You win a contest to build your dream home.
Draft the plans.
My dream
home….right now, it’s right here where I am sitting. You see, having to give up my home for a BQ
(Bachelor’s Quarters) on Kwajalein for 3 years through my children’s preschool
and early school age years was enough to make me appreciate any home where
there’s room for my family, and they are allowed to come and go from there
freely and without penalty. In the BQ, no one under 21 was allowed, so my
children never even saw where I lived for those 3 years, except in pictures I
took and showed to them.
I’ve been
lucky enough to also live in some really beautiful, large homes. From the time
I was a baby until around 12 years, I lived in a 4,000 sq. ft home with a
large, flat, grassy backyard and plenty of space to roam. I loved that home,
but not because it was large with lots of luxury spaces. After my parent’s divorce, my mom and I lived
in a home on a hill with a wooded backyard and barely enough room for my
trampoline. It had wooden decking around 3 sides, colorful stained glass
windows, and a unique floor plan. We were “wowed” by it, but its beauty belied
its stability. When my mom discovered that she would need to replace the entire
deck because it was built with cheap, untreated wood and was going to fall in
soon, she fixed it, then put in on the market.
The next house was perfect for the two of us in a neighborhood not far
from my school, church, and friends with an open floor plan and just enough
space to spare for our shrinking household.
I have good memories of this home and my time with my mom there
developing our friendship. In college, I
had the experience of sharing a small dorm room with a roommate I had never
met, then living in a sorority house dorm room with a sorority sister, and
finally moving into a one bedroom apartment until moving out to Kwajalein.
On
Kwajalein, the majority of the homes were built in the 1960’s out of painted,
concrete blocks. I lived in three of
these houses (a two bedroom, three bedroom, and then back to a two bedroom)
after moving out of the “silver city” trailers I lived in for my first year on
island while we waited for a “concrete” hose to become available. These homes were very minimal with a galley
style kitchen (just one long hallway), not much storage space, and plenty of
issues due to their age. You really
can’t complain because when you do have issues, you just call it in, and they
come and fix it (or put a band aid on it) for free, but still, they are
certainly not what most would consider a “dream home.” They provide for the basic needs of any
family, and that’s it, but people don’t move there for the homes anyway.
Upon leaving
the islands, the idea of purchasing a home was a bit overwhelming. We did lots
of looking online for the first 4 months or so, and then when the time on our
apartment lease started to run short, we finally looked at and began the
process for purchasing our home over a single weekend. Personally, I still walk around sometimes and
think, “I can’t believe this is our home….We own it…not the government, but
us. It’s ours, and we can make changes,
add to it, etc…without having to get any special permissions or permits). That’s
not to say we’ve never said things like, “Next time, we need to get a bigger
yard and more land,” or “I don’t prefer the tile in the kitchen or the layout
of it.” It’s not perfectly fit to our specifications, but I personally like the
idea of moving into a home that’s not your “dream home” and making it that
while you are there. My husband is a willing and very able handyman and has
already made several awesome improvements to the house, which only makes me
enjoy it more.
Bottom line,
I feel so lucky to have this home in a safe, friendly neighborhood with room
for not only my children, but also their friends and our friends and family to
come stay with us whenever they want. I feel very spoiled, especially after
Kwaj and my BQ experience. After all,
home is where the heart is, so my dream home is wherever my heart resides, no
special plans needed. J
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