I've mentioned at least once or twice how most of our friends are building great big cavelike homes in bright and shiny neighborhoods. They've got postage-stamp-size yards, but when you've got a 4,000-square-foot house, why go outside, am I right?
Was driving around today in lieu of my normal lunchtime walk (it's windy out there, folks!) and was noticing all the overblown names to go along with the overblown houses. It's enough to make the words "estates" and "heights" lose their once-classic meanings.
To be clear, there's nothing wrong with a nice house, or even a big house. If that's what you have or what you want – cheers to you! But having visited many of these newer caves, I'll say they don't feel like home – and not only because they're not my home. The soaring ceilings and gargantuan rooms aren't cozy in the least. Most people don't have enough furntiure to fill such homes.
What's more, one family we know in particular bought a giant house, but their living room furniture will only fit one way. If they get the bug to rearrange the room, they'll have to buy new furniture. In our little less-than-1,800-square-foot home, we've rearranged our living room 12 different ways in the four years we've lived there. Of course, we're nuts after all.
If there was truth in advertising in naming those new neighborhoods, it would go something like this ...
• Not A Tree in Sight Homes
• Lotsa Red Brick Abodes
• Invisible Valley Estates
• Fake Lakes
• Lower Heights
• Similar Houses all in a Row
• Teeny Tiny Yards
• Flat And Boring Terrain
• Crappy Construction Village
• Suckersville
• Neverwasa Farms
• Trembling Hills
• Shaky Acres
I've asked this question before, but I'll say it again as me and the Petite Filet continue to fixer up our fixer upper ... what's the most important thing in a home to you?
Lots of space to store my books. And a big yard with trees.
And as for names of subdivisions, what about just plain "Stepford"?
Comfort is number one! Character a close second. Coziness. The three C's!
Yeah, for me it would be cleanliness. Last time I came home to find a trail of fries through the house, I thought roomie might have been marking his whereabouts in case he had a premature heart attack, or something, but it turns out he thought the cats might like to chase them. What can I say- it's cheap!
As for subdivision names, how about Humvee Acres?
Or Re-occurring Design Trails?
I agree with panajane. I live in a 700 sq. foot apartment. It's teeny but it's comfortable, loaded with character and ultra cozy. It's my home.
I love the house we're in. It's about 35 years old, and is what used to be considered a big home 4 bedroom colonial). Not any more. We have more room than we need, but a family was raised here, and here we'll stay. We have about a half acre yard - lots of room for my little garden and lots of flowers. And our neighbors can't look into our windows.
The people inside. In all honesty I guess I should say the people and the pets:)
That's what I was gonna say. Who's inside. But also, when you can walk into a room of the house and remember some incident or person or thing that happened in that room, perhaps in that very chair that is placed there... it not only becomes a home, it becomes your memories.
The most important thing in my home are the people I live with. Second to that, plenty of light (although we sometimes do get a bit too much of that in this flat), good insulation, good neighbours that don't play the flute all day or smoke in the corridor, and my cozy balconies. Man, I could kill for a nice little house with a nice little garden right now...
A clean bed upon which to lay my head! No...really it just has to be a space in which I feel comfortable and that my family can feel they can be themselves in. We don't need big or immaculate - we just need comfy.
I don't know how kids find their way home in some of these neighborhoods where the houses look alike.
We live in a perpetual fixer-upper with about 3 acres. Although there are days I want to pave the yard (usually in thre middle of mowing it), I wouldn't trade it for anything.