Same little house that I want to build- 696 ft2, a greenhouse- stone walls 4 ft up- then glass. Barn like we had when I was a kid- it was already 50 years old- 2 ft solid stone walls 6 ft up- then tongue/groove on inside, huge hayloft. Can't decide yet if I want to live like now- country, or in town where I could ride my bike everyday for groceries/errands...
Not having the awful neighbors that I have now- junk collectors, fighting/yelling, loose dogs that kill my chickens and peacocks....
Dreaming.....

Dream house? I pretty much like the house I've planned, but oh it would be nice not to have to balance budget against benefits.

But, without hesitation, I'd change the location from mountain ridgetop to lake shore, preferably with a small town closer than twenty miles of narrow roads, lol.

And, if I'm dreaming, I'd like enough money to build two houses, in order to better compare geowell to solar hot water.

Location would be Hawaii with an awesome view, on many acres, few neighbors. House wouldn't have to be huge, but open and the inside would almost feel like being outside if that makes sense. Pool with an infinity edge. Path to the ocean and then surf's up! I can feel the breeze now...sigh!

I don't think I could ever get my husband to move away from his family, but I think he would if practicality were no object (ie, we won the Powerball and he didn't have to work!), though he'd still want to be within driving distance.

So I would settle for a few acres on the Buffalo, which is where we go camping/canoeing/backpacking. I think DH told me you can't buy land in there, you can only transfer it to family. Maybe we could adopt into a family with our millions. LOL

Like Kelly, I would like to be off the grid, self-sustaining. Gardens, chickens, cows. I'd also want flower gardens everywhere. A rickety wood fence around the yard with an arbor & gate. I'd want a pool, but maybe glassed-in and heated, to use year-round.

The house itself would be Storybook Style, made to look like it was built in the 20s (which back then they built to look "drolly dilapidated"). Seawave roof. Round wooden front door. Steel casement windows. Hand-tinted stucco exterior with rubble stone & brick accents, half-timbered gables. Real plaster walls inside. Wood and stone floors. Period-style kitchen & baths. I think the main house would be just 1 bedroom/1 bath with a full walkout basement. A screened-in porch for sleeping (DH's only requirement!)

Other buildings would include a detached garage, guest house, old-fashioned barn with guest quarters in the loft, greenhouse, and a gypsy vardo for my studio.

We will get most of this, only scaled down and on our family property. We already have 4 humongous gardens to support everyone, and cows & chickens... We can't afford to be off the grid but we will build passive solar.

Mine would be a large Queen Anne Victorian style house with porches all around - very similar to the kind of old houses you see everywhere that have now been turned into B&Bs. The furnishings would be mostly antiques (or reproductions of antiques) but the house would NOT be decorated with quite so much bric-a-brac as the typical B&B. I'm not really a fan of clutter.

I would have at least 20 acres (40 would be better) and the house would basically sit near the center of the acreage with a winding road from the main road (and gate house) leading through woods to the house itself. A very secluded location.

The house would have 4 to 5 nice large bedrooms, each with its own private bath; a lovely parlor; a formal dining room, a library filled with all the best books, and a music room large enough to hold a baby grand piano. One modern convenience I would install is an elevator so that all the rooms would be handicap accessible.

The 3 or 4 car garage would be a separate building out back that was designed to look like a carriage house. There would be a covered and screened walkway from the house to the garage. Over the garage would be a nice little apartment for the married couple who would serve as my housekeeper/cook and handyman/gardener.

A second barn set a couple of hundred feet back from the house would house two or three fine horses and have a second apartment above it for a groom to care for the horses and assist with maintenance around the house. There would be a green house to one side of the barn so we could have fresh vegetable year round.

My dream home would be set in a location that regularly gets enough rain so that keeping things green wouldn't be a constant hassle... and it would not be anywhere that temperatures soar to over 100 degrees in June. (Sorry DH but central Texas is OUT!) It would be in a wooded area but my acreage would have a mixture of woods and meadows.

