Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!

This month we’re sharing our dream homes. And homes are something I am ALWAYS dreaming about.

I don’t have dreams of grandeur. My favorite type of home is sensible and efficient with good flow, light and air. It can be small. As long as it makes sense.

A LOT of places make no sense. Especially apartments and remodeled private homes. People don’t always know what they’re doing…and yet they do it anyway, ha ha.

I can imagine the conversations of homeowners who remodel their own homes:

Him: Hey, hun.

Her: Yeah?

Him: You know those wasted 6′ next to the boiler in the basement?

Her: Yeah.

Him: Let’s put an apartment there and charge $1500/month rent!

Her: You’re brilliant! Let’s do it!

And with that, another ridiculous apartment…or den…or guest-room is built.

Sigh. It is LAUGHABLE (and sad) what is out there these days billed as “apartments.” You know, the kind that HUMANS are supposed to live in.

The homes I’ve been most drawn to over my adult life are large Victorians with wraparound porches and gingerbread trim; neat, horizontal mid-century homes with clean lines and large expanses of glass to bring the outdoors in; quirky cottages; high-ceilinged, light-filled pre-war brownstones.

But my long-time favorite style of architecture is the sensible, cozy, and charming Craftsman style bungalow, with their deep porches, built-ins, substantial columns, exposed-end rafters and multi-paned windows.

When I’m in southern California I enjoy seeing so many examples of this type of home, built in the early 1900s and often historically preserved and restored. Pasadena is practically the Craftsman Capitol and my cousin lives right next to there, so there are a LOT.

They’re built so efficiently and have no wasted space. The deep overhangs and wide porches keep the sun and out heat, the large windows let the light in. They have tons of built-ins so there’s not a need for lots of furniture and things can be stored away in a sleek, clean fashion.

Floor to ceiling bookcases, glass-front cabinets, storage benches. 

Dining room buffets and servers and picture rails.

Fireplace library.

I was fortunate enough to live in a Craftsman bungalow for many years…in the pre-Brooklyn era.

It was a 1907, 5 bedroom (that sounds like it was big, it was not), 1 bath home with kitchen, dining room, and living room. A lovely, wide front porch. Built-in window seat in the dining room and several diamond-paned windows. It was quite charming.

I apologize for the pictures. For the past few months I’ve been trying to get ALL my pictures organized, from two computers, digital files, several external hard-drives and hard-copy photo albums. So at the moment I don’t know exactly where my HOUSE pictures are, so…

Summer. Slightly overgrown 🙂

Winter (spoiler alert). This house had the best icicles ever.

I loved having a big front porch.

I had some nice built-ins in the kitchen, bathroom, and dining room. And a nice walk-in pantry!

 

I loved the diamond-paned windows in the bedroom and dining room. You can’t see it here but there’s a built-in window seat with storage under the window. And a beamed ceiling.

I’m not saying this was my Dream Home. But it did have many elements that I love. Small, efficient, cozy, charming details, big windows, etc.

Now, looking to the future, I am obsessed with looking at office-tel apartments in Korea…and in a way, they have some characteristics in common with the Craftsman style that I love. Small, VERY efficient use of space, lots of built-ins that are practical and eliminate the need to bring much furniture with you, large windows with good light.

This one girl, Micaela, I’m OBSESSED with her Seoul apartment. The window. The view. The LIGHT. She gets The Most Beautiful end of day light…turns the whole apartment warm and cozy. And then in the evening she has the twinkling lights from the city sprawled before her.

My dream home has LIGHT and AIR and long views and city and sky and mountains.

And a bathtub.

Make sure to check out the dream homes of my friends:

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Em at Dust and Doghair