Our home in Nassau, on a slope down to the sea, where the sun and the moon both rise from our big blue back yard.

Beautiful!

Wow...another place you'd never want to leave!

It feels good to have no mortgage...Finally!!! . I see our house and especially the backyard as an experimental project. By trial by error we are learning first hand do/dont's to landscaping. Alas, So far, we got a whole list of don'ts, and very few of do's :)

We have had a few but my favorite is the one just complete last fall. It's currently our weekend home but will ultimately be our retirement home. Landscaping still needs to be done but hopefully we can get some good advice for doing that this spring.

Hubby and I bought our first home in Daytona Beach in 1983. It was a 5 bedroom 2 bath pool home in a nice neighborhood near a golf course. When we first looked at the house, we were told that a family with 11 children (yes, you read that correctly...eleven!) had built the home and lived there. I expected it to be run down and pretty well torn up from use. Imagine my surprise when it was in great shape. It had a fantastic split plan layout with 4 of the bedrooms and one bathroom on one side of the house...and the kitchen, dining room and living room located in between them and the master suite. Sliding glass doors in both the living room and the master suite led to the back (screened in) pool area. The pool area had a built in grill incorporated into it. The 'rambler-style' house was sprawled out, L-shaped, on a lovely corner lot which gave plenty of privacy for pool parties with friends and family. I think back to how lucky we were to have that home and I wish we had never sold it. But of course, hind sight is always 20/20. LOL.

I have lived in 6 homes and this is my favorite so far. The house plan is modified from a Southern Living plan. I like it because of it's uniqueness. The roof over the garage is a mansard roof , it has deep front porch and on the east side is a large screened in porch. It is currently on the market as we are going to downsize as the children have all grown.

My home now, 1930 Minimal Traditional. It has the original windows, woodwork, doors with keys, and was built for entertaining. It felt like home, even the first time we walk through--with two 100 gallons turtle tanks (water was green), four oversize dogs, and eight cats--The smell was so bad, no one wanted to buy it.

I absolutely love my newly built home. I love the open floor plan, I love my walk in closet - I love my spacious master bath and I love my master bedroom - which isn't large by any means but I have 2 porches off of it and when I lay in bed I look out my 3 door porch side and I feel like I am outside. I am very lucky indeed!

Growing up in small town Iowa, we were blessed to live in this amazing home for several years.

It is actually the one that has yet to be built - most likely won't be built as I am getting a little long in the tooth.

in BC - lovely designer home in the woods - windows everywhere. The dock and boat made the ocean our backyard. sigh. i miss it!

the house we live in now...its a ranch (probably my least favorite exterior) but it lives so comfortably. L-shaped on a corner lot with beautiful landscaping and huge windows/doors that open to the backyard pool and patio area complete with 3/4 bath. We've renovated almost every room - big eat-in kitchen, utility room with tons of storage (people think its the kitchen because it has second fridge, freezer and sink plus laundry and cabinetry), craft space and lockers/coat closet tucked into the mudroom, dining room converted into library and office space. The garage is extended for wood shop that opens into backyard with garden shed. And just a few weeks ago finished reno on master bath, bedroom and boutique closet complete with sofa and walk-in shoe closet within closet. Tons of sweat equity but we don't plan to leave - unless its "feet first", as my husband says. We are tired (and broke) but call it Heaven.

My favorite house is "The Farm" as it's known in my family. It is a 200 year old farmhouse in NW Pennsylvania that has been in our family since it was built. When I was younger it was used as a vacation destination/summer home by all the extended family. After my grandparents retired, they moved in. That summer everyone went up there and helped to make the renovations to make it ready to live in year round. We stripped many many layers of paint off the outside, over 30 layers of wallpaper off the plaster/lathe walls inside, replaced old worn marmoleum flooring with carpet or linoleum, installed a few gas furnaces and had the phone company hook us up to the party line that had just been run up the valley. Before that we had to drive to town and use a payphone. The farm recently changed hands again after my great-aunt who had it from my grandmother passed away. Now my mother and her siblings own it and have to make decisions about its care as a committee. I just hope they can work together to keep this lovely place in good shape till my generation gets a chance to live there! My little cousin enhanced this photo she took at Christmas and it shows a lot of places we need to get up scrape and repaint...