The house would be surrounded by an acre or two of gardens... semi-formal flower and herb gardens in front, informal gardens on the sides and a vegetable garden behind the carriage house. And there would be a little graveled path off to one side leading down to a European style "swimming pond" which would be visible through the trees from the house.

The buildings and gardens and swimming pond would take up about 4 to 5 acres and the rest of the 20 to 40 acres would be left in a nearly natural state with only walking and riding paths cleared out and maybe some park benches strategically placed along the miles of paths... my own little private nature preserve.

My caretakers would pretty much run the house itself like a B&B except that the only guests would be the friends I would personally invite to come spend a week or two with me in the country. The caretakers would do all the cleaning and housekeeping and would make sure the gardens were always at their best. They would put breakfast on the table every morning and take care of any building repairs that were needed, etc!

I'd spend my days puttering in the gardens (but only when I felt like it), visiting with my friends, curling up in a porch swing reading, going for walks or horseback rides through my private preserve, swimming in the swim pond, (or skating on it in the winter) etc, In the evenings, I would personally fix a fancy dinner for my visitors but would leave the cleaning up for my housekeeper if I didn't feel like doing it. (I do like to cook, just NOT breakfast - and I hate cleaning up.)

My friends and I would finish the day with with wine and music in the music room or we would sit out on the screened porch sharing stories and listening to the cicadas. All in all, very much the life I like to imagine that a very wealthy lady might have lived in 1880 when she moved her household to their country estate for summer...except that with modern heating/cooling/insulation, I would stay there year round. LOL!

What would you Rebels wager that the Queen of Canada never bothers with such pedestrian fantasies?

Her principal residences are:

Windsor Castle

{{gwi:1461116}}
Balmoral Castle

larzebub: you must be from Amish country. My wife grew up around there but for her, it was Cane Creek. Actually, we'll be camping there while we celebrate our independence.

My dream home would be similiar to kellyeng. If you've ever seen Gladiator, Russel Crowe describes it exactly..."My house is in the hills above Trujillo. Very simple place, pink stones that warm in the sun. Kitchen garden that smells of herbs in the day, jasmine in the evening. Through the gate is a giant poplar. Figs, apples, pears, the soil, Marcus, black ...black like my wife's hair. Grapes on the south slopes, olives on the north. Wild ponies play near the house"

I have always thought i was born in the wrong period in time. I would rather be overseeing my lands, making sure everything is on the up and up, focusing on producing what I need and trading for what I can't produce. Of course, based on the number of people who actually lived like that, I'd be a farmhand or something :).

As it is, when I build, I hope to be able to have enough garden space to grow my own veggies (not necessarily enough to can or anything) and have plenty of fruit trees/bushes/vines. Won't go so far as getting farm animals...had chickens, they are quite nasty creatures, would like a horse, but don't have time to take care of it, possibly get the kiddos a goat to play with. Would get them a pot-bellied piglet, but I'm not sure about how I feel about eating a pet. And acreage is way too expensive to have a self-sustaining number of animals.

I already have my dream house. It's a DIY 2 bedroom house on 25 acres with my adult children and my grandchild living next door. I have gorgeous koi ponds in the back yard and flower gardens all over the place (although right now I am battling weeds and voles) and a big veggie garden. I would like to add solar and/wind power though to help with energy costs. And I'd like for that second bedroom to be finished without me having to lift a finger. Well, I can dream, can't I??

Worthy, you really do get the concept of "dreaming" don't you?

I would have the same small house I have now on the coastal bank overlooking Cape Cod Bay, with the same gardens surrounding it.

I would just change the coastline to what it was before the Canal was built, and before the local salt pond was cut open to the Bay. Bye-bye erosion, and the coastal bank becomes a sloping hill.

Oh, and I'd get rid of the relatives living next door.

And while I'm at it, I'd put the observation deck on top of the breezeway as originally planned.

