Day 270: My ideal home/apartment
Aug. 19th, 2012 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maeve66See, this is a relatively good topic. I assume it means architecture as well as interior design, or what passes for it, for me. You know -- one of the first (and early) signs that M. and I were perhaps not a 100% compatible couple was when we were both writing (and drawing) notes to each other during a boring (and loud) band at The Starry Plough, in Berkeley. We exchanged ideas of what kinds of décor we liked, and mine was kind of mid-century bohemian in a 1920s Craftsman bungalow setting. His was James Bondian 1960s futurama furniture in an all-white Danish modern apartment. Yeah.
First the architectural requirements:
I need a house that has wood floors, with linoleum or tile or laminate in kitchen and bathroom. NO CARPETS. I hate carpets. I find them gross and ultimately filthy, and no fun to have with cats.
I also need high ceilings, or I feel depressed and oppressed and sort of crushed. It's a very physical reaction, so no low ceilings, please.
I need a lot of light and a lot of windows, and a bow window or some sort of expanded window arrangement is very nice. No "garden apartments" please. I did that one year in Missouri, UGH.
My favorite house plan -- which is how my dad's Sears Catalog rip-off 1920 or so house was arranged, and how my beloved Ross Street house in the student ghetto of Columbia, MO was arranged, too -- is ... hm. I think I should draw a picture and scan it in, but no guarantees as to when I will.
You enter into a big living room, preferably with a fireplace, and there is an open arched full-room wide entrance to the dining room in front of you, and a similar door-less entry to a kitchen from the dining room. To your right there is a doorway into one bedroom, a door from that bedroom into a bathroom, and another door into the second bedroom, which also has a door into a small back hall, linked to the kitchen and a back door to outside.
I like medium dark wood trim, built-ins -- cabinets, book cases, kitchen counters and cabinets -- though honestly, I'd like the kitchen cabinets to have glassed windows.
I tend to like cream or white paint, though I am always intrigued by people who make bold choices in the paint area.
One floor only, as is obvious from the description of my preferred layout.
A nice front yard and back yard containing the following, if possible: spirea bushes, forsythia bushes, bulbs planted -- crocuses and tulips and daffodils -- and if it's warm enough, rose-of-sharon bushes. Also lavender and rosemary plants, lots of them. In the back yard, a brick-circled herb garden. Comfortable seats and small tables. Maybe a chiminea or firepit.
-----
Inside -- I am eclectic, and don't have a very rigorous style, but it is interesting (to me) that when you see a shot of one of my room interiors, it often shares many ingredients in common with both my mother and my grandmother's style: bright colors, mixed together. Furniture for comfort. Tchotchkes that have personal associations, a plant or two (I am not as good at plants as my grandmother, nor certainly my mother). Books and books and books -- even though I have been trying to purge books I no longer want or need, I still have four full size Billy bookcases and two half-size similar book cases. I tend to mix functions in spaces: my desk and computer are in my living room, and at Ross Street were in the dining room -- I don't have a dining room now, just a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. And a long, long hallway and hella closet space. Lots of bookcases in my bedroom -- though nowhere to read but on my bed. I prefer older wooden furniture, like Mission style stuff, Morris chairs, a wooden rocker... I don't have a Morris chair; I don't have room for one. But I'd like one. If I had more space I'd like a large, solid, smooth-topped dining room table and carved wooden chairs for it, as my mother had and my sister has. But I'm fairly content with what I do have -- especially for what I pay in rent. It's only the kitchen and parking that sucks. Oh, and the ridiculous toilet, that has no room for your legs, so you have to sit sideways, because it is so close to the tub.
First the architectural requirements:
I need a house that has wood floors, with linoleum or tile or laminate in kitchen and bathroom. NO CARPETS. I hate carpets. I find them gross and ultimately filthy, and no fun to have with cats.
I also need high ceilings, or I feel depressed and oppressed and sort of crushed. It's a very physical reaction, so no low ceilings, please.
I need a lot of light and a lot of windows, and a bow window or some sort of expanded window arrangement is very nice. No "garden apartments" please. I did that one year in Missouri, UGH.
My favorite house plan -- which is how my dad's Sears Catalog rip-off 1920 or so house was arranged, and how my beloved Ross Street house in the student ghetto of Columbia, MO was arranged, too -- is ... hm. I think I should draw a picture and scan it in, but no guarantees as to when I will.
You enter into a big living room, preferably with a fireplace, and there is an open arched full-room wide entrance to the dining room in front of you, and a similar door-less entry to a kitchen from the dining room. To your right there is a doorway into one bedroom, a door from that bedroom into a bathroom, and another door into the second bedroom, which also has a door into a small back hall, linked to the kitchen and a back door to outside.
I like medium dark wood trim, built-ins -- cabinets, book cases, kitchen counters and cabinets -- though honestly, I'd like the kitchen cabinets to have glassed windows.
I tend to like cream or white paint, though I am always intrigued by people who make bold choices in the paint area.
One floor only, as is obvious from the description of my preferred layout.
A nice front yard and back yard containing the following, if possible: spirea bushes, forsythia bushes, bulbs planted -- crocuses and tulips and daffodils -- and if it's warm enough, rose-of-sharon bushes. Also lavender and rosemary plants, lots of them. In the back yard, a brick-circled herb garden. Comfortable seats and small tables. Maybe a chiminea or firepit.
-----
Inside -- I am eclectic, and don't have a very rigorous style, but it is interesting (to me) that when you see a shot of one of my room interiors, it often shares many ingredients in common with both my mother and my grandmother's style: bright colors, mixed together. Furniture for comfort. Tchotchkes that have personal associations, a plant or two (I am not as good at plants as my grandmother, nor certainly my mother). Books and books and books -- even though I have been trying to purge books I no longer want or need, I still have four full size Billy bookcases and two half-size similar book cases. I tend to mix functions in spaces: my desk and computer are in my living room, and at Ross Street were in the dining room -- I don't have a dining room now, just a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. And a long, long hallway and hella closet space. Lots of bookcases in my bedroom -- though nowhere to read but on my bed. I prefer older wooden furniture, like Mission style stuff, Morris chairs, a wooden rocker... I don't have a Morris chair; I don't have room for one. But I'd like one. If I had more space I'd like a large, solid, smooth-topped dining room table and carved wooden chairs for it, as my mother had and my sister has. But I'm fairly content with what I do have -- especially for what I pay in rent. It's only the kitchen and parking that sucks. Oh, and the ridiculous toilet, that has no room for your legs, so you have to sit sideways, because it is so close to the tub.