My Ideal Home

Now that my home is in the chaotic disarray of moving, purging, and all the while entertaining a toddler, I am coping by envisioning by ideal home once I arrive on the other end of this move. (I am not going to get my ideal right away, as we are saying temporarily with relatives until we find jobs.) But you have to envision it if you are going to manifest it, right?

After that, we are finding a temporary landing space for a year or so- until our friends come out to join us (We are moving in together). So I am going to be doing a modified homestead the first year- container garden and maybe a portable chicken coop/tractor if I get the OK from the landlord. That way, we can move the plants and the birds with us when we move into a larger intentional household with our friends.

So what does a Witch mom yearn for in a home? Both homes (the temporary one and the permanent one) have some similar elements:

My special girls- Tengu and Tallulah

The basics: Hardwood floors (They are the best with small children and parrots! Plus, I hate carpets.), gas stove (I am a cook and electric just doesn't cut it!), and a fenced-in yard for Rowan to play in. I need a small set-aside space for the parrot cage (when you have the right-sized cage for two parrots, it is quite large- 3 feet by two feet being about six feet high). Right now, my parrots are in a dining area, off of the kitchen. I prefer to have my birds not be isolated in a room just for them. That way, they get to be part of everyday life in the home. They get more interaction, more stimulation, come out for meals, and get to sample cooking from the safety of their cage while that is happening.

Rowan's needs: I really want a playspace for Rowan that contains his toddler exuberance/mess apart from the living space (right now his play area is our living room and it is not optimal)- perhaps an eating nook or a dining room would do.

An outdoor space for ritual would be nice too!

Witchy needs: We also want an additional bedroom for our temple. Here in Oakland, we have two bedrooms- a bedroom and a temple. I want this to continue in all future incarnations of our home. Right now, the temple is set up permanently for ritual, and I would like to adjust that a bit. Being who I am, I enjoy making sacred art and craft. I make my own ritual tools, talismans, oils, and the like. I would like an area for work like that in part of the temple- so that I can do this work comfortably in sacred space, dedicated to the gods. It would have to be very self-contained- so that mess was minimal and supplies were out of sight when we were using the room for ritual or meditation. The ideal? A Murphy-bed style craft table with built in storage for materials, so everything is out of the way when we are circling.

Living in Community/Urban Homestead needs: Once our friends move to Columbus to join us and we are looking for the permanent landing place, we have been talking about getting a side-by-side duplex (which are common in Columbus) and knocking down the inside walls on the bottom floor. We would create a massive kitchen (complete with walk-in pantry, chest freezer, and washer/dryer on the main floor) for all that canning, mead-making, beer brewing, and fermenting we will be doing!

DIY beehive!

Duplexes have identical mirrored floor plans. Instead of two dining rooms, one would be a dining room and the other could be a kids playroom. Between two well-loved toddlers, there are just too many toys not to have their own space (and our friends plan on having other kids)! And having the playroom on the ground floor/main living space is great.

We would make sure that there was a bathroom with shower on the ground floor (in addition to the ones upstairs on each side of the house) and create two living spaces downstairs- one with a TV, one without. I feel pretty strongly that I do not want the family culture and downtime to be all about television. (We personally do not have one, it is our friends bringing a TV into the equasion.) So creating a place to play games, enjoy a fire, tell stories, and such is important to me.

Esme and Rowan share a swinging time!

We are thinking of moving Rowan and Esme into a shared bedroom, at least for a while. They love one another, and sharing a space may make the transition to "my own room" and "big person bed" a little easier on both of them. I can just imagine the giggles and fun they will have after it is supposed to be "lights out" -like a slumber party all the time! I really have been spending a lot of time in the blogosphere looking at kids play and sleep spaces. I want to do a bunch of DIY and make the space so amazing for them. Murals, reading nooks, beds under tents, play areas- so much I want to incorporate!


Homes in the midwest have basements (yay!), and ours would serve as a root cellar, medicine making workshop (I am an herbalist), and DIY workshop for all the ongoing projects.


The permanent space would also have at least an acre plot, so that we can have the homestead, outdoor play area for kids, an adult outdoor cooking and dining area, and a dog run. Personally, I would love for our deck to have a large aviary element to it (with the table and chairs inside the aviary) so that my parrots can enjoy the outdoors with us when we are there.

I really would like an "outdoor room" as well- one where we have a brick oven (when the weather is hot), an outdoor eating space, and outdoor movie space. I found these plans online to build a big movie screen using PVC pipe, zipties, blackout cloth, and cement in buckets for the feet. I plan on hooking up a laptop to a projector, making popcorn, and having family movie night in the great outdoors in the summer.

My handiwork, making a DIY worm bin!

I realize that in order to afford this (even in relatively low-cost Columbus), I will need to get a diamond in the rough and do much of the work myself. Can I say- YAY? I love DIY. While I do not have experience in home rehab (most of my DIY has been furniture rehab and crafting), I am a fast learner, a hard worker, and am willing to do the work to serve my vision. DIY does not have to be expensive, either. Reclaimed materials are often free or cheap. I know several friends that built a brick oven for the cost of a bag of cement. Often free craigslist furniture can be repurposed for other things. Today I saw two identical cabinets that would make a killer desk or crafting station if I added a tabletop. The cost? $25 for the pair, plus whatever surface I found for the top.