Designing my 5 year olds dream home.
In our line of work we spend a lot of our day – listening to what people are looking for in a home. Discussing where they want to live, their budget, how much space they want, and what they need in a home. If you are really lucky and have taken the time you get into the meat of it… What they love to do in their space, what they want their space to feel and look like, and how they want to feel when they are in it.
Getting to design a home yourself, or with a designer is something we often don’t consider within our reach or ability. It is both exciting, nerve wracking and empowering to offer families that experience here at Kent Homes. Homeowners often know bedrooms, bathrooms, location, budget, the basics… when pushed further they know items like if they want a garage, size of kitchen, orientation of spaces maybe, but it’s still a rare person who approaches home building saying “I want a home designed for the way I want to live, what I enjoy doing, how I enjoy doing it and made just for me.”
I got thinking about this a lot when my five year old, at that stage of interest in knowing what Mommy works at daily, asked me to help her design her home. I told her no problem, I’d schedule an appointment for her when we both had some time because designing a home is not something you want to rush.
A few evenings later we curled up in a cozy spot with tea, pencils, graph paper, white paper and an IPAD. We started by talking a little about why she wanted a home, “To have a space to myself where I can still be close to mommy and daddy” When asked if she felt this might be too soon for her own home, she replied “No, because my sister (18) is designing her house” and sparing an argument, (It’s important to never crush the dreaming process too early in the design phase) we moved into asking her what would be the best way for her to share her ideas about a home.
Would she like to show me pictures (IPAD), talk out her ideas (LIST), show me her feelings about it (DRAWING), or get down to the nuts and bolts with drawing a space (GRAPH PAPER). She told me she had a lot of ideas, so we decided that maybe listing them would be a good place to start so she didn’t lose the flow of her ideas.
When it comes to listing ideas the straight list certainly gets them all in one place – but when it comes to listing for a home design there are some really fun exercise you can do to start understanding your needs and desires. We’ll discuss that further in a separate post, but with my daughter we choose this method to help group thoughts as they arrived.
She wanted space for seven people in her home. Why seven? Herself, her three kids, and all of her kids would have friends visit so they all needed bunk beds….but only her room “the grown up room” needed to be a separate bedroom, the kids could have a bunk room (good choice given she may be paying for his room for a long time before all three of her children arrive!)
She wanted two bathrooms in her house – one for her, one for the kids, but both of them needed to be able to do tubs and showers – just like my bathroom, not just showers because she liked having choices.
She told me she would be doing her cooking, eating and living all together, because it would save space and she would like to spend time with her kids.
She needed an office, just private for herself, and a space to do her crafts with her family, which can take up a lot of space so we left that in an uncertain category if she truly needed a separate room or if she could accomplish this with smart storage in her dining room to stretch that space into an occasional craft room.
When we got to her “grown up” room she had really clear ideas.
It went something like this “I like to bounce on my bed A LOT, I am not like you grown-ups who do no bouncing – so I need my bed to be low to the ground, but then very high overtop so I don’t hit my head, I can’t bounce in your room cause I hit the fan.”
She continued…” Then I need there to be a cover that comes over the bed when I am not bouncing, cause I like to sleep in a cave.”
“Then I want you to make sure there are NO corners in my room, at all, I want you to cut all the corners off so there are no hard places to hurt myself when I bounce”
“… and room for a dog, so I can snuggle him if I feel lonely”
And here is where I got blown away. When you meet a new family designing their home you are lucky if you get to this point in the conversation within an hour. When we are 5 years old, we are able to tap into what we love – pretty fast. It is exactly what you are looking for when someone talks to you about design, you want to understand. What they love. What they hate. What they want to do and how they dream about being in and using their space. It can be hard to get into that zone as grown ups. However, the best way for us to custom design a space you’re going to LOVE is knowing what you love and then mixing it up with a little reality (I’m still not sure I can remove all the possible injury locations from the ‘bouncing room’)
When you are small – you can dream easily and find opportunities to incorporate what you love into your days. As we age – we sometimes lose sight of it… and we start to “colour inside the lines”. We work within the world of what is “standard” or “available.” So, while considering reasonable items like square footage, resale value, and location, don’t loose sight of looking at HOW you live along the way. What you love in your space. So we can work together to custom design a home that really celebrates your family.
Listening to my little girl inspires me to encourage home owners. Tell us all about that room you dream of – that space you love and what you want to do with your home. Your dream builder will help you get as many of the spaces you imagine in your home while working within budget. Come in for your design session, come with the enthusiasm of a five year old – who knows exactly what she’s dreaming of and forge bravely into that great home discovery chat!