(no subject)
I had this weird dream last night.
I don't really remember the start of my dream. What I remember is that I answered the door, and my younger brother was there. For some reason, I was frustrated because he was being a bum and staying with me and sponging off me, and wouldn't leave or find a job or anything. I also remember that it was late afternoon on a fall day, with dark gold late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows.
What I remember most about my dream was where I lived. It was the second or third floor of a large, old building -- probably one built around 1900. It had been slight modernized, mostly electricity and an elevator.
The whole place stuck vividly in my brain. It was mostly one very wide, and very, very long, room. Me being such an architect, I sketched it out for you. The room was probably 40 or 50 feet wide, with thin vertical wooden lathe boards forming the wainscoting and the walls. The walls were painted a dull yellow, the molding above the wainscoting a dark brown, and the wainscoting itself either a dark yellow-brown or a dull industrial green. The ceiling was white plaster, with ornate plaster moldings where the electricity came out of the ceiling. The overhead lights were big white bowls, surrounded in brass, hung from the ceiling by three brass chains. The ceiling was high, maybe 10 or 12 feet.
Along the left wall ran bookcases. Endless bookcases, filled with books. There was a little desk inserted between two bookcases about halfway toward the front of the room, where a computer and chair were. To the right, immediately after you came in the front door, was an open kitchen. It was pretty big, and had tons of counter top space and overhead cupboards. A small breakfast table -- up higher than usual, maybe four feet on its pedestal -- was to the left of the door, surrounded by tall bar chairs.
In the center of the room was a vast old wooden dining room table. Rectangular, it was placed perpendicular to the main room -- kind of blocking it off. Four wooden Shaker chairs were on each side, which gives you an idea of how big this thing was. About where the table was, off to the right, was a big alcove. That's where my huge king-size bed was. At the head of the bed were more bookcases, containing (my dream-brain told me) night-time reading material. There was a light that came out of the wall there, on a bendable neck, which aimed light down on the bed. I "knew" there was a bathroom off to the side, and a big walk-in closet to the other. (Oops. forgot to sketch that in .) In my dream, my bum of a younger brother had thrown himself on the bed, claiming to be tired and needing a nap. (In reality, my youngest brother probably sleeps 12 hours a day. I kid you not.)
The front of this long, wide room was composed of three bay windows. The right and left ones had seats in them, upholstered with old, somewhat rubbed-clean red velvet. The center one I'd partially blocked off with my big-screen TV. Some comfy chairs and a sofa flanked it on either side, with a stereo sytem in some black wood and chrome tubing shelves to the right and yet more full bookcases.
I remember that the floor was wood lathing, too. Years and years of polish had built up on it, and it kind of glowed. And it also kind of creaked a bit when you walked on it.
The whole place seemed enormous, made for entertaining a group. It was airy and wide, even though the only windows were to the front. Those huge, old tall tall tall windows with brown paper shades you ahd to pull down on a long string.
It felt very old. But it felt well-maintained. It felt lived-in, and spacious, and wonderful. It seemed not to have much in the way of furniture or chairs or whatever. So unlike most of my friends' homes, which are filled with curio cabinets, and side tables, and statuary, and plants on pedestals, and that sort of thing. Just those endless bookcases, that huge table, that big airy kitchen, and that big bedroom alcove open the main room.
This feeling, this image, this vision -- it stuck in my head.
I so want to live in a place like this.