Floorplans

I don't know what it is about floor plans, but I love them. Give me book of nothing but floor plan sketches and I'll be 'unavoidably detained' for hours. Whenever I find myself under extreme stress I sit down with paper and pencil and design my own. I loose myself in the measurements and the creation of something that if it were actually built, would be beautiful but functional at the same time.
I don't remember when I fell in love with floor plans, but I know it was too late in my life to actually spend 8 years in school to make it a full-time career. Then again, if it was, and I was bound by customers, I probably would never find the solace in it that I do with it as just a hobby. So I draw and I dream of the day that I'll be able to build one of my masterpieces. Because I know, as sure as I'm breathing, that one day I will build my own home.
It's not just all new plans either. Whenever I have trouble sleeping, I pick a house that I've been in, whether I lived there or was just visiting for an hour, and I remodel it. I deconstruct it to the studs and rework any parts of the structure that I felt had problems in size or layout or functionality. Sometimes the plan was very simply boring, and I could have made it so much better.
For the most intricate remodels, I envision myself the undiscovered, female Frank Lloyd Wright who, despite a lack of any formal education or training, goes on to design and build the most beautiful, functional and cost efficient to maintain homes that have been seen in generations. I light up the world of architecture and am allowed to sit with my sketches falling like gold from my pad as I drink in obnoxious amounts of 'This Old House' reruns.
Oddly enough, with all of these designs tucked away from my many years of sketching or mentally remodelling these floor plans, I currently reside in a single wide trailer that was refurbished in the early 80's. I couldn't even begin to guess when it was first built, but it is not small, it's minuscule. A 540 square foot wood and metal rectangle box with all the floor plan excitement of watching paint dry. Actually, watching paint dry has infinitely more possibilities for being exciting.
We make do, and I am honestly thankful for four walls a roof, a bathroom and a washer & dryer. I spent time homeless in my mid-twenties, so I really am thankful. But I also hold out hope, with every single sketch, that one day before I am too old to enjoy living in it, I will build a home that I designed myself. It will have plenty of bedrooms, more than one bathroom, and tons of room for my kids to run around. I will make sure my husband has the sound-proof room to do his stereo-junkie thing and I will have an office with a door to write my blog in peace. Oh yes, and with the ability to build my huge home I will of course have enough money to afford maid service to clean it for the rest of my life.
That will also afford me plenty of space and time to draw more floor plans...because true love doesn't end just because it's fulfilled.