Planning for the future, or at least pretending to

I have a guilty pleasure I indulge in sometimes. I go in waves, not indulging for weeks at a time and then all at once, hours have gone by while I sit over my obession. This is one of those weeks where I spend hours. Mostly, I look on the internet. It's fast and easy and I can indulge my fantasies without spending a penny. This is my porn. Isn't it lovely? Just decedant at 850 sq feet per person in my family. I'll never own a million dollar home (unless the US dollar somehow ends up with the same buying power as a Mexican Peso,) but it's fun to dream about it.

I love looking at home plans. I'll look at luxery homes (like this,) and budget homes, and modern homes (I adore this one. the floor plan is so practical and perfect and the whimsy of combinging the two styles totally works for me.) I even spent time yesterday looking at house plans for straw bale homes.

Yes, straw bales. You use them for the outer walls. It gives an impressive R value, is very cheap to use, is easy to aquire, and is a completely renewable resource, not to mention the very cool deep window sills all over the house. :) There are some gorgous homes out there designed for straw bales. google it.

I just love residential architecture in general. I would love to go to parade of homes, but I never manage it. It's a date thing to me. Can you imagine hauling five kids from house to house just because you feel like looking? Of course, there is the problem that once you've seen one cookie cutter tract house you've seen them all, so Parade of Homes are often not as cool as I'd like them to be.

Someday, Steve and I will build a house. We don't know what it will look like or how much money we will have to build. If we have a lot of money, we will hire an architect and buy a beautiful lot on a hillside. We'll build a house that's basically a part of the hill, building back in with tall windows and passive solar heating. I can picture it in my head. It will be long and narrow with a modern feel that gives a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prarie style. Two levels. doesn't it sound lovely?

If we don't have a lot of money, we will buy a stock plan that hopefully looks nothing like what everyone else is building but it will probably be like naming your kid Ava, not nearly as unique as it sounds. Although this home would make me very happy even if all my neighbors had it.

Someday we will build and it will be either off the grid, or luxurious, or adorable, or a victorian, or a craftsman, or a tudor, or French Provincial (the real thing, not the stuff they just call French provincial) or georgian, or colonial, or . . . . it will be a house. And it will be a house I love . . . I hope.