Reminds me of one of my childhood homes, 106 East 4th St., Willow Springs, Mo. Good luck on keeping it in the family, Jessica.

Jessica, it's wonderful and also reminds me of my grandmothers farmhouse in Iowa.

Arch. Meltzer own house on Stone island of St. Petersburg.

1903-1905 .

So nice to see all the folks loving the homes they're in! We're working on getting into that dream home, and to never have to move again.... Submitting an offer today on our #1 pick, which is slightly out of reach for us, so if the offer gets declined we can't increase our bid. But would eternally feel bad if we never tried :)

My favorite house.

My favorite house is where we live today. We bought the lake lot 13 years ago and waited till the right time to build. Ezra Lee Design + Build did a fantastic job creating the plans and building the house. I can't help but love the house because it was designed to suit our lifestyle. After over a year of planning and building, we moved in Nov 2013.

I don't live in my favourite home. Not even close. I have a 1966 Ranch.
What I really want is real Craftsmen Style home, not a new made to look like one. I love all the rich woodwork and the huge front porches, the style of the windows.... That is my dream home.

I'm not sure I can limit it to one house as we loved the two Bungalows we lived in, and the house that followed those, a mid-century modern ranch. As a designer, I have tried to ferret out as many different kinds of homes to live in as we could: a 1940's ranch, a 1960's ranch, a Colonial two story, a Victorian with a three-sided veranda, and then the Bungalows and the mid-century modern. If I had to choose between the last three, it would be the very well built mid-century. It was designed by an architect for an engineer, so the spatial layout was wonderful, but we did make some fairly extensive changes as it needed updating throughout the house. The engineer owner had lived there for over 50 years, and nothing had been changed, but the bones were excellent. We didn't need to make spatial changes except in the master bedroom and an additional bedroom which became a nice sized master bath and main-floor laundry.

Interestingly, even though we had made some great changes to the house, we sold it in a down market, and went under water with it, and then the buyer changed her mind 3 hours after the house papers were signed. There were some very tense moments as we waited four days to hear if they held her to the sale, and thankfully they did, but I still have to wonder if we wouldn't have been better off trying to sell it ourselves. The buyer's banker was an arrogant type who didn't know the difference between T-111 siding and 3/4" old growth cedar tongue and groove planks! He was a nightmare, the buyer was a nightmare, the realtors were nightmares, as was the broker of the realty company we hired. I came so close to firing the realtors so many times. Needless to say, we were glad to get out from under that home, but it was such a wonderful home, and I wish we still could live there, but in another community!!!

For me it's our house we just built. Great place to get away & just relax!

My favorite home of all time, is our vacation home in North Dakota. Actually, it's not even a home. It is a one room "glorified" garden shed. (320 sq. ft. of loveliness.) We have no electricity, no running water and one of the cutest outhouses ever. My personal little house on the prairie where my soul is nurtured 2-3 times a year.

It is definitely our current home - the 3rd one we have owned & renovated. The first was in a little town of 800 people, and the 100+ year old home was known as the "Ty" mansion. We learned ALOT about DIY in that house!
Next was a ranch style that had been custom built in 1970 - lived there for almost 20 years, redid every square foot, plus added a sunroom & backyard pool.
Now we are about half done with our biggest project yet! A traditional 2 story, custom built by a doctor in 1965, for his family of 8 children; it is solid structure and well worth the sweat equity! The views are incredible, & we have room for all of our grown children & their families at the same time!
This home is a true gift from God, and we feel blessed every day to live here!

This is the "favorite" home we have worked on in a long time. We love it because it is historic in that it is a Leila Ross Wilburn (a historic female architect which was very rare when this house was constructed in the 1920s) house in an area of Atlanta currently experience a major resurgence both in terms of economics and social progress.

My current home; a seven room townhouse. It's my favorite because it's the first home that I bought totally on my own!!! I bought it nearly four years ago during a life change; new job, new state, new life!!

Mine is my current home. I custom designed it to have the craftsman style that I love. It is hopefully our forever home that my two children, ages 5 and 2, will make wonderful memories. We are at the back of the neighborhood on a cul de sac with a half acre backyard. We've only been in it a month, but I can't imagine living anywhere else!

The mid century modern house we owned before we downsided. It may not look big, but the lot sloped away from the street and there was a whole other floor on the bottom. Kids moved away, and hubby said when you are dusting the bathrooms, it's time to move.

