Dream Homestead

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Ok, I have been wanting to post this for a while. I don't have time to answer right now, but I thought I would let you guys start thinking. Tell us all about your dream homestead, the house, the yard, fields, buildings. Don't leave out any of the details. I will post mine later!! Have Fun!

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), November 07, 2001

Answers

OH boy , you are actually , asking me my dream homestead, IS THERE ENOUGH ROOM!!! I say that, watch it be one parargaph. My dream home will be surrounded by trees, all sorts. I want a big oak tree, and plenty of trees that shed fat leaves in the fall. I want spruce trees and pine. I'll have one tree especially for a swing. I'd like to have lots of yard, lots of land. Room to roam and explore. I'd also like a handmade two seater swing. My house will be stone or log. With a nice big porch around 3/4 of the house. The stair way to the house is at the back. Double doors. Going to the inside. The inside is very rustic and homey, lots of earthy colors. When you first walk in , its a very large entry, large closet on the right, and to your left, theres a step down into a large rounded living room, the center peice being (of course ) a fireplace, Theres a glass coffee table in the middle of the room, a couple of candles light the room , from the corners of the room. Theres also couches in the corners of the room ( the part that isn't round-its in halves). Now out of the living room, there is a large kitchen down the hall to the right (a little further than that closet) and its all plastic hahahah, ok, no its all wood, cubbords, theres a little island in the middle of the kitchen with pots and pans hanging in the air. The eating part of the kitchen ,is separated by sliding glass doors, covered in childrens paintings and fun things. The dining room is small, but is brightly lit , nice table with sixteen chairs arounnd it. At the end of the hall, the hall splits into a T, but forward is a Large stair case to a large music room. Its another circular room, with a grand piano in the middle. Theres a window on the ceiling, and "fake pillars" around the room, with little lanterns on them, and at the oposite end of the rooms, there are doors out to a belcony. I haven't decided on what the bedrooms are like. My picture of mine always changes. Lots of green and more earthy colours. A large window, huge drapes.....lots of imagination. YOU know. The back yard runs into a large area of trees, lots of play area. WE have a deck attached to the house, with picnic table and a barbecue (of course), and the stairs go down to a simple underground,thats only 6ft deep all around. Theres a little pond in the back, and a garden. Oh theres also a little class room too , lots of chalk , lots of paper, lots of pens, a nice BIG chalk BOARD. And a good corner, for bad littles girls and boys. Anyway, if i could construct my own house, i'd love it. I'll just start saving now> LOL I'll be content hopefully, in anything i have.

-- jillian (sweetunes483@yahoo.com), November 07, 2001.

For those of you who wonder about these things, Jillian lives in a house that is almost bigger than the yard it occupies. The five children who live there make regular use of the nearby parks and skating arenas (guess why). Jilly dear, I hope I get to help you fix up your dream house, if you don't live too far away! What colours do you want for the master bedroom quilt?

Now, my dream homestead has room in the barn for a flock of chickens, a rabbit hutch, 2 cows, their fattening calves, a yoke of oxen, a horse or two, and a sow with piglets. There is also space in the barn for goats and sheep if someone decides they want to raise them. There is a feed storage area with plenty of police cats around. The top level is full of hay. The barn sits into the side of a hill so that the hay can be taken in at ground level at the back of the barn, while the land in front is ground level to the bottom floor. The pigs and chickens live in the barn with their own private entrances to their own private yards.

The BIG SPACIOUS kitchen is the center of the house. You go in the house through a door off a huge porch (porch swing at each end, rockers and small tables in between for lemonade, pea-shelling, and hand-sewing in the afternoon; storytelling and cozy loving after dark). Inside, you are in the kitchen. To your left is the "parlour", the good room used for company and piano practice (the piano is also still a dream). Behind the parlour is the master bedroom with its own bathroom. As you stand at the door, you see across the room the stairs to the bedrooms above; the stairs turn halfway up. I don't know what the upstairs looks like yet, but there are at least 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. The kitchen itself looks much like the one the Waltons had, including the big cookstove. The sinks are large and deep enough for washing and rinsing large stock pots without getting water all over everywhere. The table has plenty of room for 12 people to sit down to a large dinner (all the food on the table); four more could squeezed around without too much trouble. There is also an old, comfy couch against the back wall, under the stairs. To the right of the kitchen there is a hallway. First door on the right is the pantry with a trapdoor down to the root cellar. Opposite, on the left, is my very own sewing room!!! The ironing board never has to be taken down, and the sewing machine table does not collect all the junk people plunk down when they come home from anywhere. At the end of the hall is the school room; it has a door to shut so that mom does not have to think about school unless she's in that room. It also has its own wood or propane heater so that we only heat that room when we want to. On the opposite side of the school room is a door that goes out to the yard.