Claire

Well, we've just built our Florida dream house but since I am greedy I'd love another one in Cooperstown, NY. I don't care about the house, just the location. A shack there would be the best place ever to enjoy summer.

small house not more than 1500 sq ft.
open floor plan downstairs, loft with plenty of light
for painting and dreaming.
porches all around with haint blue porch ceilings and lots of porch swings, rocking chairs and hammocks.
large flower garden large greenhouse
and a small lake/pond in the yard.
My 2.5 acres is enough to keep up...but since we
are dreaming here...about 15 acres.
house construction would be sips, with white metal roof
and lots of gingerbread. high ceilings with big windows
(low e of course)
my house would have a kitchen as small as my bathroom
is now and a bathroom (one of two) as large as my kitchen is now. I'd prolly use the kitchen cabinets for shoes.
because my closet would be full of shoes.
and lets not leave out the lawn boy. tight six pack,
minimal clothing...cut off jeans is ok with me...
and margurita skills are required.
if I could just win that dog gone lottery!
btw worthy...don't think small man!

LOL! I love all these responses. And nothing beats Windsor Castle - just lovely!

I love the town I live in, but wish I were closer to the 'center' to limit the driving. I love going for a quick walk instead of having to hop into the car to go pick up an onion or some other random missing item for dinner!

Hmmm, my dream as a child was to build the ultimate tree house. There always seemed to be something magical about being "with nature", like the Robinson family at Disney. But I envision a much more updated and comfortable tree house now! Complete with all the luxuries and completely ecofriendly. I guess it would have to have an elevator (although i don't need it now, would have to plan for the future!).

Mairin...a popular place here in Oregon is called "Treesort" and books up a year in advance. They are taking reservations for July, 2010 starting next week. Your dream could come true...at least for a weekend or so!

Worthy,
I'm ready to give the Queen lessons on style,... be it houses or handbags... any time she wants. ;-)

I wanna be your neighbor!! LOL Hawaii yeahhhhh. Perfect.
small house near the beach, ahh yeah can smell the salty ocean air

bevangel - I'll take your dream home also. That sounds 100% totally perfect to me.

Mine would be a beautiful Swiss Chalet sitting in the beautiful Berner-Oberland, built to the specific quality by the very swiss trained tradesman. No maintence would probably ever be required, these houses are built to last. And would be built of all quality swiss materials, and the wood cabinets, nooks, etc, would all be hand made and carved by the finest swiss. I would h ave a nice litte river running behind my barns, and cows and horses in my pasture and Bernese Mountain Dog puppies playing at my feet and ALL paid for, because you have to have one million in hand to ever even start a house there, but OH, the quality and beauty, with the flower boxes hanging the balconys with the gerainums in bloom and blue skyes and white mountains in the back ground and NO neighbors. and a little car in my underground garage.

thanks for the link, lindybarts!!! Wow, really cool place. I will have to plan on booking for 2011 or 2012 as I'll have a newborn babe for next summer making camping a little more difficult :)

My own would be under 2000 square feet, timber framed, one story but high ceilings for natural cooling. It would be built from wood and stone and other natural materials, "light clay" walls and natural plasters. There would be a big, sociable eat-in kitchen. a gathering place for family and friends. The other large room would be a library with lots of built-in bookshelves, windows seats, centered around a stone masonry heater. Heirloom style casement windows. Two small bedrooms, a bath and a powder room, both with windows to the outside for natural ventilation. The utility-laundry room would have room for indoor drying in the winter. I'm happy to have a clothes dryer but I don't use it much. I'd have solar panels to generate electricity, something I'd carry over from the current house. I'd like to live in a smallish town with a true downtown and decent sidewalks for walking when I didn't have heavy things to carry. And I'd like a yard somewhere between a half acre and an acre, not a huge burden to maintain, but big enough for lots and lots of garden, fruit and vegetables and herbs and climbing roses.

I'd have to have cash to do this. No bank would let me build something so unconventional.

