I'd like to hear water from the porch. I can change my mind about plenty of things in a house, but that one keeps finding its way back into the plans.
Somewhere beyond it there'd be a meadow, with forest along the edge and room for an orchard. I've been imagining this place for years. I haven't bought the land yet. Money and timing have kept other things ahead of it, and choosing where we'd live is something I'd want us to do together anyway.
In my head, the road comes through the trees. Most of them stay where they are. We'd make trails, leaving enough woods for the children to disappear into for a while and come home with things to tell us. I had that kind of room growing up. I'd like them to have it too.
The water might be a creek or a spring. I'd consider a pond, though it's running water I keep coming back to. I like hearing something outside when the house is quiet. I've never felt lonely in a home with that sound nearby, which probably explains why I'm more interested in it than in how many acres we could get.
Then there's the house. Craftsman proportions, deep eaves, tapered columns, and joinery someone took time over. I'd like some Tudor detail in the gables too, even if that makes the architecture difficult to name. We can explain it to visitors if they ask. Mostly I expect they'll be looking for somewhere to sit.
The porch would wrap around, giving us a choice of sun or shelter as the weather changes. Inside, hardwood and stone, and more than one fireplace if we can manage it. I want the place to feel good under a bare foot or a hand on the railing, as well as from the end of the drive.
I'd enjoy making the modern parts work quietly behind all of that. The rooms could stay comfortable without anybody having to find an app, and guests wouldn't need instructions to turn on a light. There'd be plenty of technology in the house. Very little of it needs to blink at us.
The kitchen matters more to me than most of the rooms. Two people should be able to cook without one having to retreat every time the other opens a cupboard. Somewhere close by, a long table with more places than we usually need. We'd also want a room with a door that shuts when someone needs to think, and a mudroom where coming home muddy doesn't immediately become a problem.
That's the version I can describe easily. Getting there will take longer. We'd buy the land, find somewhere to live while we worked, and build as much of it ourselves as we reasonably could. The first few years may include concrete floors we meant to cover months ago and a bathroom I'd feel obliged to explain before showing a guest where it is.
I still want to do it. We can decide together which unfinished things we can live with and which ones are making us miserable. Something will probably cost more than we expected. We might discover a wet corner after spring rain or wish we'd turned the house a little farther toward the light. I'd like us to be able to admit a mistake without spending the next ten years establishing whose suggestion it was.
I'd put apples and pears in the orchard, with berries along a fence where we could eat them as we walked past. Some stone fruit too, once we knew what suited the place. We'd have plenty to learn, and a late frost could disappoint us regardless of how much we'd read.
Nearly everything I've built so far has been software. I'm curious about tending something I could walk out and visit twenty years later. The trees would need care, and we'd have to wait for them. I'd enjoy getting to know the place over that much time, finding out what grows well and which plans we should quietly abandon.
I've got a fairly detailed picture for someone who hasn't found the ground yet. She'll have her own, and the property may give us something neither of us thought to look for. When we find somewhere promising, I'd like to walk it with her before deciding where anything goes. We can see how far the sound of the water carries.
