What is Your Dream Home?

by Christine Wells

It's no secret in the lair that the Wells house is undergoing a major renovation at the moment. We have moved out while this is going on but I often drive to or past the site and feel both exhilarated and slightly nauseous at the mammoth task ahead.

I spent hours this morning choosing tapware, sinks, toilets and baths. I felt that I was quite decisive (for a Libran!) It's amazing how quickly you can make up your mind when your builder gives you a bare weekend to do it. The fun part of choosing wall colours and tiles is yet to come and I daresay I'll spend a lot more time on those things because that's what interests me more than plumbing.

But it got me to thinking about dream homes and in particular, fictional homes.

I grew up on a diet of European fairytales and traditional English books like The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, so the homes I imagined for myself were usually situated at the edge of a wood, surrounded by fields of wildflowers. There'd be a great stone hearth in the living room and patchwork quilts on the beds. (That's when I wasn't imagining myself in a Hobbit house or a gingerbread cottage or Green Gables--not that I actually knew what gables were).

Of course, discovering Regency romance took me away from fairytale cottages to enormous Palladian mansions and landscaping by Capability Brown. Chinese silk wall hangings would cover my bedroom wall and of course I would have a separate chamber for my extensive designer wardrobe.

But the reality of living in subtropical Australia (not to mention one's budget!) does tend to limit options somewhat. In fact, I love my 1920s Queenslander home with its gables (yep, I know what they are now!) and big deck and polished wood floors and tongue-and-groove walls. I miss living there and it's only been a couple of months. I'm going to be terribly homesick before the work on it is finished!

But the gorgeous photos Christie posted of her finished renovation give me hope. In the meantime, I can still dream of Pemberley...

What fictional (or real) house would you love to live in? What luxury feature do you think is essential in a dream home?