Rosefolly

Taliesen --- Falling Water --- I'm a FLW admirer.

In August, I'm planning a day trip to Taliesen. Lived in Philly for a couple years, and missed visiting Falling Water.

Currently live in an Arts and Crafts home, but our new home will be prairie style. :-)

Well this is pretty much it. Great location in a region I a frequent with friends nearby. And yes I would take all 550 acres. I could improve on this very little.

( I look at this listing at least once a week!!!)

Great thread!

Actually, I think I could settle very nicely into this place and be quite content. It has everything I need, bookcases, window seat, fireplace and all.

I think no more than about 4,000 SF max on the main and second levels, then maybe another 1000 in a finished basement playroom area. I wouldn't want to ramble around in a huge house, but to each his or her own. Also wouldn't want lots of land -- like being in a neighborhood. An acre or so is plenty for me. Would be nice to be on water/lake or something though. Either shingle style (think East coast yacht club-look) or Tudor.

Well this is pretty much it. Great location in a region I a frequent with friends nearby. And yes I would take all 550 acres. I could improve on this very little.

( I look at this listing at least once a week!!!)

Great thread!

Here is a link that might be useful: Full Cry Farm

Hey, that looks a lot like the place we are building.

The acreage count is about the same -- if you move a decimal point.

And we have the same number of garage doors.

I think my dream home would be very similar to the one I am building only smaller. We tried to get the size down but just can't do it without some very expensive upgrades. In my dream home I would have no more than 2000 square feet. The house would look small from the outside but live big on the inside. I would have an elevator to the second floor finished areas and attic space. Almost every square inch of the house would have custom woodwork and built-ins built of expensive woods. I would have hidden storage between the studs in the walls. I also would build the house as much "off the grid" as possible on a small city lot. Also the finishes would be exactly what I want. When I see a hand forged light fixture or door handle that I like, I wouldn't have to hesitate to think about the price. The finish work in the house would be created by artists and craftsmen.

As it stands our house will be a compromise. It will be 2600 square feet and we will implement mostly energy efficient fixtures and systems, hopefully a solar water heater and a couple of solatubes. We'll have a bit of nice woodwork in a more affordable wood and we will have some handmade tilework and an artist made glass backsplash for the wetbar. But I can dream, can't I?

Ncamy, you can always upgrade finishes later. We removed most of the can lights and replaced them with beautiful Arroyo Craftsman light fixtures. We replaced an old painted fireplace mantle with a beautiful one of quarter sawn oak. We upgraded to granite counters in the bathroom. We replaced a pair of dull double hung windows with a beautiful heirloom-style wood casement window and added a window seat with bookcases. That nook is now one of my favorite places in the entire house. Finally we added solar PV panels to the roof and now generate most of our own electricity. Our state (California) has an offset that reduced the cost. Think of building your house in such a way that later you can upgrade without making any structural changes.

I opened the Boston Globe this morning and saw this house; I'd settle for living there.

Clingstone

You may need to join the Boston.com site (free) to see this.

Claire

I found it! The Sitka house in the movie "The Proposal" (just saw it today). I don't care what the interior looks like, I just want the porch and the view!

I just built it, but NEVER AGAIN! The house build from h*ll - everything that could go wrong & more did... Got to the point where I just stopped posting here as it was just too depressing & I think people were starting to not believe me it was all so ridiculous! However, I absolutely love it now - maybe I appreciate it even more? Although, husband will confirm nothing practical about it whatsoever... Luckily I do love it, as can't afford to go anywhere ever again!

Something in between what I'll be leaving and what I'll be going to. The perfect house would still be here in Fl. but on the intracoastal WITH private land (it's a dream... right? cause it doesn't exist at any price!) Dock out back with lift for boat. Home could be about 1800 sq. ft. Large kitchen, open great room, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 2 car garage, glass wall system that folds open onto covered outdoor L/R and outdoor kitchen which all overlooks the pool. My kitchen would extend along one long wall and be wide enough to have opposing islands. Lots of comfy furniture outside for dining and lounging.

