Sometimes. as I open my eyes in the morning, I’m not sure where I am. That’s how often we are back and forth between the farm and our suburban home. My sleepy mind can’t always keep up. If my toes land on hardwood, I know that I’ll need my warm bathrobe so I can go feed the chickens.

We can’t maintain a double life forever. The care and upkeep of two places is daunting. But the farmhouse misses a few critical amenities that we are hoping to add. We do not have a garage, which in Wisconsin is hard. Also, closets. The farmhouse has two, and they are located upstairs in the master bedroom. (Photo above.)

I’d also like a pantry, laundry, bedrooms for guests, and eventually a master bedroom on the first floor.

A sleeping porch would be fab. Bookshelves. And a space for a proper enclosed outdoor shower. (I live with prudes.)

So now we have begun the process of remodeling the cozy farmhouse into a place where we can spend the rest of our lives. We’ve hired an architect who has a serious farm crush on Laurentide. He has delivered his first set of drawings and we are thrilled.

At the same time, I very much want to be attentive to the history of the house. I don’t want to suburbanize the place. We’ve learned to live a simple existence with less stuff. (No TV!) So now begins the careful weighing of necessities against niceties.

Tell me, what would you insist on in a forever home? What are the luxuries present in your living situation that you have been lucky enough to enjoy and that you would miss if they disappeared?

The Smaller House by Mark Irwin

While building the larger house, he lived a very simple life

in the smaller house he’d built before, the house without

water or power, the 12 x 20 foot house with three windows,

a single bed, a chair, the house whose thousand books lined

the walls, including some he’d written in the house, written

by window light or the Coleman lantern he’d charge

each day at the hot-springs pool where he swam

every morning, and now that he lived in the larger house

with ever convenience, he missed living in the smaller

house with none, where sometimes he’d lean against a window

at dusk just to finish a line, and where once, in the dark, he wrote

in pencil a dream on the wall, then went back to sleep.