Live Breathe Decor

I love real estate and anyone who loves looking at houses and decorating loves a good floor plan! Even before you see the house in person you can have a complete visual of what it’s like to walk through, how the spaces might work and, most crucially, how the furniture will be arranged…

A couple of days ago I took the boys to inspect a possible country weekender house an hour or so out of Melbourne. I’d seen the pics of the house online beforehand and thought it looked perfect (if a little Victorian predictable- not quite the run-down stone chateau of my dreams). You know what sold me on it the most? It was the elevation, and the steps going up to the front porch. For some reason I can’t stand the idea of living in a house flat on the ground, I love feeling like I’m up high off it – this must be why I dream of a house on a  hillside. Anyway, the steps looked great and also the big block and established trees sold me before I’d set foot in it. Here’s the pic from the brochure:

And I’d also studied the floorplan online:

And completely planned in my head and sketched out the ground floor plan, with kids’ bedrooms upstairs and a north-facing deck:

I’d even imagined the colours and furniture for each room!

The front rooms on the left – both small and divided by back-to-back fireplaces with arched doorways on either side- would become the library and small cosy sitting room.

The former kitchen (through the doorway above and below) would become an office for two- this is in case we ever spent more than weekends here and could both work away from Melbourne. I planned to have French doors off the sitting room into the office and block off the current door to the kitchen from the hallway.

The house turned out (as the cheap ones always do!) to be in need of major work prior to extending- restumping, new roof etc. so I’m not entirely sure that it would be worth it cost-wise..but it’s a fun exercise nonetheless! And on the topic of floor plans and mental decorating, I’ve been looking at other plans and imagining living in them…

I find that I love most of all very American-style houses that you don’t see a lot in Australia – lots of internal spaces without a long central hallway, a kitchen that is fairly separate and a room of its own, lots of nooks and crannies everywhere and a big living room with a fireplace but no t.v.. I’m also drawn to plans with lots of separate rooms that open onto one another without hallways, and being able to see into the next room without being in a big open-plan space.

So my dreaming continues!

Have a great day,

Naomi x