It is no secret to anyone who knows me well that one of the things that makes a home for me is a number of choices when it comes to reading spaces. One of my frustrations in our current abode is that it is a fairly standard three bed layout with a single open living area. Ergo, if I wish to read in peace, that usually means sequestering myself in the bedroom because the TV is on in the living room... Very occasionally I will take myself out to our - admittedly - large terrace. IF the weather is being friendly - and we've had a rather uncertain summer season in Sydney this year, and IF my body is feeling up to extended time in an upright, plastic chair.
DB and I periodically go to open home inspections, more to remind ourselves that all this hard work we're doing will, eventually, mean that we can buy a house. Recently we found a house that we both fell in love with - it may have sold, I don't know. Neither of us want to find out really, because we found it way too early. Then there's the house DB fell in love with that I quite like, but I don't love it like the other one. Both of them have that ultimate feature - for me at least - which DB has looked at in both cases and remarked that he knows where he'd find me - the window seat. I have always loved window seats. It's the Anne of Green Gables in me. There are countless references in that book to her dropping onto the window seat of her gabled room, resting her arm on the window sill, and her chin on her arm, and gazing out to dream... DB's house has a fairly traditional, bench-like seat with bolsters at each end built into a big picture window flanked by built-in cupboards in the large, open informal living area. In the other house, it's the size of a small double bed, housed in a protrusion from the living space off the kitchen, with tall multi-paned casement windows on three sides with extra wide sills - once you're in there, you're really in there...
When I discovered straw-bale houses, one of the things that particularly charmed me about them - more, to be honest, than all the eco-benefits part of them - was that, by default almost, you can have window seats without even trying, in every window in the house if you like, because of the thickness of the walls, which is governed by the size of the bales of straw. Like this little corner nook:
However, here's the magnificent folly Twenty-One sent me. It is a folly, if you consider that a folly sums up creating something that is a complete indulgence. I do think I'll have to give serious consideration to creating something like this if DB and I ever build - although, I can see I'll have to be mighty persuasive, because there'd be a significant amount of space required.
Love that last one; looks like a cool fort! I've always prized little personal spaces. I was raised by a grandmother who as nearly as I could tell, felt that children were the epitome of pure evil, and was always up my nose over things that I knew nothing about, so hidden little getaway places were pearls beyond price. It's a love I've never lost. My personal space at home is good sized, long and narrow, and I've divided it with furniture into two cozy little cubicles. It's just something that's stayed with me...
ReplyDeleteHi Jack! I hear you... I was always deeply envious of my friends who had cubby houses or tree houses when I was a kid - I had neither. I had an oversized landing in the house Twenty-Seven and I lived in in Adelaide before moving back to Sydney that I had kitted out as part study, part library and part spare room in that there was a flip out sofa there as well. It had a mad little casement window tucked into the corner that looked straight into the middle of a large tree - closest I've ever got to a treehouse! I did love the space though - and it was mine!!
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