I loved my apple green door. Especially since it embarrassed the kids. Our real estate agent finally made me repaint it a particularly boring shade of red. Sad!

My favorite is my childhood home. My siblings and I agree that we had great memories of hard work and fun times. My mother made an offer in 1963 on the 1896 Cape Cod style brick that was rather scary looking! It had been vacant for seven years and was called the "Witch's House", and even the mail arrived with that address. Everyone in the city knew it. The woman who lived there did eccentric things like painting it all black with the inner walkway orange, and the 4-foot tall wrought iron fence pink! She was an artist but her sense of color defied the norm. The tall pine trees with English ivy growing up the trunks were forbidding looking but over the years we loved them! One fell onto the eaves of the house in a windstorm in 1992 but hardly damaged it, it's such a solid building! We kids had to work at all the remodeling right along with our parents - and we learned a lot!
It was sad when my parents sold the house in 1988. And it's even sadder to see what three owners have done since - splitting it into a duplex, covering the wrap-around windows in the small tv room with the pot-belly stove. I climbed the roof for my dad to help with the chimney (one of three) when he was installing that stove! A scary thing for a 15-year-old! But it was worth it! It was the most charming room in the house, especially in the cold winters. My husband and I had our wedding party in the garden, one of many. I wanted to buy it when they had it on the market but my husband, who is a New Yorker, said he spent six years of school in that town, and that was enough for him! Oh, well, we have wonderful memories!

There are several things I enjoyed about your story. You wrote about a time in our society when children were necessary to a families success. Your mom and dad could not have made that house the happy home it was for all of you without the efforts of the children. The self esteem of the accomplishment was important to every member of your family. Also, you were able to let go, move on to your own accomplishments and cherish your memories. Well done.

Hey cka1 - Thanks for the compliment! I am hoping in the very near future to have my parents live with us. My mom is 84 and my dad is 87; they just cannot be alone anymore. I will have to read your comment to them- it will validate their hard work. I've tried very hard to get my four children to be interested in the work around our home, but only when they moved out did that happen!
My parents did not set out or even discuss buying that old house. My mother made an offer without telling my dad! She wasn't being devious, by any means, but my dad knew that she liked the derelict building! My grandmother lived two blocks away and my aunt on the next corner, so I remember driving by the house and my brothers and I would make comments about how scary looking it was! That was 1962-63. Three years before my sister died, and now I know why my mother needed that house. She needed to move on from the bittersweet memories, and the house was a project as therapy! They had wonderful neighbors and church members who were very supportive, but still, it was difficult for her to leave the town. She is telling me so many things now in her old age. I've given her a journal to write her memories as they come up, and even my dad's memories with his dementia. Because of that "project" my siblings and I "can do hard things."

Wow, I feel like we have lived parallel lives in some ways. I was born in 1946, and am the oldest of five children. We moved to 5 1/2 acres when I was in 2nd grade. My dad dismantled a house board by board and hauled it to our land and rebuilt it. When we moved in there was drywall on one side of each wall and a cold water hose from the neighbors house. Sometimes I get a big kick out of Houzz and the perfection everyone seems to strive for. Of course, in the 40's no occupancy permits were required and everyone was scrambling to build their own home after the war. Our dad died at an early age from cancer. Our mom had a 14 year journey with Alzheimers and even though it was hard all five of us felt that our life had prepared us for the challenge and that anything divided by 5 was not a burden. Best wishes to you with your Mom and Dad as you travel through these years.

I say WOW to you, too, cka1! It's amazing what we had to do! Thanks for the wishes! Enjoy the sweet home in North Dakota!

I hope it's our new, downsized, heading-for-retirement-in-a-few-years home.

rondafaye - that's not just a house, that's a HOME! Charming! Would you be willing to show the floor plan?

Oh, thank you! I don't have a copy of the floor plan accessible right now, but I'll attach some photos. (Floor plan is on a computer disk and my computer is an Apple without a slot.) It's a 3 BR, 2.5 bath, just under 2000 square feet. Can you believe my husband didn't even see the house before we bought it? He trusted me to decide (silly man). Anyway, downstairs are the kitchen, living room, dining room, master suite, half bath and small study. Upstairs are two bedrooms joined by a full bath. Excuse some of the photos. Some of the rooms are in progress (and my dining room is missing the dining table). Any suggestions for relocating the garbage can? Under the counter? I like that it holds a lot, but I don't like that it's so visible. (Last pic in second set of photos.)

