I lived a large part of my life as a flibbertigibbet. I know people who have lived in the same house in the same city since they were children and became adults. Some moved into their parents’ homes when their parents had either moved or passed on. Actual people married their high school sweethearts and stayed married. I regard them with a mix of wonder and disbelief.

I moved around when I was younger. A lot. I was always sure the next place would be the “best ever.” “It will be perfect!” Never mind that with my background, I did not have the slightest clue how to pull a house together let alone decorate it. Nor did I have sufficient coin for the necessary furnishings and so-called “home elements.”.

I did try interior decorating. Massive failure. I once put a sort of French boudoir black and white rococo style wallpaper in my small bedsit. Once I’d hung the last length of wallpaper, that small bedsit instantaneously became teeny tiny. It felt claustrophobic. Oh well, I thought. That didn’t work. I’ll paint it a solid color. That’ll fix it.

I painted it orange. Not that tasteful mango pastel you might be imagining. Oh no. Think of the vests worn by people doing roadwork. Safety vest orange. I had one quart of flat latex. It did not quite cover the black and white rococo.

Thinking back, when money was tight – as it invariably was – it was my wont to bargain hunt. Clothes. Shoes. Wallpaper. Paint. Buying what I really wanted was always trumped the actual cost. “Oops” paint and I became closely acquainted. So the safety vest orange shade that required four coats to cover hideous black and white wallpaper was probably quite cheap. Almost certainly.

It took time to learn that any place you land can become heaven or hell. Even odder, if you lower your expectations sufficiently to adapt to the environment, even hell can be a pleasant or leastways, interesting, road stop.

I loved the privations of camping and “roughing it” generally. On a memorable cross-Andes horse trek back in the aughts, it was certainly filled with enough excitement and dread to keep the adrenaline flowing. But I am fairly sure that type of vacation would not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Even my longtime, deeply adventurous friend Ursula met her match when a winter snowstorm came up in the middle of the mountains. close to nightfall (Quite a shock as in January it was “mid-summer” in Argentina. Mountains have their own rules.)

In the chaos of getting the horses down quickly to flatter, sheltered land to pitch our tents for the night, Ursula almost backed her horse off a cliff to what would have been certain death. Ursula remembers that snowstorm, nearly falling off a cliff, and dying experience with a certain testiness.

Back down here on terra firma, I am still hell-bent and determined to find a heavenly “forever” home. In my mind’s eye, my home would have everything I ever dreamt of. It would exude and reek of elegance, style, and taste.

I can see the wide, wooden double front doors and the dark grey slate floors of the foyer entrance. In the library just off the front hall to the left, I see through the doors to the low-plush wall-to-wall carpet and mahogany or cherrywood (I am not fussy) floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on both sides of the room. There is a deep-seated leather office chair in front of a mahogany (or cherrywood) desk. Books everywhere.

There are two easy chairs in the middle of the room with brass reading lamps on the end tables. Maybe an ottoman or two. And a dog. Maybe two. There is a large bay window at the back of the room that frames the desk with a wide, cushioned window seat. That upholstered seat looks out on a garden, or maybe an orchard. Trees of some sort at any rate. A birdcage-covered swimming pool is just barely in sight to the left of the property.

The living room across the wide hall from the library would be furnished with two deep, soft sofas facing each other in front of the wood-burning fireplace. The sofas would be set off by a matching easy chair or two with leather inlaid end tables and a large wooden coffee table between them.

The couches would frame a brick or maybe fieldstone, wood-burning fireplace. I adore the smell of burning wood. My dream home would be safe and cozy and, most of all, it would always be there.

You may have already concluded that I have been deeply swayed by (pick one) Alistair Cooke on Masterpiece Theatre or Upstairs, Downstairs (only the Upstairs, thank you), or Downtown Abbey. These are my influencers.

It is still a vague notion at present. Where. When. How. I’ve had bits and bobs of that decorative schemata in former houses but not all elements altogether in the same place. I am not 100% sure what that “forever” home will look like but I will know the place when I see it. I need to acquire the bones before I can start dressing them.

What I am sure of is that it will not have any trace of faux French boudoir black and white rococo wallpaper covered with a seethrough layer of safety vest orange paint. My aesthetic has grown somewhat beyond those days, thankfully.