Some Other Dreamy Things - Brazilian Hardwood floors, Travertine walls, and Stacked stone, oh my!
Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming of wonderful things that could never be: I imagine fanciful scenarios that never could, nor should, exist. Though like in my nighttime dreams about houses, my daydreams about houses are mostly fun, and hopefully will exist eventually. This post will be about some of the things that I imagine for my home someday.
Probably the biggest and best thing that I could want would be a massive open area with a four sided balcony above. The airy space above would be about 20-25 feet tall and probably have some skylights with remote shades. The balcony would wrap all the way around the space and offer a generous view to the space below. The walls and columns would either be made from invisible mortar joint stacked stone. I love the look of that thin, horizontal stacked stone. It reminds me a lot of the materials that Frank Lloyd Wright used in many of his Prairie/Crafstman-style homes.
Open, soaring, uncluttered spaces really make me happy for some reason. When I walk into a room that has high ceilings and imaginitive architecture that allows for unbroken, tall spaces, I just feel different. Many restaurants have this effect in spades. I was just in an Italian place in Utah and they had tall ceilings, amber globes casting a romantic glow around the room, and these high wooden racks that wrapped around the walls just beneath the exposed beams of the ceiling. On the racks were a few knick knacks and also some half-barrels of wine made to look like they were stacked in rows above your head. In this case the atmosphere was much better than the food.
So give me wide-open spaces with exposed beams and expansive windows to open the space up even further. I’d sacrafice overall square footage just to have a feature like that…it gives you all the drama and individuality that you could want for an interior without the extra floors to vacuum or miscellaneous stuff to dust. Now throw some Brazilian hardwood floors with a dark wood stain and you’re really talkin’. I also like the idea of combining travertine tiles with that stacked horizontal stone, especially around a fireplace. There would be a nice wide stripe of stone that surrounds the fireplace and follows it all the way up to the peak of the ceiling. Then on either side would be this nice, earthen travertine. Add a couple of wrought iron sconces on the walls, a good, hefty rough-hewn beam for a mantle, and hang some fun contemporary art above it and I’d be all set!
Then I’d bring the same motif — open space, rich earthy materials, and an eye-catching fireplace — into the adjoining library. I’ve been collecting books for a long time now and I have quite a few volumes that I’m proud of and deserve to reside in their own beautiful, private library. There would be tall cherry bookshelves built in to the walls and then that travertine tile on the walls above the shelves, following them all the way to the crown molding on the twenty foot ceilings. There would also be a little reading area above, accessible by an iron spiral staircase. Nestled between the bookcases would be another ample fireplace in stacked stone. Clerestory windows would line the walls just below the ceiling, while indirect lighting, and hanging pendant lights, would illuminate the space dramatically.
Well that’s a little bit of my home daydream. They’re all a series of images and ideas in my head that I keep around to inspire me and help me to reach my goals. Everyone wants nice things of course, but part of my philosophy is that if I have to give up too much to have a home like this, then it’s not worth it. If I can live comfortably and not have an overwhelming heap of debt, then I’d want a house like this. But I wouldn’t want to stretch myself thin just to live there…and then not be able to afford to heat or cool it.
Sphere It