1. If you could design your ideal home, what three design elements/features/functions would your home have (money is no object)?
2. What do you need to have in your home to feel, well… at home?
3. Are you living in the city/area you wish to be living in? If not, where would you be?
4. Is your happiness heavily dependent on your immediate environment?
5. Do you have an interest in decor, or just comfort in general?
6. Would you rather have new things, or old things, or both?
7. If you’re in a relationship, do you share the same aesthetic?
8. How do you feel about burgundy and dark green (someone out there is smirking right now)?

For the first time this weekend, I thought about what it would take for me to own a home.

Now, granted, I’ve thought about owning a home before. What kind I’d like, where I’d want it to be, what I’d want, and what I’d need, etc.

All the details, really, except how to actually make it possible. Which seems absurd, given my age, but that’s been the trajectory. Want, want, want… but accept what’s not possible for now.

Until today.

Catherine and I were on our way to do produce shopping and errands, and we passed a house on the way that she’d always loved. A place she’d always wanted to check out on the inside, because it looked so good from the outside. And lo, there was a sign on the lawn.

Can you believe the luck? It was an open house!

So we wandered the halls and rooms with wide eyes, passing families and wealthy investor types, seeing details we loved (clawfoot tub, hardwood floors, multiple fireplaces, big windows) and a few we found off-putting (hello, red and green cupboards? No closets downstairs? A sink there? Really?)

It was like crack to the vein for someone who watches as much HGTV as I do.

And it certainly wasn’t my first open house, either. I’ve walked those spaces with friends who were planning to buy, friends who were dreaming of buying, and friends just like me who were curious — but certainly not in a position to consider real estate.

I think that’s how my life is going to look for a while, considering the fact that I live in one of the most expensive — if not the most expensive — housing markets in Canada. Everyone is dreaming, but few can make the leap.

It probably won’t be like that forever, though. I think. Heck, I might not be here forever. Who knows what the future holds?

So as someone who knows what kinds of sheets she prefers, as someone who likes fresh flowers present as often as possible, as someone who usually buys the same brand of candles because they smell the most natural, as someone who refuses to buy furniture unless it’s exactly what she’s been dreaming of, as someone who loves that thing to be old and that thing to be new, as someone who tsk tsks at certain colour choices, as someone who is slowly growing into a giant hornet’s nest of ideals…

… well, I think maybe I should start working towards a place of my own to put all that stuff. Realistically. With a plan, perhaps?

I’ve been a design freak forever, but I’ve never really wanted to lay down a blueprint for something of my very own. That’s okay for 32, right? That’s not too late?

Then again, a friend of ours just bought his first house, and I think he’s barely 25.

Gah.

I need to get off my ass.

In the meantime, if you happen to see a house with…

• dark hardwood floors
• giant windows
• white walls
• high ceilings
• plantation shutters
• slate floors in the bathroom
• a clawfoot/platform tub
• framed mirror vanities
• a multi-head shower
• dark cabinetry in the kitchen
• an Italian tile backsplash
• fireplaces galore
• a basement
• no mice
• no pests

Can you put down a deposit for me?

Thanks.