The Luxury Home Item You Want (trust me)
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 09:58PM I think if you asked a group of people what is their idea of a home luxury item you would get a wide range of opinions. My dad would say a home with an indoor bathroom since he grew up using an out house. My 
grandparents didn’t get an indoor bathroom until 1970! Fast forward to the present day above the Mason-Dixon line to a more refined idea of what qualifies as a luxury. Some people are all about the kitchen. I used to be in that category myself. We do some extreme cooking in our family so I can really appreciate sturdy restaurant style stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, kitchen cabinets with drawers on glides that close with a touch. Then there’s wood floors, new lighting options, tumbled marble tiles, and wiring for TV’s, computers, multiple phone lines. There’s Smart House systems that will help you operate the whole enchilada in an efficient, green manner, meeting new LEEDS building guidelines and using renewable resources.
Maybe you are a guy with the dream of a waterfront home, with your own dock and boat at your beck and call. Perhaps you’re a woman with the desire to live on a mini estate with a built in pool, pool house and maybe even a cabana boy. How about a log home in the mountains surrounded by nature. 
Well as a middle aged woman all the above items hold a certain appeal to me, and I am still partial to really great kitchens. But I have to say far and above the most luxurious item ever built into one of my homes was my heated garage. If you have ever lived north of the 45th parallel you can probably relate because if you live that far north you spend the majority of the year in very cool temperatures. Much of the year in freezing nasty weather no doubt.
It was absolute heaven to have my cars sitting in a garage kept around 55 degrees with in-floor heating. We would all hop in, push the button to open the big door and back out into a winter wonderland day after day after day after day.....you get my drift. The winters are VERY long, cold and snowy. I never had to start my car early to warm it up. If I was just running errands I didn’t have to bundle up, a good patagonia would do. I owe my very life to that heated garage. Without it I don’t know how I would have survived my 4 year of exile in the rugged shore of Lake Michigan.
Down here in south eastern Michigan we started our cold weather here this past week and I am missing my heated garage. I find each year I am dreading winter more because I’m cold and it makes me irritable. And I am a sissy so I have to run out and start my car and turn the seat warmers on a few minutes before I want to leave. Kinda hard to reduce your carbon footprint while being such a baby about getting into a cold car. Now don’t you judging me! I recycle like crazy and have put those annoying spiral florescent light bulbs all over the darned house.
I do have one other luxury item I have been hankering for: little vacuum slots along the baseboards (technically a vacpan auto dustpan, part of a central vac system).
I confess I’m a bit of a cleaning fanatic. You just sweep your little pile over by one of these slots and tap the button with your toe and it sucks the dirt into the system. So FUN and handy. The first home I saw this in was a friend of mine with an awesome home on Walloon Lake. She spends summers and vacations at this home and brings her household help with her. I was fortunate to be invited to stay last year after Christmas. I drove that poor Rosa crazy with all my sweeping, I just love that you turn it on with your foot and never have to bend down. Imagine my surprise when I went to see my hair stylist for a color and cut, she sits me down to wait for my color to process. Right away I spy their new sweeping slots so of course I had to give it a test drive. I had that whole salon swept up lickety split.
I'm sure you know what I plan on including in my next house?(post recession of course). A toasty heated garage and a Vacpan auto dustpan so I can satsify all my urges to sweep like crazy.I know that sounds really sick, but when you think about it, performing a rhythmic repetitive task can be quite therapeutic. Who can’t use a little therapy now and then?
Northern Michigan, cleaning, luxury
Reader Comments (5)
It sounds like you have had a pretty good life. Whats involved in getting a heated garage?
WOW! Those Vacpans sound incredible!!! I want one! At LEAST one.
Mercedes. You bitch. Love, J
I definitely want one of those cabana boys. And the whop te do house on the water! Yikes.
can i just say that the woop te do house on the water was the ULTIMATE party palace. good god did we have some fun! :) Miss Mayor - I actually just reminisced positively about our life in Bay Harbor....! Can you believe it? Maybe my bitter-tude is wearing off.