The Elusive Home

My husband and I have found that the house we're in just doesn't fit.

We've always known it would need some updating, but honestly, there's only so much you can do before it just makes sense to start over. I'm not going to pick apart this house in detail, it's been good to us. We've had three children come home with us since we've lived here, many good times. And let us not forget that a home's basic function is to shelter a family - which it's done quite well. But the rooms are too small and too chopped up, the flow of spaces is very poorly designed, it can't handle more than a few guests before the house in congested. With the increased focus on kitchens as the center of a home, ours falls far short of a gathering space. Additionally, houses built almost a hundred years ago seem to be very short of functional, practical space. People didn't have all that Stuff then as we do now. And while we try to live fairly simply, we still have a computer, a tv and dvd, an easel and a toy collection, and enough battery chargers to power a small country. None of these things has a real place in a home built in 1948.

Ranch living makes a house even harder to live in - at least a fairly conventional, old-fashioned one. There are vet supplies, muddy boots, wet chaps and hats, cow poop coveralls, cow dogs, sheep dogs, sick lambs, dairy supplies, feed bills, electric fencing, boot dryers, milk replacer and dog food bags, brand irons and a plethora of other odds and ends that are never clean and rarely easy to tuck into a cubby from Ikea.

And to top it all off, our house is in the wrong place. We have two ranches, one belonging to my father's family and one belonging to my husband's family. We're on my family's ranch right now, but after much deliberation and with as much regret, we feel it would be best for a number of big reasons for our immediate little family was to relocate up to other ranch. There's so much going for the location here - close to family, to town, to the river - we have a whole little community right here at the end of a dirt road. But there are other things we need to consider if we're going to fulfill our ultimate goals for our children. Sad, but true, and now it's time to look forward and plan.

People who live in town, with curb to curb pavement, a single perfectly groomed pet dog (maybe two, or perhaps an equally beautiful cat) and recycling pick up at their door cannot begin to understand the needs of an active, ranching/rural family. The DIRT a cow dog can bring in on any given day is unbelievable. Add a working day, with cowboys and kids and mud and poop and horses, and it's practically time to bring in the shovels! The most important feature in our new house, at least to my mind, is functionality. It must be durable, practical and well laid out. It has to work as hard as I do to keep it fairly clean, fairly organized, and fairly pretty.

And one more thing. I am a stay at home mom by choice. We've made a lot of sacrifices because it is something we feel is important for our family. So I'm home all day. We've also decided to homeschool our children indefinitely. This means our children are home all day. Finally, my husband, the main rancher of the family, also uses our home as home base. Office space, vet room, coffee room, lunch room - it all happens in our home - at this point, in the kitchen. So, depending on the time of year, he may be home all day as well. All of us. All day. Making messes. Making noise. Napping, playing, working, living.

As you can see, our new house needs to be fantastic.