Dream Homes - Complete With Literary Fantasies

Sometimes I see a picture of a place and it makes me think of what kind of book I would want to read if I was there at that exact moment. When I see pictures of England, I think to myself, "If I ever go there I'm bringing nothing but Shakespeare in my bag." And when I see Rome, I think Dante Aligheri. Greece? Easy. So many Greek comedies and tragedies to choose from.

I was looking at these amazing houses on BHG.com today and as I was daydreaming about each one of them, I found myself also thinking about which literary masterpieces I'd read on those porches. All photos are from Better Homes & Gardens.


Ooooooooooh. Man. This house makes me want to fill it with children. Like five of them. Just paint it white and add green shingles, and it'd be straight out of Lucy Maud Montgomery's fantasically creative mind and Prince Edward Island. Anne of Green Gables had to have been born out of an inspirational home like this one. That's what I'd do if I owned a home like this. Read Anne stories on the porch all day, sip iced green tea, and bask in the beauty of my surroundings.


This Queen Anne Victorian home is quaint and homey. I just know that as you walk up those steps, the aroma of freshly baked apple pie drifts through the doors and windows. Here, I'd read something by James Joyce. Ulysses or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.


Another Victorian home, but this one is all-American to me. This is the American Dream in house form. I'd hang a gi-normous American flag next to the front door and be sure to add a hammock to that porch. I'd be up with the sun every morning with a cup of hot tea or coffee, a scone, and some homemade strawberry preserves. This one makes me want to pick up Homer's Odyssey again, or Dante's Divine Comedy - the Inferno (it's the best part, okay?) Even Sophocles's Oedipus or Antigone.


Oh! Can barely handle it. This refurbished 1870's Victorian home takes my breath away. I expect to see Dickens and Bronte characters fanning themselves on this porch. I'd read Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, or Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.


This home has TWO porches! Check out the darling little porch/balcony off of the second floor. In my fantasies, it adjoins the master bedroom, where I could slip into a lush spa-like bathrobe and relax before bedtime. I'd plant aromatic herbs in pretty pots - lavender, sage, basil... and run my hands over them to release the scent as I soaked in Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver or Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

For now, it's Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, read while lounging around a two-story Rhode Island townhouse style apartment. It isn't Victorian, but it's home. =)