Okay, the stately home picture is a joke. Can you imagine cleaning all those windows?!
I know exactly what my dream home is. I know where it is, and I know what it looks like because I have already been inside it. Yes, my dream home exists and I know that it will be mine.
My dream home is in a village in Suffolk called Clare. It’s a beautiful, historic village complete with the remains of a castle keep and lots of perfect chocolate box houses some of which date back hundreds of years. It isn’t the most accessible place in the world really, its railway was closed under the Beeching Cuts and where the station once was is now a delightful cafe set in a beautiful country park. My parents used to live in the village and while they aren’t village people (you can’t take the Londoner out of them), I loved it for its peace and tranquillity. I still do. It is surrounded by farms, there is a wonderful farm shop a couple of villages away, there is a butchers, a dress shop, the obligatory village Co Op store, a perfectly old-fashioned shop that sells everything from screws to lawnmowers, and of course the great British pub – actually, it has three of those! It’s close to historic Bury St Edmunds and not far from Cambridge and you can quite easily get to Stansted airport from there, it just isn’t too easy to get into London from. Which as far as my parents were concerned made it a cultural dessert.
Clare is also on a set of ley lines that link the Norfolk coast to the Cornish coast via places such as Glastonbury, and it is a route I am determined to explore this year. I think it’s the ley lines that call me as there is a really strong pull for me to Clare because it has such a strong spiritual sense. I have often found whilst walking in the country park that the veil between me and history is gossamer thin there. It appeals to me on just so many levels.
As for the house…it’s perfect. It sits at the end of a cul-de-sac of houses built in the late 1990’s. The road sits towards the outskirts of Clare but still close enough to the village centre for it to be walkable. As it is the end house it occupies a corner plot which means the grounds it sits on are slightly bigger than the rest which, as I’m not much of a gardener is a bit of a drawback believe it or not, but the house itself more than makes up for it. The exterior of the house is relatively plain, but it’s the interior I love. It is spacious with a large hallway you enter first. I love a large hallway because whilst it might be seen as wasted space, I love the sense of being able to breathe as soon as you enter the place. Immediately opposite the front door is the staircase to the first floor. Downstairs there is a really large kitchen that can house one of my favourite things in a kitchen – an island. Don’t ask me why, I love them. There’s a separate utility room, a boot room, and space for a table and chairs for casual dining. Downstairs there is also a snug which means you can have a lovely, smaller space to relax in during the week when there’s just the family whilst keeping the large lounge nice and tidy ready for use at the weekend and/or when entertaining. And there is a lovely, large and separate dining room. I don’t like having a main dining room open plan with the kitchen – who wants a lovely dinner with friends in the middle of the kitchen that smells of cooking and where you can see all the tidying up that needs doing. Not relaxing for me, I’m afraid!
Upstairs there are 5 bedrooms. Yes, a bit excessive for us but I do again like my space. I would turn one of them into a properly fitted out dressing room because, frankly, that is something I have always wanted. To be able to walk into a room that is just mine and where all my clothes are neatly kept along with handbags, shoes, accessories, the whole nine yards. Extravagant? Undoubtedly. Something I am determined to have in my life? Absolutely. The main bedroom has a very large en-suite bathroom and I do love space. I hate feeling hemmed in anywhere, I hate to feel constrained. That is what I love so much about this house, the sense of being free. Of having space. I would have a rainfall shower in the en-suite with lots of sprays coming at me as I showered, making sure it was a really spacious (of course!) shower stall. I’m not keen on baths, so I would make the shower space as big as I could get it!
I also like things to be put away, I love storage space. And this house has the space to have it by the bucket load, so I would make sure that it was appropriately fitted out so that everything could have its place. I’ve not had that before really, and it’s something I am now craving. Perhaps because all our things are all over the place, because we are currently living in a really cluttered way that I am yearning for order and structure. Not something I usually associate with myself!
The house has a large double garage with an annexe built on top. I would turn one half of the garage into a fully fitted out gym – and yes, I am determined to use that too. And the annexe above would be turned into a games room for my son. My office would be completely elsewhere because I procrastinate a lot less when I physically go to work rather than have it all at home. I have my ideas and plans for that too.
So, that’s my dream home. Space. Organisation. Luxury. Location. Oh, and I AM having it. I absolutely am.
Louisa Simpson 