The yard has STURDY swings which will bear the weight of older children. There are trees with tire swings and board swings, and treehouses. There is a field which is never cultivated, for ball games. There is a LARGE sandbox with a lid to keep out the cats; I do have a pattern for making one, which I got out of Family Fun Magazine.

The land is divided up for pasture, hay, grain, orchard (with bee hives), garden, and other fruits. There is a stream running through that is dammed in the middle to form a small pond. Ducks live there, but I'm not responsible for them. There is a section of forest which is a perpetual supply of wood for fuel and for occasional lumber.

There is also a machine building for the tractor and all the farming implements. There is enough acreage that children who get married before their own homesteads are ready can pull in a trailer and still have the privacy needed to be their own family.

All this is on a dirt road off another dirt road, so the children can race on their bikes without a lot of traffic.

So that's my dream, but it's not a far-fetched one. It is very practical I think, and will meet our needs. We just have to find out where it is:) To me, the land is the key; we can fix up an older house and barn if it's on the right land.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), November 07, 2001.


Wow, what a question ... Well, my dream homestead would be a fixed up what I've got now. But, lol, there's always a but, isn't there? I'd like to be totally off-grid. Solar and wind power. Since I live in Oklahoma all of that is available here. Also, backup woodstoves just in case no sun shines for an extended period of time and the wind doesn't blow. Now, wouldn't that be awful. The house I want to build instead of the tiny farmhouse we are currently living in would be an underground thing, so we wouldn't have to worry about the tornadoes that plague our area. The main portion of the house would be as I have it now, open kitchen-livingroom area. I like being able to have everything within reasonable reach and sight. The 3 bedrooms (we only have two small ones now) would have big closets and rug covered wooden floors. My dream bathroom would appear at the end of the master bedroom, one that includes a private outside garden and a walkin rock shower. The dairy barn would be finished, with special areas for the babies, does, and bucks. Also, a proper kitchen for cheese production would be near that area. The horses would have their own barn, but will have to share with the tractor and stuff. Since I've learned about a Chicken Mote that surrounds a garden, that would be finished and full of the best laying hens in the world. And all the fences would keep in anything. lol Fat chance, huh? The orchard would be pestfree and productive and a large beehive would sit between the orchard and the large garden area. Besides a perfect garden with deep, dark soil (we have red dirt in Oklahoma that is predominate clay), we would have a greenhouse that is also off-grid. A room for hydroponics just off the side of the greenhouse would make that perfect. A root cellar would be a must, even though the house is underground. On one corner of the property would be the guesthouse/eventual parents home. Privacy is a must for everyone. On another corner of the property, a nice art studio would be gently resting under the shade of a few oak trees, with a wood-burning kiln off in an open area to the side. We want to eventually build a covered bridge at the entrance of our property, so my husband won't be so homesick for Indiana. Also, no one around these parts has something like that. Over the old oil well site, we are planning to build a tower that looks like a lighthouse. The widow's walk would be where we would do our star gazing. We have incredibly clear night skies most of the time. Oh, and I'd put switches on all the pole lights around the property, so that light doesn't interfer with the stars. Our meadows would be full of herbs in some areas and alfalfa for the animals to eat in others. We'd have that summerhouse for canning finnished and the woodfired bread oven built. To every spot mentioned, little stone pathways lined with native flowers and herbs would entice folks from one place to the next. Many resting spots for contemplation would sit along the way. All the woodland animals and birds would have enough to eat and visit the many feeders that dot the property. A completed bunkhouse and stocked supply building for those who are without would finish up this plan. It's odd, but the only thing I've mentioned besides the pestfreeness and perfect dark soil that is not already in progress in one form or another is the underground house. Some of the stuff, like off-grid energy is just in the planning stages at this point, but will be done. Instead of daydreaming about that underground house, we are fixing up what we have and finding that truly just as rewarding. A little crowded, but nice. lol We might build that dream master bathroom though. The one thing that would make my dream homestead perfect is for world peace to be an actual event in history that sticks. Absolutely anything is possible then, even a bigger dream for whatever we can dream up. Thanks Melissa, for asking this question. Iris

-- Iris (Sar_India@msn.com), November 07, 2001.

