Well, it’s happening again… just dreaming about building my own little place, with my own ideas for simplicity and easy living. I see folks with their little tiny homes and then gypsy wagons and RVs and mobile homes… haha… it’s hard not to start picking bits and pieces from it all the various ideas and make your own dreams to start to come together.

I saw these pictures and thought, wow.. love the built in bed idea.  I think I might rather have the bed built in the long side, not the short side, because I can’t imagine crawling into bed when I’m 60 or 70.  But I love the idea of an enclosed bed area though.  With the curtain, as a sort of canopy, you don’t have to have a real bedroom and you still have a bit of privacy if you wish.   I had a canopy when I was a young woman, and there is something wonderful about closing up in the tent-like comfy zone to read, take a nap or just lay and listen to a rain.  I think a little bed enclosure with a little window and bookshelves instead of a headboard would be a little hideaway I could dig.

I also like the idea of storage under the bed.  I’d like to take it a little further and make some very low flat platforms on wheels so you can pull it easily in and out from under the bed.

I think it would be easy and a great use of space to make the bathroom totally tiled, head to toe.  And a drain in the middle of the floor.  You can have a simple little ship cabin style stainless sink in a corner for basic day to day needs, and I love the idea of a composting toliet.  Add a shower head in the corner and you can shower in the whole room, and keep it easy to clean!  If you designed the toliet right, it would be a great seat for showering, if you needed that as you grew older.

I love this show of a very simple little frig, and a cooktop/sink/counter combo.  I just don’t see why you need 4 or 6 burners much anymore.  Aside from a holiday or two, I don’t ever use more than 2 burners at a time.  And you can always adjust your cooking plans if you need more stuff done.

I really would love to ditch  my big refrigerator.  I’m quite sure it’s one of the largest energy drains in my home.  And for the most part, we keep too much stuff in it and so much spoils before we really use it.  I think it’s a case of just forgetting what is in there.   And I’ve been reading a lot about how so many things don’t need that constant refrigeration.  Obviously your fruits and veggies really don’t need constant refrigeration.  They need a cool dark place, and you can always build a little veggie box that would work great.  And just don’t buy so much at a time.  I love going to my local fruit and veggie store.   I think it would be cool to be able to go twice a week and just get smaller amounts.  It would be fresher and you would save a TON of energy and space, etc.  And you could maybe get some exercise if you walked there, or biked??? Hmmmm….

Another great idea that I’ve seen is to add lockable wheels to tables and large furniture pieces.  A couple clicks and you can easily rearrange your space to whatever you need.  Super easy to clean under larger pieces, and with clever window-dressing, you can hide the mechanics so no one needs to know or see.  I also like the idea of staggering the heights of things like desks and tables so that they nestle together when needed.  Even ottomans and side tables, you can tuck them out of the way when you don’t need them and make your small space easily more spacious.

It will be a while before I can build my little dream home.  That’s fine.  The time that I spend daydreaming and collecting ideas is priceless.   When the time is right, I’ll be ready.

I absolutely adore these simple shelves with all the glass jars open and ready with their beautiful colors and textures.  Easy to clean, easy to use in your cooking and baking.  This is definitely something I will incorporate into my little dream home.

I started a binder a year or so ago, and I call it my dream and goals binder.  I seperated it into several different categories, like home, garden, family, goals, business and fun.  And I added to each section a bunch of plastic sheet protectors.  I also took the time to make some goal pages for each section.   I added pictures and saying, quotes, goals, idea, whatever made sense for that section.  And I add stuff that I find and I like.  Maybe a recepie or a clipping of some plant or floor layout I like.  Sometimes I add a lot to the binder, sometimes not.  But I like to go and look at it often, to keep my goals and ideas fixed in my head and current.  It’s like a winnowing down area for me, so I’m not all willy nilly about how I really want to live and enjoy the rest of my life.

My birthday is coming up in this month, yeah, towards the end.  And I will be 47 years old.  Hmmmm….  Almost 50.  If I am blessed I will see another 30-40 or maybe even 50 years!  One thing that I am giving myself this birthday is the freedom to live as I want.  Not as others want me to.  If I want to buy an old class C Van RV and take all the insides out and make it custom to my tastes?  I’m gonna do it.  If I want to take a nap in the afternoon and work later in the evening?  I’m going to do it.  And I’m going to stop doing things just because I think I HAVE to.  Life is way too short.  It’s time to start enjoying things and live simply and deliberately.  It’s time..