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Leta
Lovin' The Homestead
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My dad has been a professional home builder for my entire life. One thing that I have learned is that space is secondary to design. There is so much wasted space in many (most?) big homes.
The other thing I've learned is that no matter how much you want a 4000 square foot house, NOBODY wants to heat it or clean it. The question is do you want a big house enough to deal with the headache of heating it and cleaning it.
I would like to buy a little one of these for our eldest- my stepson- to live in when he starts college in five years. (Room and board is $1000/mo, so a wee house would pay for itself awfully damned quick, and he'd have someplace to live during the summer.)
Really, a dual loft park model would fit the other four of us just fine, with a couple caveats:
-I'd want a summer kitchen under a pavillion or in a porch
-I'd want a big root cellar to function as a pantry
-I'd want a separate laundry/closet facility that included a shower. DH and I have talked about doing this and building/buying a large garden shed and outfitting it with a washer and dryer, a laundry sink and a composting toilet. We'd have to plumb it ourselves so that we could have some type of trap to easily drain pipes so that nothing froze since we wouldn't want to heat it constantly. It would be a family closet, too, with a bunch of garment racks and those plastic drawers, and a freestanding enclosed closet for dressy stuff. We could keep our shoes out there, and extra linens. If we were smart about it, we could also have lots of lines, to air dry things even in the winter, and just get by with one of those tiny 100v electric dryers. Since all the plumbing (including a sink) would be right there, adding a shower stall would be very easy. Then we could get away with one small closet in the house proper- just go out once a week and get your outfits ready to go.
While I'm dreaming, I also want an outdoor wood fired hot tub.
The other thing I've learned is that no matter how much you want a 4000 square foot house, NOBODY wants to heat it or clean it. The question is do you want a big house enough to deal with the headache of heating it and cleaning it.
I would like to buy a little one of these for our eldest- my stepson- to live in when he starts college in five years. (Room and board is $1000/mo, so a wee house would pay for itself awfully damned quick, and he'd have someplace to live during the summer.)
Really, a dual loft park model would fit the other four of us just fine, with a couple caveats:
-I'd want a summer kitchen under a pavillion or in a porch
-I'd want a big root cellar to function as a pantry
-I'd want a separate laundry/closet facility that included a shower. DH and I have talked about doing this and building/buying a large garden shed and outfitting it with a washer and dryer, a laundry sink and a composting toilet. We'd have to plumb it ourselves so that we could have some type of trap to easily drain pipes so that nothing froze since we wouldn't want to heat it constantly. It would be a family closet, too, with a bunch of garment racks and those plastic drawers, and a freestanding enclosed closet for dressy stuff. We could keep our shoes out there, and extra linens. If we were smart about it, we could also have lots of lines, to air dry things even in the winter, and just get by with one of those tiny 100v electric dryers. Since all the plumbing (including a sink) would be right there, adding a shower stall would be very easy. Then we could get away with one small closet in the house proper- just go out once a week and get your outfits ready to go.
While I'm dreaming, I also want an outdoor wood fired hot tub.