This week, I'm lucky enough to be staying with someone who has a proper, real-life house. It boasts a fireplace, a washer and dryer right in the house (for real! Have you guys heard about this?), and a vegetable garden that can keep even a vegaholic like me fed. However, the feature that I might envy the most is the humble garden hose outside…
A hose and a place to spray it might not seem ultra-luxurious, but imagine trying to clean off muddy boots or a coffee-grounds-splattered trash can in an apartment. I'm forever using my shower and sink in ways they were not intended or designed to be used, and I can tell you the results are less than satisfying. During my stay here, I've scrubbed and rinsed my oft-used yoga mat, my hiking boots, a cool old wooden box that was covered in cobwebs and such, the kitchen compost bucket, and my muddy sandals. At home, all of these attempts would have resulted in half-assed disasters, with slightly less dirty boots and a significantly more dirty bathroom.
Do you share my wish for a simple and simply wonderful garden hose with which to spray off your thrift store purchases and sandy shoes? Or is there some other taken-for-granted item that you'd love to have? Dream small!
(Image: Sunset Magazine via 8 Cool Storage Ideas For The Garden Hose)
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That is so funny, and something I never even considered, having always been a house dweller. If I were to dream small, it would be for a tiny, well kept flower garden. I keep ending up with massive, unmanageable yards (first 1/2 acre, now 11 acres) and every now and then I see a beautiful postage stamp in full bloom, weed free, and have an envious moment.
I miss the time when I lived with my parents where I could wash my car in the drive way as many times a week and as long as i wanted. Getting all wet and didn't have to care also felt sooooo good!
Right now, I yearn for the no-yard-work-required apartments/duplexes of my youth. I'm sick of mowing the lawn, weed-eating, edging, pulling weeds, watering, blowing off the driveway, dragging grass clippings back into the house AFTER I hose down everything (placement of the hose requires a shot walk in grass, and generally being terrified that my neighbor's tree is going to fall on my house in any storm.
So I'd say our dreams are just the opposite....
Perhaps a bit bigger than a hose, but still humble, how about a small garage or shed? Living in an apartment, I'd love to have a place to store things that I'd prefer not to actually bring into my place, things like the snow shovel, a big cooler, a place to store paint supplies, and, similar to the poster, have a place to hose down muddy or dirty items.
To comment on LSUGRAD03 and SHGRA and yourself, townhouse for the win! Front flowerbed (with hose), back 20'x20' patio with shed, and no other yard work. :) My husband didn't believe me when I told him townhouses were the best when we moved in, but now he's a convert, especially in the fall when our friends spend hours each weekend dealing with leaves.
Oh, I hear ya! I'm LONGING for a garden to weed, a lawn to mow, leaves to rake, a hose to wind up, a roof to fix.
ah, the grass *is* always greener. I am thrilled to be renting my bungalow out, with its big electric and water bills, needy yard full of weeds, leaky garage roof, uneven heating and cooling despite all efforts to correct.... I'm happy lately in my cool little condo with a balcony full of low maintenance succulents, a fridge full of cold adult beverages only a few steps away and a short bike ride to an awesome weekly farmer's market.
@LSUGRAD03 - Why don't you just get rid of your grass and replace it with gravel/rock? You don't have to be punished by grass.
I could have written this post--I've been housesitting for the past few weeks and living the suburban dream. A huge yard! A garden full of fruits, veggies, and herbs! An enormous deck and grill! Televisions--yes, multiple ones! I stopped by my little city apartment a few days ago to pick up fresh clothes and felt so cramped.
A taken-for-granted item that I'd love to have? Finished walls so I can paint. Baseboard trim.
that is so funny - i JUST moved into my first adult house Saturday and I'm so grateful to have a hose!
I went from a loft where my roommate would run a hose from our kitchen sink, through the window, down to the street to wash his car, to a house converted into apartments where the hose was disabled and teased my dirty car and dying flowers, to a space where the i didn't even have access to the small patch of earth, to a full fledged house with a hose in the back AND the front!
Next summer will be all about veggies and clean cars.
A hose is a wonderful thing to have! When we moved into our house two years ago, there was no hose in either the front or the back, and I don't know how the previous owners had stood it for 35 years.
Among our first improvements were adding a spigot in the back and a rain barrel in the front, and I certainly don't take either one for granted.
I always wish I had a hose, but this summer my plants definitely died specifically because I don't have one. Due to illness I've been away from my apartment for 2 months (staying with relatives). If I had a hose, I wouldn't hesitate to ask my neighbors to look after my plants, but asking my downstairs neighbors to make multiple trips up to my deck with heavy watering cans every day is definitely too much of an imposition. Sigh.
We have a newish house (4 years) and *I* have hose envy, too -- somehow only one outdoor tap, on the front of the house, was installed. This means I have about a mile of heavy-to-haul hose to get the back yard wet, which (of course) is where I plant things the most.
Apartment dwellers, I do believe I have seen hose hookups for your kitchen sink. You place a spacial adapter over the faucet and attach a hose that you then run to the nearest outdoor space (balcony? garden?) to rinse things off -- carefully so as not to irk a downstairs neighbor, or whatever, of course! (Or take a bucket of water outside for garbage can rinsing, etc.)
I moved into our first house in November and one of the nicest features has to be a window in the bathroom AND one in each closet!
What's wrong with rinsing any of the things mentioned in the shower? I'm a house owner with multiple outdoor spigots (with hoses!). I clean my yoga mat with a wet towel. Ditto muddy hiking boots. I put all manner of things in the shower for rinsing...so I just don't get this.
LSUGrad03, I'm with you at the moment. I'm tired of my house owning me.
You can buy hoses in different colours now ... and this year I bought the pretty lime green one that is shown in the picture. Now I am envious of those giant thread spools that it's hanging on! It's always something ...
It's funny that just recently there was a thread about "rising veggies off in the garden in a colander with a garden hose" and people nearly had a collective freak out because of how supposedly unhealthy it is to consume water that has gone through a garden hose! LOL! Now people are lusting for a garden hose! LOL! People are funny.
ok, I meant to write "rinsing" not "rising"! LOL!
I would love a dirty workspace, like a workbench where I can keep my drill press and greasy stuff that is NOT in my bedroom..where if I want to saw a board in half I don't have to vacuum up the dust immediately so I don't track it all over the house.
Oh and I lived in a rented house before and hooked up the hose to the kitchen sink for outside, just like someone mentioned above. Worked great!
I read "hose envy" as being a totally different thing. Hm.
I begrudgingly moved from my downtown 300 sq ft studio with rooftop garden to a 900 sq dupelx in the 'burbs and couldn't be happier. I used to carry buckets of water up two flights of stairs to water my veggies. Now, I just turn on my hose! I also rigged up a Hillbilly Shower using tin and scrap wood. I stick my hose with spray nozzle attachment into a little notch in the wood and BAM low budget outdoor shower. You can't select the temperature, but when it's 104 in the summer, somehow the water is always just right. As an added bonus, my landlord mows the grass for us. I just come home to a perfect yard every day!