About a year ago we sold our house at a loss. There was extensive mold damage, and we fixed it all before we moved. We didn't sell the lemon that we bought. Our home was a 6-bedroom home that we fancied we could fix up and sell, or alternatively never outgrow as our family grows. I was very relieved when we sold it, and this last year we have been paying off our debt. I have been very happy to rent. Downsizing to a two-bedroom home has actually been invigorating and wonderful for us. The apartment that we are renting is very nice, with tall ceilings, and we love it here. The bedrooms are very large. One houses our library and my husband's office (he works from home), and the other comfortably sleeps all five of us. We got rid of a LOT of our stuff, and it is invigorating to know that our next move will be a lot easier for us.
Ah yes, our next move, which brings us to this post. I love it here, but eventually we want our children to be able to move out of our bedroom, and alas, we will outgrow this town-home community. Recently my husband and I have spent long hours discussing and dreaming of, well, our dream home. A dream home is different for everyone, and I am sure that our dream home is probably different from yours, but allow me to tell you about it anyway.
Our dream home is NOT very large- I don't want to have to clean it.
Our dream home does not have several bedrooms for our (hopefully someday) large family. Alas, growing up, my next sister and I had many arguments concerning our living space, and yet we also had bonding moments going to sleep at night that I wish I could have shared with my other sisters. My husband and I agree that in our dream home, bedrooms will primarily be for sleeping. Like the Duggar family (I adore them!), we would like to have two large bedrooms for our children, one for the boys, and one for the girls. Yes, and one for us and the baby.
Our dream home will have a large laundry room that will house all of our clothing. I think that Michelle Duggar was brilliant on this aspect and I want to do that too. One room for all of the family clothing.
Michael dreams of a large garage where he could have a wood-working shop.
Then there's little things like a child-sized toilet, a drinking fountain, an indoor treehouse for reading with a slide (why not dream big?), and a large kitchen area.
We also want an energy efficient home, one that is disaster resistant (a bomb-proof cellar would be excellent), and one that won't wear out over time. We are DONE with mold. So done. Michael got really sick whenever he spent any prolonged time in our last basement. I'm sure it wasn't good for the babies and I either.
Monolithic Domes
Our dream home is a Monolithic Dome. They are permanent, extremely energy efficient, and mold will never be a problem. If money were not an issue, we would build a 2500 square foot dome (including the garage) and live in it the rest of our lives.
Ah yes, our next move, which brings us to this post. I love it here, but eventually we want our children to be able to move out of our bedroom, and alas, we will outgrow this town-home community. Recently my husband and I have spent long hours discussing and dreaming of, well, our dream home. A dream home is different for everyone, and I am sure that our dream home is probably different from yours, but allow me to tell you about it anyway.
Our dream home is NOT very large- I don't want to have to clean it.
Our dream home does not have several bedrooms for our (hopefully someday) large family. Alas, growing up, my next sister and I had many arguments concerning our living space, and yet we also had bonding moments going to sleep at night that I wish I could have shared with my other sisters. My husband and I agree that in our dream home, bedrooms will primarily be for sleeping. Like the Duggar family (I adore them!), we would like to have two large bedrooms for our children, one for the boys, and one for the girls. Yes, and one for us and the baby.
Our dream home will have a large laundry room that will house all of our clothing. I think that Michelle Duggar was brilliant on this aspect and I want to do that too. One room for all of the family clothing.
Michael dreams of a large garage where he could have a wood-working shop.
Then there's little things like a child-sized toilet, a drinking fountain, an indoor treehouse for reading with a slide (why not dream big?), and a large kitchen area.
We also want an energy efficient home, one that is disaster resistant (a bomb-proof cellar would be excellent), and one that won't wear out over time. We are DONE with mold. So done. Michael got really sick whenever he spent any prolonged time in our last basement. I'm sure it wasn't good for the babies and I either.
Monolithic Domes
Our dream home is a Monolithic Dome. They are permanent, extremely energy efficient, and mold will never be a problem. If money were not an issue, we would build a 2500 square foot dome (including the garage) and live in it the rest of our lives.
Pretty neat, isn't it? We priced it out on their website and found that we could build our dream home for about $250,000, including the land. For half of that we could build a dome home that would fulfill our needs, but it would be tight, and would not have a garage.
My husband and I want to live a debt-free life, and more importantly, we have big goals of becoming financially independent and free. Being out of a house and renting gives us great flexibility, which we love right now, but eventually we want to be in a home and pay no rent to the bank or a landlord. Some very cheap housing alternatives have looked appealing to us. We are in the early research phase for all of these, but I thought I would still give a shout-out and let you know that these very green and dirt-cheap options exist. We could buy some land, and live in a trailer home until the home was completed, making our housing very affordable in the meantime.
Cob houses
If we build a cob house, we would let a machine do much of the work- a rototiller can mix a lot faster than your feet can.
Many cob houses are also straw-bale hybrids. Michael reminded me that in the event that mice ever got in the walls, you would never get rid of them, and no further research has been done on straw homes, even if they are excellent insulation, etc.
Earth Bag Homes
An Earth Bag Home is another option. The construction process is more appealing to me.
Rammed Earth homes
Storage Container Homes
Speaking of cheap, if you don't want to get your hands dirty, these look appealing. We would definitely do something to the exterior so that the neighbors wouldn't hate us...
If you have stuck with me this long, you deserve to some comic relief. Here are 10 homes that are NOT our dream home:
The end! Thank you for watching!
5 comments:
Tamsyn. I hope you get your dream home! The type looks absolutely interesting, it suites you :D
Good Luck!
I'm glad you got out of that mold. It's the worst!
~Nicole LeMmon
Hi Tamysn!
We miss you guys. I am excited to look at your videos. Your dream home sounds alot like ours. I would love to have the "dorm" room, one big room for each gender. We had some friends in Idaho who had one of those for their ten girls. :) I am excited to watch the process as you guys explore the options. (And maybe steal an idea or too myself. :) Love ya! Jen Palmer
Thank you Nicole, we'll need all the luck we can get. First to find a plot of land...
Hello Jen! We miss you too. In your case, the boys room would probably be bigger than the girl's room. I think it's so brilliant.
I think all these new "green" homes, created with these other than traditional materials are awesome!! I hope you can find the plot you want & can be living in your house o' dreams on the sooner side of later!
Good luck with your dream home! We recently made a tree change and are getting ready to build our almost dream home! We have bought 33 acres and have made house plans...it is so expensive to build so we are building our frame but cladding it with colorbond (like roof tin sheeting) It is saving us SO much...
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