Needs to be in a fire district if it's rural. - I'm willing to have a pond for water retention and do the defensible space thing, but I'd still rather have a fireman show up, even if it's just a volunteer who makes me leave so I don't burn to death.
It needs to be within half an hour of a hospital. - M has somewhat of a propensity to need an emergency room a couple times a year. As long as he's on the blood thinners and still wants climb rocks by himself, a-hospital we'll be going.
Could be an in town lot if its big enough and well positioned enough not to be too close to neighbors. - I've had a lifetime of neighbor interaction in the last three years. Yelling, drunkenness, crying, dying, but especially the yelling. It seems like every time I go out and try to get some work done in my garden someone's calling someone a whore. And not just the people that live there, other family members actually come over and have arguments and always on the front lawn.
A dog park would be nice.
Needs to be non-covenanted or with progressive rules, i.e. can't have an issue with modern design. - Hell this is the West, I don't want you telling me nothin' about nothin'. If I wanted people telling me what to do, I'd be livin' for free at home.
The house itself:
Modern design, open plan, high ceilings, big windows, hot tub, decks, fireplace.
So basically, yes, I want a NY loft in the mountains with lots of sustainable features. A hippie in a black turtleneck, smoking cloves and listening to John Coltrane, while cross-country skiing.
Green features:
masonry heating unit, solar hot water, radiant heat, on demand hot water, composting system.
Thoughts on the kitchen:
BIG, BIG, BIG
industrial/ proffessional - I know a lot ofpeople do this to a degree but we would really use it. We both love to cook and eat and to have the space to really stretch out and do it right would be wonderful.
6 burner gas stove with high BTU capability
2 ovens with at least one convection
open under cabinets with roll out units, so they can be additional counter space or can go out to the deck
open/metro shelving
dishwasher, disposal, double sinks
stove on the wall side with big hood
double door refrigerator
double door freezer (see Standard Restaurant catalog)
rolling floor bins for flour/oatmeal
large pantry
kitchen/dining/living all in one big long room
Bathroom features:
walk-in shower - no curtains
japanese soaking tub - I don't think I've ever taken a bath in our present house. The thought of sitting half in water, looking at tiles is not that appealing to me anymore. I grew up taking baths so it's not that. But a soaking tub, where you can sit upright and be fully emmersed and have a window or two with views and feel part of the outside too would be great.
wood slat floors with sloped concrete floor under to floor drain - I love the idea of wood in the bathroom, like a sauna, but with an easy way to drain water under it. It would have to be movable at the drain end for cleaning.
double sinks - I've had enough toothpaste encrusted sinks to last me a lifetime also. Not sure what is about M that makes it so hard to get the paste to go down the drain, but it's everywhere. I even switched to gel thinking that would help, but no. This way we can have our own sinks and then it'll only be my mess to clean up. Also we do seem to need an inordinant amount of bathroom cabinet room. So many vitamins, soaps and samples of various things that we'll probably never use, but are too good to throw away.
maybe steam shower or better sauna - this would be such a great luxury. I'd love to see if I could build one, possibley wood burning. But I'm not sure how you regulate the temperature if it's wood, maybe just crack the door. Same for a wood hot-tub, at what point are you just a big pot of stew waiting to happen. Ahh yes, succulent M was braised over two days before being placed on top of a bed of truffle infused risotto. C'est manifique!
radiators/ towel heater - There is just nothing better than getting out of a shower in winter and grabbing a hot towel. I LOVE the radiators in our house now, especially the majorly oversized one in the bathroom. Cold towels are for suckers.
More "other" features:
green wall - saw this in a french condo in Dwell and it looks pretty spectacular, and it would definately introduce some much needed humidity into the house. It could also be used for summer shading if we put a trellis up a south facing window and grew vines.
green roof - although we'll have to see how that would work with solar, not sure if you can sucessfully combine the two
roof issues - hhhmmm, not at all sure what this means now, perhaps how to do a green roof or flat roof in probably a pretty snowy area perhaps. I'll have to go back and look at mynotes to see if I can decifer anything else.
wine cellar - this will probably be a necessity since we'll be moving so far away from Applejacks. We'll have to down once a month ans stock. So I guess it's not so much a wine cellar in the traditional sense, but more of a wine storage area.