Brendamc - THANK YOU so much for posting that last comment. We are right in the middle of a build from h*ll and I get soooooo depressed. I'm finding it hard to even care about it at all anymore. I keep wondering whether if/when the house is finally done, I will wind up hating it just because it has been so painful for so long. Your house is gorgeous and the fact that - after surviving the build - you LOVE it gives me hope that maybe I will one day love my new house.

I know EXACTLY what you mean about getting to the point you stop posting just because you're worried people will no longer believe you about all the things that have gone wrong. Maybe we should start a new thread called "Tell us about Your Build from H*LL"... then all the people who've had relatively uneventful builds can just avoid reading that thread.

Anyway, THANK YOU again. It helps to know someone else has been there and survived and even healed to the point where they can love their new home.

bevangel - you're oh so welcome. It's the truth - I think building houses is kind of like raising children - you just try & blur out the really awful parts & someday you can appreciate it all. The fact my husband & I are not divorced is a miracle. But, at some point, I realized everyone was out to screw us & if we didn't stick together... I really do thing you appreciate it more if you have to work for it. And it sounds like you're in the same boat of having sacrificed so much and gone through nightmare after nightmare - it's not the pretty picture you expect, is it? Anyway, I think you'll love your house too. And appreciate it all the more because you had to fight for it. Good luck & if you ever need any moral support - kaimbu@cox.net :)

Brenda

Now that we are empty nesters our "dream" home is totally different than what we have been living in. We've lived in our 4 BR, 4 BA dream home with the huge porches and tons of room and now find ourselves swimming in it. Keeping a house this size heated and cooled when only half of it's in use is also impractical for us on a retired income.

So our "dream home" is a much smaller version of what many of you probably aspire to. This one will only have about 2,000 SF. It's an adaptation of the "Elegant Simplicity" plan from "Creating the Not So BIg House" that I have modified in all the right areas, (master bath, master bedroom and laundry), to suitably fit a retired couple with visiting grandchildren. It will still have the wonderful porches that we've grown to love. All I need to do now is convince DH that it's worthwhile for us to sell this too-big house and build again!!! THAT'S the real dream!!!!

I agree with Joyce_6333 - my dream home is FLWright's Fallingwater. There is no more beautiful piece of modern design wedded to its surroundings than this house.

But I'd move it into San Francisco! Much as I like living across the Bay Bridge in the Oakland hills, I want it in Pacific Heights where the Spreckels mansion (formerly owned by author Danielle Steele; there's actually 3 Spreckels mansions in SF) currently sits.

Of course, you'd have to terraform the entire hillside to create the rushing stream - but in this dream, cost is no object, right? Woohoo!

You can have Danielle's lot, if I can have her ex-husband's Belvedere home!

The website listing it is no longer - wonder if it sold. Pictures are still available below. I love all the woodwork.

My DREAM house would be a old stone french Farm house WITH a large vintage greenhouse !

Gee...a 9-year old + thread...

"Gee...a 9-year old + thread..."

From a pro on their 2nd post. I can only imagine what today will bring........................

Dreams can last a long time. Most people think they can find them, few people know they have to make them.

My dream home is in the woods somewhere, with hiking trails out the back door and wildlife sightings out the windows. It is maintenance-free (we're dreaming, right?), eco-friendly, warm and inviting. There is large sunny spot for a big vegetable garden.

The kitchen is not large, but as functional as possible. The living room/den has comfy chairs, plus a nice table for doing jigsaw puzzles. There is little wasted space, and oodles of storage space where I need it, like a big coat closet, a closet in the bathroom for linens and bulky bathroom supplies. There is a comfortable workshop - not huge, but big enough for my power tools.

Well, Chatsworth would do nicely, but I'd "settle" for the wonderful Dower House where the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire spent her last years living.

