The One With The Challenge: My Dream House

These posts over the next week are going to be a bit of a challenge for me. My parents are in town, and forgive me, I can think of a lot better things to do while they are here than be on the computer. But I am going to try and keep my word and do a post everyday, I just may not go into as much detail as usual. Also I won't be by to read all of your lovely posts but I'll catch up once they leave.

I love houses. I love to look at them and tour them and fix them up. I am addicted to HGTV and shows like House Hunters where people try to find a new home. There is just something so comforting about a good house. A house that you can really made a home. And nowhere else do houses feel like homes than in movies and on TV. Those set designers make the houses their characters live in look so inviting they help add to the ambiance that you really know these people even though they aren't real.

I love a good house in a TV show or movie. I have dreamed of living in the Party of Five house, caring for my orphaned siblings while still looking cool. Full House was the quintessential San Francisco row house that I made a point of seeing when we went on a trip their last June. Meredith's house on Grey's Anatomy holds all of her friends under one roof and has a fabulous layout. These houses were another character on these shows, vital to the storyline even though I never knew it. They made the characters who they are. Because nothing connects you with someone more than their sense of home.

But movie houses are my all time favorite dream homes. There are so many I love, for different reasons. If I were to want to live in Connecticut and own an orchard, I would definitely pick the house from Baby Boom. My California dream home comes from the majestic white house from Father of the Bride. If I would want to live in a more Southern locale I would have to pick Noah's restored plantation from The Notebook (Ryan Gosling included, of course) A vacation home in the Italian countryside? The ruin made wonderful in Under the Tuscan Sun. And following my dream to retire in Golly Ole England I would love to live in Graham's idyllic British mill abode from The Holiday, although Iris' little cottage is just as divine.

But those houses pale in comparison to my ultimate dream home. Or homes I should say. Because I would take these two and make them the perfect dream home for me. I really love old architecture. One of the reasons I am itching to get back to the East Coast is because I have always seen myself living in a hundred plus year home common to Massachusetts, Connecticut etc. I love the idea of having history on the outside with more modern touches on the inside. A mix of old and new. I adore wood burning fireplaces and bold mantles, wooden spired staircases and large homey kitchens with an island to gather around. So to make my dream home I would take the majority of the New York suburb home from The Family Stone and add a few touches of the farmhouse from Marley & Me.





Mold these two together, thrown them somewhere in Ohio or Pennsylvania so I can be near my family and I will live in bliss.