Home sweet home...

I've always loved those mud maps of houses, floor plans. I can stare at them for hours and walk myself through that imaginary house. Something I've noticed of late in the new houses in the paper is that even in the "smaller" places the main bedroom always has an ensuite. Apparently that's the norm. So really it is little wonder I can't afford to buy a house. Our expectations of a decent home, our standards of living are so high that we expect there to be more than one bathroom. Maybe this is just the case in land-a-plently Australia?

Then there's the bigger places. The main bedroom not only has an ensuite, with spa, but walk in wardrobes and a "retreat" zone in the bedroom, so basically as well as a king size bed you can fit 2 large armchairs in their as well. This is obviously necessary as the lounge room, living room, rumpus room, media room, study, not to mention family meal, "alfresco" and seperate dining room, kitchen, laundry and double garage clearly could never provide enough space to retreat to.

I tell you one thing I envy in these mansions though, well even more than the ability to walk a mere 4 steps to pee in the night, is the walk in pantry. Oh for a walk in pantry. It would be sky blue and well lit and full of neat rows of glorious mason jars and I would know exactly where everything was... I could pass you the peppercorns (pink or black?) and toss you the tumeric (ground or whole?) without a moments hesitation (because yes the spices would absolutely be in alphabetical order - and my current spice rack may also be aphabetised... I'm okay with being that kind of person so there). The kids... well more likely the husband, could browse spirals, tubes or shells for pasta dinner... ahh joy and bliss. I digress...

Really, when I ponder my pie in  the sky dream house it's not big. I don't want seperate living areas or (puke) a media room. What I want is the outside space. Why would you fill up a block of land with all those bricks and mortar when instead you could fill it wiht a tree that's big enough to climb. A lawn to roll around on, a table for huge family meals, a totem tennis pole (because everyone LOVES totem tennis amiright?!) A garden to grow all your vegetables in, an apricot and an avocado tree, raspberry bushes, chickens and space for kids and dogs to run run run. Screw the media room, give me a water tank... and maybe a walk in pantry....

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