I am just going to do a brief overview, really like everyone else has said, most of this is easily obtainable, if you work hard!!!

MY house is rustic, with logs and all natural stuff in it, so it is already pretty close. I would like to add a big bright sun-room. I would also like a breezeway to connect the house to the garage (which we don't have yet!) This breezeway would have an area to butcher in, and a second kitchen, and my wringer washer inside, instead of on the porch outside.

I think the dream homestead, would have flatter ground than we have!!! A nice chicken barn, a horse barn, and an extra old building the kids could use for a club-house!! A green house, a cabin for guests, a pond and a small stream, lots of places to sit outside, and many little areas of gardens. Raised beds, a pig, and a cow (maybe!!) bee-hives, and a look-out tower (Cale's dream, not mine!!!) a nice pool, and a whirlpool hot tub (great for the muscles) wind and solar power, a fruit cellar, a basketball court, (kids dream) and little paths to roller blade on (kids again!!) A patio, and a barbecue area, and a gazebo with a big swing on it!! A nice workshop for Cale's wood-working tools, no moving them around all the time...

I don't want much, do I????? I think we can do most of this in the next 50 years or so... Ha!Ha! Oh well it is fun to dream isn't it??

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 07, 2001.


I am so blessed..I already have my dream homestead! It will be complete when the orchard is planted this year...We have 8 acres nd a very interesting home. The large livingroom and the bedroom adjacent to it used to be a log cabin built before the Civil War. The dining room and kitchen used to be a house built in the 1930s. The hallway. bathroom and two bedrooms on the other side of the house are 4 years old. The entire thing is covered with log siding. We have a 40 foot long screened in porch in the front of the house; an enormous workshop for Neil, a chicken coop we call the Taj mahal, another log- sided out building about 12X12, and our latest joy, the 16X16 country store that Neil built out of 100 year old barnboard. The inside of the house is 100% antiques because we sold them for eons up North. Moldings are all mustards and burgandies and the floors are beautiful hardwood. I have my Sweetheart wood stove in the kitchen and an Intrepid wood stove in one bricked corner of the livingroom. We are surrounded on three sides by woods. The house sits way back from the road with two lanes meeting in a semi-circle. Our neighbor to the right has a horse farm, so we get to watch them and enjoy them without mucking stalls or paying the feed bill! We had a green tin roof put on last year and it looks swell. I am in pig heaven with all the wildlife around. You can sit on the porch and watch wild turkey and deer, quail and a zillion kinds of birds. A mile away there is a beaver pond. This part of Alabama looks exactly like Maine without the snow (or the moose)....We are going to plant more apple trees as well as pear, peach and blueberry bushes..yummy!

-- lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), November 07, 2001.


I have come to realize I am not hard to please. I would love a little log cabin in the middle of trees, where my nearest neighbor can't be seen or heard. I want a large kitchen and dining area and a huge fireplace in the livingroom.I want every animal god created!!A huge, huge, huge barn and chicken coop. A great garden area and lots of fruit and nut trees.I have decided I could live or make liveable any thing paid for now!!!!

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), November 08, 2001.

LOL! My dream home is this one that we live in only some changes. First, I'd like it remodeled and decorating like we would if we had the time. Then, I'd like someone to come in and clean it for me once or twice a week!

-- Ardie from WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), November 08, 2001.

I have to go with those that I would be happy with something that is completely paid for. That said, I would want a huge kitchen, with a gas oven and cooktop and a woodstove for winter. It is too hot in the summer to even contemplate wood cooking. I don't care about a microwave or dishwasher, but I would want to keep my trash compacter. With three boys, it is wonderful!!

I would also want a large living space that is open to the kitchen. A study or small office off of that would be nice for privacy. A soapstone stove would be a must for winter and windows that are not painted shut from over 100 years of painting would be nice too!

I would life a beautiful garden with one of Ernest's chicken moats around it and a beautiful chicken coop that I saw in a magazine once and probably cost a fortune to build!!! Also, I would love a couple goats for milk, and an orchard with a variety of apples, pears and peaches. Also, some blueberry bushes.

Last, but most important on a homestead, a HUGE mudroom with a boot shower. Plenty of cubbies and shoe racks for all the boots and shoes. This is probably right up there in importance with the kitchen.

I would love it to be make out of rock, kind of like the Pennsylvania Amish houses. Nice rock barns too, with tin roof. I love tin roofs!!

-- Ivy in NW AR (balch84@cox-internet.com), November 08, 2001.


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