We’re been married for well over 7 years. Well, 7 years and 4 months. 4 months counts as “well over” today, okay? For the first time since September 4, 2004… I got an itch.
A house itch.
I’ve scratched many-an-itch before… the marriage itch, the child itch, the watch-an-entire-television-series-in-a-week itch. The list goes on. I’ve always somehow escaped the house itch. What’s brought it on now?
Maybe pinterest and all of it’s amazing ideas.
Maybe my age and my children and the yearning in my female soul to JUST BE SETTLED.
Maybe it’s the New Year.
Maybe it was you. Maybe it was me, but it sure [feels] right.
(If you’re now singing country songs about Memphis out loud or in your head, I’m to blame, and not the least bit sorry.)
I decided to DO something about my itch. You know what’s wrong with the world today? Too many itches and not enough doings about them. Well, I wasn’t about to fall into the laziness trap, no SIRREE! I’ll tell you what I did:
I sat in my PJs on my couch opened my computer and drew up some haphazard house plans for an entire hour. Now THAT’S what I call hard work! Progress!
Also: my house was disaster. By the time I finished putting up the walls, each bedroom was much bigger than my house I’m writing from now. I put bunk beds in one room and they looked like toys in dwarf’s doll house.
But, like a crick in my back on Bookcase Making Day, it didn’t stop me. I put a range top in the kitchen AND one in the garage (for canning).
I was able to customize my house and add my fancies. Do you have house fancies? I’ve had mine for ages and ages.
Also: 5 years more than constitutes “ages and ages.” Okay?
For starters: a window over my kitchen sink that faces the west.
(image from countryliving.com)
I LOVE having a window next to the sink. I do not have a dishwarsher, nor have I ever -excepting that one year in college and even then I preferred warshing by hand on account of my feeling like a human could out-perform a contraption. Thomas Edison, you MUST forgive me.
Sunsets are something I enjoy beyond anything. The best way to enjoy a sunset is sitting on a back patio in a wooden porch swing with a pooch at your feet, cocoa or lemonade in hand (depending on the season). Seeing as I have:
no back patio
no wooden swing
no pooch
I compensate. I swap the dishes out for the patio, swing, and pooch and… viola! The dishes get done once a day and I get to enjoy the absolute beauty of the sunset. Will I ever trade this for anything? Not on your life.
“Give me [sunsets through the window over my apron front kitchen sink] or give me death!” ~Patrick Henry
My kids prefer it that way as well. When mom’s doing dishes, singing along to her Nat King Cole Pandora station, and losing herself in the splendor of nature, she sure as Playskool isn’t minding the children’s manners. Chaos? Commence.
Enough about my Window/Kitchen Sink Platform.
Let’s move on.
There must be a library. There’s also sartin rules ’bout it.
Namely:
#1) No computer shall sully the hallowed ground of the library at any time.
#2) The library shall be a refuge inside of a refuge (home being the latter).
#3) There will be bean bags.
#4) There will be art.
#5) Until the girl or boy bats their eyes sufficiently, there will be no kindles.
Add a rolling ladder to this image:
My heart is singing. Can you hear it?
Next to the library, we will have a craft/office room. Or an office/craft room, depending on the day and the order of the day.
The library and office won’t be very LARGE, you understand. I’ll probably split one room into two, and the office/craft room is negotiable. The library is not.
I know you can’t see it, but my foot is DOWN.
We’ll have a storage room for our food and seasonal decor.
We’ll have a laundry room where I’ll attach a string to the wall and use clothespins to hang odd socks under vinyl lettering that reads “Matchmaker, Matchmaker…” or maybe “Make me a Match” or maybe both depending on how whimsical I’m feeling when I mount it.
I’d prefer wood flooring. My husband has a thing or two to say about that, but since this itch is going to take YEARS to scratch, I’ve got awhile to wear him down.
He’s also trying to wear me down on the whole “when we get a dog it will come in the house” thing, but I will not budge.
“But babe, I’ll clean up all the hair and stuff.”
“Like fun you will.”
It’s not that I don’t have in any faith in him. It’s just that, well, he’s not here 15 minutes before visiting teachers come to sit on my couch and I don’t want them leaving with more hair than they came with.
I’m a simple girl, really.
My door fancies:
A dutch door in the kitchen. This fancy was brought on during the Christmas season on 2010 when I watched the classic “Christmas in Connecticut” and the farmhouse the movie was filmed in had a dutch door in the kitchen through which a cow came to visit.
image from hookedonhouses.net
You should actually just go read the entire post written HERE. You get to see the set from the movie and get the movie highlights. I’ve got a movie crush on the soldier. He’s divine. Better yet: let’s schedule a movie showing date and we can all fall in love with the soldier together.
Back to dutch doors (quit changing the subject):
image from willowdecor.blogspot.com
And then there’s French doors for the master bath:
I love the tile, and I’d go nutsy over checkerboard tile in the kitchen. Nutsy! Of course if it clashed with my dutch door, I’d limit the tile to my master bath.
Please don’t mistake my fancies for snobbery. It’s easy to have high expectations for a hypothetical house -especially when that hypothetical house is easily 20 acres big.
And from this moment on, I’m going to be squirreling away cash to scratch my house itch. Apron front sinks don’t grow on trees, you know.
Neither do houses, but I’m all about priorities here.
Speak Your Mind