Of how about this one? Pittshill House in West Sussex. It was once the home of the famous Mitford Sisters (the Dowager Duchess mentioned above was the youngest of them).

I love the way the house is sited. The trees behind it, the reflecting pool in front.

This is the amazing entrance hall. That is NOT marble on the wall - faux marbleized.

I doubt I could get up all those stairs these days (would need a nice little elevator), but they sure would be glorious to look at!!

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Revisiting this old thread, I find I am still dreaming of a house that probably does not exist, beautifully detailed but not very large. The features I like are found only in houses 4000 square feet and up. I don't want one anything near that size. I'd like a walk-in laundry room on the main floor, big enough for air drying (many of my clothes I don't put in the dryer). I want a walk-in pantry Bilbo would aspire to. Books are important to me so I want a built-in library complete with fireplace in place of a living room or family room. I want a house that feels cozy, full of niches and window seats and built-ins and stone or tile floors and casement windows, not an open floor plan. An eat-in kitchen big enough for parties. A couple of small bedrooms and bathrooms would finish it all off.

No one builds houses like this, and for good economic reasons. Alas.

I stumbled across this very old thread just today, and I thought I'd tell you how my own story turned out.

I got some of what I wanted, not everything (no one ever gets everything, which is fine). I turns out that I got the most important parts, and we are very happy here.

We got a smaller house, around 2600 sq feet. It is exactly the right size for us. I think if it were any smaller we would feel squashed. As it was, it took us a couple of months to adjust to the smaller space. It is on a quarter acre lot, and that turns out to also be exactly the right size. I want a beautiful garden but I do not want to be working in in 40 hours a week. And I am no longer interested in battling wildlife to harvest fruits and vegetables, so I am growing ornaments. Well, I may add some culinary herbs next year. We will see.

We are in a lovely, friendly college town. We can walk so many places, library, grocery store, restaurants, parks. Driving has become more of an option and less of a necessity. That means that as we grow older and driving becomes problematic, we will not be forced to move. I watched my Dad struggle as his vision deteriorated and he faced the possibility of having to leave his home of 50 years because he could no longer safely drive. I think it would have killed him. Fortunately one of his daughters came to live with him.

We love historic houses, and we got one. It was built around 1920, and updated about 10 years ago. Updating can destroy the historic quality of a house, but fortunately for us, the previous owners had taste quite simlilar to ours. It functions like a modern house, but retains most of the architectural flavor of the era. Yay! We will change a few minor things - tile in one bathroom and on the fireplace, one light fixture, and most important, adding built-in bookcases since my DH and I are both book people. A house does need to reflect the interests of its inhabitants. But essentially, we just moved in and felt right at home.

Things on my list that I did not get : window seat, big pantry, big laundry room with space to hang laundry for air drying. They woud be nice to have, but fade in importance when compared to what we did get.

Things on my list that I am especially grateful to get : New but historic style casement windows (they are gorgeous and I love them), a combined kitchen-family room (I am surprised how much I actually like this), gas burning fireplace (haven't used it yet, but will when the weather turns cold. Besides, Christmas.)

This house simply works, and works well, and in our opinion it is absolutely beautiful.

So I got to thinking, 15 years ago when you started this thread, my dream house would have been one thing. Now, I have different dreams, my life is not the same. I still dream about dream houses, though. It’s good to have dreams!

Exactly! My dream house is no longer a cabin in the woods - distance to good medical facilities is a higher priority, as is one-level living, and a small yard.

But I guess if we're dreaming, and money is no object, I'll have a helicopter for errands and a staff for yard work...

" 15 years ago when you started this thread, my dream house would have been one thing. Now, I have different dreams, my life is not the same. "

So very true. Part of why I never discussed a "forever house", and I think it's kind of foolish to plan for a "forever house". Too many things change to think one home will fulfill everything you need for the rest of your life.

I have had three 'forever homes' and I now eat dessert first.

(perpetuating a 15 year old thread)