By the way, the heron was the "welcoming committee." A few more ...

Our favorite home is our redone Rosecottage which is now our home since retirement. We had always loved our old cottage for 14 years before it was renovated into our home. It was a 6 month labor of love to design every aspect of it from the new roof line, the addition, everything right down to the door knobs and electrical outlets. It took an additional 6 months to do the renovations by our contractor. Hubby and I like our location, because we are a part of a very small village, so there are plenty of community events to be involved in. Our back yard is our lake.

Your Rosecottage is beyond charming. I especially love the arch over the window with the peak above. And, of course, it looks like the location is to die for!

Beautiful!

rondafaye- it looks terrific and you've done a beautiful job. Simple and charming! And the blue heron! WOW! We have those too, but we usually have to drive about a mile to our trail to see them - you are blessed. Though sometimes we have bald eagles fly right over our home! And we are about 30 minutes from a major city!
I know what you mean about the trash can - when we moved into our home 17 years ago, my daughter, then 9 years old, said I should get rid of the bucket I use for the kitchen trash. Well, I like it; it fits under the sink, liners from Target are the perfect size, and I don't have to lift a heavy bag. Or look at it! When the kiddies were home (3 out of four are on their own) I did have to empty it more, but that was their job. haha My neighbor has a can just like yours but it sits in the mudroom just outside the kitchen doorway - rather inconvenient she says. IF I ever get to design a future kitchen I would LOVE a drawer with a trash receptacle. My sister-in-law had one and it was VERY VERY convenient!

rondafaye - thanks for the photos - enjoy the nest!

Peaceful. I like everything about the house.

My childhood home--4 stories, balconies, grand stairway. Sadly, it was destroyed in a fire:(

My last house was built by my sister to my specifications. I wanted a new house that felt like I could have inherited it. So all brick with chocolate mortar, textured plaster ceilings, lots of trim and stonework. We have moved to a larger home in a more upscale suburb but I still miss my house. Not to mention my sister, who lived across the road.

This house! Want!

Current house on Lake Ontario. It's not as grand as our previous house but the mid century vibe and location make it special

The one I am living in now. It's only the second I've lived in, and I expect to die still living here. (I am 57, but have a lot of people on both my mom's side and my dad's side who lived past 95)

When my husband and I agreed to get married in 2 years (34 yrs ago), we walked a half mile down the road from my mom and dad's, saw a house for sale. I remember when we were little we were never allowed to trick or treat there, it was too 'dark.'

We drove around that summer looking at several other houses and in the fall, put in an offer. We looked through it again, found out NO ONE had even gone through it, and it was accepted. Our offer was for the house and all its contents. I spent my youth days going to farm auctions with my dad, this house was all set up like it was still 1940, so it was like an auction on speed to me.

Found out an invalid woman lived there, whose minister husband had died, and as was the rule to go into a home, the house had to be sold. My sister is an RN and that woman was one of her patients once. She explained who she was, and the first thing Pressie asked was "Are they taking care of my house?"

My husband lived here a year before we got married, working on things that needed done first. There were push button light switches, and one outlet in the whole upstairs.

So, he redid the electric in the whole house, new heating system, new septic system (the inspector said it was very rare for him to inspect a system that followed the rules so exactly), we had 3 kids, added on to the 1200 sf house to 3600 and lots and lots of other improvements. We are in the same school system I went to, and my dad, in his one room schoolhouse.

When we bought it, the interest rate was 12%!!!!!! It took it awhile to go down, and when it did, we decided to just pay the thing off.

My husband had a few rules - he preferred no yellow rooms, no trees over the septic system, and don't drop the level. Rules not that hard to live with. Of course he was consulted, and sometimes his opinions were the ones we used, but he basically gave me free reign over the decorating and cosmetic remodeling

Our house is very welcoming at Halloween now.

There is so much of my husband and I here, and lots of stories that need to be written down for out kids

We have always said "A house is not something we have, it's something we do!"

I love this house

photo is how it was when we walked down the sidewalk so many years ago