HOUSE DREAMS round 10 2023
Flashback from
House dreams that turn 10 years
Where are we: Södra Björstorp in Skåne.
The theme: Anniversary party for all participants since 10 years back in time with architect Gert Wingårdh and program host Anne Lundberg, SVT colleagues as host couple.
Who’s taking part: Inspiring, strong, lovely and honest people who have shared their “journeys to create their dream homes” with us on our TV sofas, whether they have renovated or built a new one from scratch. They have generously shared their often tortuous and arduous journeys, with everything from sheer happiness to deepest despair and sadness, when it did not turn out as they had intended or believed was possible to fulfill. Many are the “renovation traps” that you can stumble over with too much optimism in terms of time frames for completion, budget that “must last all the way”, overconfidence in the abilities of craftsmen and at the same time perhaps have time for career, children and a cute puppy as icing on the cake….
Some of the participants from the previous round will receive a follow-up in future programs on the progress of their projects since the last one.
The dream factory in Härnestad
Summary of lessons learned from "Looking back":
Many of the participants testify that it was tougher than they could have imagined, with some naive overconfidence in both budget and time for moving in, which did not hold in reality. And that this was more the rule than the exception for the vast majority who had tried to build/renovate.
But also surprisingly many of the participants had sold and moved on with new projects on their hands. The reason could be that renovation and construction itself had become more of a lifestyle, that “the journey itself was the goal” and not the finished house/home.
One of the couples had managed 20 different houses over 30 years, and often the ugliest objects that no one else had touched, which they transformed and “sprinkled with love”, to hand over to the next family to manage.
A family that had laboriously renovated a large house, discovered after living there for a while, that they had become slaves to the house, there was not enough time for children and family life and exchanged it for a smaller, easier to maintain house.
But whether the home is forever or a project for the next, House Dreams is like life itself, it goes on while we breathe, live and wait for what we really don’t know much about, before we are there. And it doesn’t always allow itself to be guided as we would wish and want, but it’s so much more exciting along the way, and which we look forward to following during the spring season!
Don't be in a hurry to choose materials
A big thank you to all the amazing House Dreamers for your generosity and honesty about what it means in reality and which can both encourage or discourage you to take on the House Dream yourself!
( I myself am not discouraged….. sorry, dear husband)
Anne Olsson
