19 years ago we needed a house for our young family (sons were 4, 6 and 11 at the time), the market was at a low point, we were able to grab a fixer-upper, a really big house in a really good neighborhood. We’ve put in a lot of blood, sweat, tears AND money onto this house - it was the signature house for the neighborhood when it was built in 1969, we’ve raised three great sons here, the neighborhood is still great and very desirable, we’ve made lasting friendships, yes, there have been some rough times (what marriage/family doesn’t have those?), but the positives far outweigh the negative…and the best part is, early on, we made the decision to try and pay if off early, ever as money was tight, best decision we’ve ever made as we have 32 payments left (2 years and 8 months)…at which point, we’ll save for a couple of years and buy a vacation home somewhere near a beach…is this our ‘dream house’, no, still work to do, but it has been a dream to life here and raise the family…
Congrats!! We see light at the end of tunnel, you’re about to come out…I laugh about how, right now, the bank owns our living room, the front hallway and one of the front hallway closets, the rest is mine and every month, I get a little more…
My dream home is one I don’t have to work on every fucking weekend.
Will it also have a moat and drawbridge, like the house Greg Brady designed?
I live in an apartment and have thought about buying (especially when my old house was up for sale) but I don’t really mind where I am now, and not have to worry about paying for maintenance.
nope. all I need is a place which keeps me warm and dry and lets me store my stuff. I don’t need to be one of those suburban idiots who buys a 3,000 sq. ft. $400,000 McMansion because “I have kids.”
That is a beautiful house.
We did a major renovation on our previous house, and that soured us on the idea of ever building from scratch.
Our house now has defects. Low ceilings in most rooms, tiny bathrooms, and a kitchen that was apparently designed by drunken monkeys. But it also ticks a lot of boxes that I always dreamed of but never thought I’d have: wide white trim, deep windowsills, all kinds of special storage areas, big laundry room, a pantry the size of a bedroom. It’s on private acreage and has outbuildings too, which is wonderful.
I can’t imagine spending a ton of money to have a house I’d have to live up to. So this is my dream house.
I lived in Asia for 20+ years (China, HK, Taiwan and Tokyo) and my wife is Shanghaiese. We live in tiny apartments in Tokyo and HK. Our final place in Shanghai was about 1800 sq ft and by far the largest place we lived for close years. Then we moved to the Seattle area in 2010 and bought a scraper in 2011. No one was building and so we got a deal with a top notch architect and developer that were just keeping their lights on. After all that time in small places (my Tokyo apartment for 2.5 years was ~180 sf), we custom built. Just under 4000 sq feet not counting the garage. My wife wanted even bigger but I drew the line at 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, a bonus room, a bonus bonus room, guest room, a study and a 3 car garage.
The one special feature is a laundry chute from the 2nd to the 1st floor. It was our running joke with the architect. I was kinda like, fuck me, if we’re spending this much on a custom design, it has to have a laundry chute. Now it does. Great feature.
It’s wonderful but too big for the 5 of us. With the eldest moving out, property taxes that are pretty high (owing to appreciation and not because it is stupidly luxurious), and a likely divorce on the horizon, I don’t think I’ll be here next year. I’ll miss it but a happy home is much more important than the square footage.
Does it have to be a “house”? My dream home is a 2 bedroom Condo overlooking the water in Thailand. It’s the second thing I wake up and go to work for everyday. (My kids being the first).
I bought because of location – neighborhood plus walking proximity to stores. The details of the house itself were and are irrelevant, and I can’t wait until I need less house so I can move to an even better location.
I live in a dream/hell home.
In 2000 we purchased a quaint log house on 15 acres of property in the middle of nowhere. I love the setting and the land. I never tire of it.
But the house. 
It’s the highest maintenance house you can possibly buy. It’s made with square logs and six inches of chink between logs. I spend each summer, all summer working on it… chinking, repairing rot, staining, sealing, etc. It’s not fun.
Nah. I followed the advice of “buy the worst house in the best neighborhood.” Of course, this isn’t widely considered the best neighborhood but it’s the neighborhood where I grew up and I love the location. The house had a good roof and furnace so it’s been good at keeping me warm and dry, but that’s about all. I don’t necessarily love the way my house looks or works, and I don’t have money to do hardly anything to it, but I don’t really need much and it works just fine for me.
I love our home. No neighbors nearby, no traffic (private road), plenty of space, a barn, sheds, beautiful woods in every direction. Ideally I do not want to move until I’m unable to realize I’m moving.
I inherited my parents’ dream home, but my wife and I had a lot of input into its design. It is more house than the two of us need, but it sits overlooking a great lake, with our own private beach and 60 acres of woods, streams, and fields. I was born here, and my family has lived here in this area for over 165 years.
No; I gave up hope of a Dream Home ages ago. Which for my lifestyle is probably the best idea since I’m out and about much more than at home. Basically its a dry roof and storage and little more than that.
The idea of a “dream home” isn’t specifically about square footage. It has to do with whether it has all of the features you want, and/or whether you are very particular about wanting those features. These particular cabinets, those particular plumbing/lighting fixtures, that particular tile/carpet, a certain floorplan, exactly the right trees and shrubs in exactly the right place, and so on. Square footage is just one item on that list of attributes.
Had one. Many here would stick their nose up in the air and call it a McMansion. Beautiful house on a nice sized lot. Great neighborhood great neighbors. But that relationship ended and I had to start from scratch so now I’m in a crappy townhouse that I’ll probanly die in.
When I was younger my wife and I bought our ‘dream house’. Right on the Chesapeake Bay with a huge deck that you could sit out on to look out over the bay, all custom made walk in shower and whirlpool tub, hand made Italian tile floors in some rooms, distressed oak floors in others (my wife wanted all that crap), oak library, etc. And the grounds were great…almost 2 acres of trees and grass.
It was a huge pain in the ass to maintain. These days, with the kids all moved out and on their own my ‘dream house’ is only slightly larger than a tiny house (maybe 1200 square feet, 2 bedrooms) with little to no yard. As long as it’s got high speed internet and access to at least a few restaurants in the area (maybe a decent pizza and Chinese food delivery place) then I’ll be very happy.
Another thing that has contributed to our trying to make our home something more than just a place to shelter us and our stuff. Having fixed our interior and yards up the way we like, we almost feel like we are on a vacation in our home. When we go on vacation, we enjoy ourselves, but are happy to come home because we so like how it looks and functions. When we sit in our nicely landscaped back yard, we can almost forget that we are on a suburban lot, and almost feel like we are at a resort.
Works for us.
Yeah, this.
We love a lot of things about our house. Within our price range, it’s great. But if I had all the money in the world, we would live in a different place. The dream home part is that it’s in Santa Barbara.