3-4 bedrooms - we have two now, which is OK, but when people come to visit is kind of a pain because it's really an office, so furniture has to be moved, and the dogs try to sleep on the blow up bed since we've now invaded their floor space, or alternatively they feel free to lick you and make you get up early since you're on their level. And we always have to move into the spare room because I'm embarrassed to make my family sleep on the floor, so there's a lot of shuffling of things. So if we could have another bedroom or two that could function as looser space and easily turn into a guest room, with a futon couch say, I'd be happy.
separate guest house/studio/reading-writing room - I think mostly I'd just like to build something myself and this seems like a manageable project, maybe 10x10 or 12x12, simple shed roof, lots of windows perhaps salvaged, small table or dresser, futon couch. And it gives us the opportunity to perhaps take advantage of a special view on the property that can't accommodate a full building. And it might be nice for guests to have a little more privacy, in the summer especially, since I don't plan to plumb it, just maybe electricity for lighting and minor heating.
green house - this seems like a simple thing especially good for growing herbs over the winter, or maybe a cold frame, good plans in Mother Earth magasine
ability to shut off part of the house. - Heating zones so we only have to heat what we're using especially if we are going to have multiple extra bedrooms, perhaps an upper floor without plumbing for guest bedrooms that could be closed off at the stairs when not in use
study/office on the second or third floor - M seems to think that this is very important for the right writing atmosphere. I do enjoy the view from the ninth floor office much more than the second floor closet I was in before, but I can't say it helps me get more work done, despite all those studies about how much natural light improves productivity. It hasn't helped me much but I think that probably has more to do with the low workload that I currently have. Hard to be more productive when there is less and less to do. Hence you may see blog entries which seem to suspiciously appear during what should be "working" hours. But I wish to make clear for Big Brother that I will not be using company equipment to do this!
pond
xeriscaping - I guess this goes without saying, but I guess it will depend on where we are as to whether I will bother to do any gardening at all. If all that's going to happen is me feeding the deers nice tender HomeDepot plants, then I'll try to stay native and plant in containers for decks etc.
built in shelving to the ceiling with a rolling library ladder - this is pretty self explanatory
observatory with 12 ft diameter - this is a long off project which seems a bit iffy to me, but M seems to think he can do it, so what the heck. The plan is definately to have enough land to be able to do some experimental type out buildings, and this is small enough that if it didn't work out it would probably make a good garden folly, we could plant it up and distress it and make i a bird habitat.
wood burning stove in study for heat and kettle - again, M thinks this is a good thing for the writing mood, plus being a nice source of heat and tea. I personally think it makes you sleepy and not just from the carbon monoxcide.
fireplace in master bedroom - this makes more sense, sleepy is good for the bedroom, iunless it's that permanent sort of brain damage sleepy.
picture rails in all rooms - this is from our experience with our present house. It's hard to figure out where a picture will hang here. Some walls are solid masonry and need a serious masonry bit just to get through the plaster, others are lath and plaster, so seems solid but anything put into them just pulls back out, then there's the more modern gyp board assembly that may or may not hold depending on where you hit it.
dog run with access to mud room - again, experience with the dogs is that if they aremad or bored or a bit more hungry than you thought, all sorts of dishes and cups and plates end up on the floor. Sometimes miraculously nothing gets broken, but most likely not. But we are bad enough parent that they are often left at home 8-10 hours when we're at work, so I don't want to have them have to hold anything for that long or clean up the consequences. So if they could have an outdoors area with access to a room with water and a couple dog beds, less guilt, less mess, less yelling, less hiding, good news all around. Plus it would be good to have a real dog door since the open window we now employ is, I think, how the mice got in.
breakfast bar - as part of the kitchen island there should be space for people to hang out if we're actively cooking or just to hang out with a smaller group, or just how people like to hang out in the kitchen
under the stairs or cupboard bedroom with single bed, bookshelf,drawer under bed, wall light - I'm not quite sure how this might work itself into the plan or if it will, but it was really quite cute. It looks like it would be really good for a kid to stay in, small and cozy, although it might be scary to have people going up and down the stairs right over your head.
peaked windows with nook for chair or bench - this is specifically stolen from the designs for the modern plan/steel houses. It uses light nicely without adding too much square footge to the house, also adds to the range of views.
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