Houseworks: Want to improve your space? Dream on

The least expensive step in any remodeling project is the planning.

Or dreaming as the case may be.

I have, for example, been planning my dream house for about 20 years.

It will be in the hills north of Santa Fe, N.M., and it will be a two-story adobe with maid's quarters upstairs (I'll be well-heeled, I hasten to add), a sunken living room, a dining room atrium, a TV/game room, a book-lined balcony and a large bricked front courtyard with a fountain surrounded by a low adobe wall.

It changes all the time.

Sometimes the front feature is a gnarly old pinon tree, and sometimes the low wall is brick to match the courtyard.

Sometimes there's a wine cellar under the kitchen.

I have gone as far as to plan the bannister, which will be made of peeled poles. I know exactly how they'll be attached although I'll have to find a blacksmith to make the brackets I've dreamed up, because I don't work in iron.

Oh, they'll be a big woodworking shop behind the garage and a kennel behind that. Maybe a vegetable garden, although I don't know exactly what you can grow in northern New Mexico besides peppers.

I don't like peppers.

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Houseworks: Want to improve your space? Dream on