My Perfect Functional House

My perfect functional house

 For some reason I have always felt attracted to old houses:  wooden floors and pressed iron ceilings and a verandah going right round the house.  I have learnt however that very often these come at a price:  electric wiring eaten by rats, leaking roof, rusted water pipes, few cupboards and electrical plug outlets.  

 Often this is accompanied by a strange arrangement of spaces: first the very small square house, with a verandah, had become too small.  So the owners decided to close the front verandah to make another room.  On the back stoep, a real bathroom would have been added (with long-drops going out of fashion) – then later this verandah will  also be closed off to add another room – a kitchen?  Now one has a kitchen with a door to the bathroom.

 That more or less describes my current house, which also, by the way, takes an effort to clean properly (Don’t they all?).

 One of my fantasies (not aesthetically but functionally) is the following house:

 To disappoint the criminals breaking in and carry away the furniture, essential furniture will be built in the house.  This can include beds and seating.  All potentially moving stuff (TV, Sound Systems) will be bolted onto a moving panel, which with the pressing of a button will swing back into the wall, with hardly a seam visible.  The same should happen to bookcases, ornaments and paintings.  Also on the pressing of a button, other loose furniture, including the few cushions I add, will be hoisted up into the ceiling, leaving a completely empty space.

 Then the last part will set in, for which I will have to go outside: the whole house will be hosed on the inside, while up in the ceiling a vacuumed space will be created to clean the few pieces of loose furniture.

 Back into the house I will breathe in that wonderful wet cement smell, and then turn everything back to normal with the push of a button. 

 Perfect for people with sinus and asthma problems – and lazy housewives.