When I saw this question I went straight to the Sotheby's website. I love American folk art and miniatures and this piece is both. I wish there was a penny or something in the picture for size reference. The chest is 4 1/4" by 7" by 3 1/2". It sold for $14,000.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sotheby's

Redo the stone wall and walled garden around our pool . Add creatively to the landscape across the front of our beautiful porch, to do it justice. The very old azaleas there are gorgeous for 2 weeks every Spring and it has kept me paralyzed as to other landscaping ideas. Also new landscaping for the back garden outside of the French doors from the sunroom. I had antique bricks laid 4 yrs ago and arbors built 2 yrs ago and I built stacked rock walls myself. I am paralyzed here too. Do you see a trend here ???

busybee...DH is for hire ! You can come listen to him anytime you want for free :) c

something like this :

Here is a link that might be useful: Secret Cottage Garden

I'd get my whole house done up in Bradbury & Bradbury wallpapers (ceilings too, natch!) Maybe some Wolf House papers in the lesser rooms, and then be very unhappy; because I don't have the furniture that's up to its level...
Casey

@Casey: Your post made me sentimental for my parents house which was "all done up in Bradbury & Bradbury (ceilings too, natch)". Dad died, house was too big...to get the house to sell, stepmom had to strip all the paper down. Too taste specific....it was a 1890's house

There is lots of furniture pieces I would love to have but not enough to go out on a limb for because my tastes change every few years.
I just want a pool with a waterfall and a handyman/house boy to relieve me from the job. I would prefer a handyman who didn�t like to talk but didn�t mind me babbling on all day.
I would also like one of my grown sons to leave so I can have my art room where I can go everyday and paint. It would be pure luxury if I could leave my art room and have my handyman/houseboy clean all my brushes and any other mess I made. After, he could fetch me a glass of cabernet and tend to my pedicure.

What I really want now is for a lot of work to be done! New/repaired skylights, gut baths and start over, etc. But here is a true money-is-no-object dream -- redo our indoor garden and landscaping around the house with these as inspirations:

But if that is still cheating, I'll take this Saarinen Womb chair to replace DH's Ikea Poang:

What I want is either the washing machine or laundry detergent that I see advertised on TV that not only cleans the clothes but sorts, folds and irons them, too.

hmm, so much to choose from!
i guess my dream reno would commence--new kitchen, new second floor which attaches via a bridge to the barn. barn would be replaced and this barn would be made into a fab play space---at fifteen feet wide by sixty three i'd take the first thirty feet and make it into one big room--woodstove on one end, the east wall which faces the brook would be all glass doors onto a new stone terrace.
pool table, dh's childhood train set, ping pong and built in day beds all upstairs in the loft for guests and grandkids.
new barn will be three stories way up on the hill---bottom floor an indoor arena, second floor stalls for the horses, goats and hens, and a huge third story apartment for me or the live-in staff.
boy do i need a housekeeper!

I would love to hire a top-rate architect to come into my home and plan a remodel to add a ton of character and some space to my small house. Not much huh!

1. A tall, hand built stone wall that looked like it had been there forever around my entire property.
2. A La Cornue Grand Palais range (color and trim to be determined.)
(Cheating: 3. Oh, h3ll, a chateau in France to go with it.)

large indoor pool - but I would need my neighbor's yard to make it work with my house.

Also, my house is based/facing the street to the south. It so happens that they built 4+ houses since 1825 and added a side steet (which is now my entrance). It's an ackward entrance - I want my original unabstructed view to the road. To buy up those offending houses at assessed value would be $3.6 million. To get the real view (a few more houses) then it's $5.2 million. Then there's the cost to tear them down.

Finally bring back the servants - there were a few of them for the homestead. We still have coal in one of the fireplaces that they used in the attic.

A *modern* pavered front walk and driveway to replace our cracked concrete (an estimate for a design I came up with came in @$23K), along with a designed-by-me *modern* metal and cedar *modern* fence and gates installed all around our yard. We only have 1/4 acre, so that's not too much to ask, is it? Found a pic of the fence style I'd like, but with metal (non-corroding) posts.

p.s. not to be a wet blanket, but I saw those 'bolection' (had to look up that word) "chimneypieces" last weekend, pal...and voiced the thought to my DH that whoever would buy that could also fill almost all the so-called budget shortfall in WI. Which is a better use of the money?

Here is a link that might be useful: [my kinda fence..and the pavers are pretty close (not exact) too[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/gravel-courtyard-asian-landscape-san-francisco-phvw-vp~74274)

oh, trailrunner, i would LOVE to come and listen to your dh!!! (jazz musician, do i remember reading that??) glass of wine and music...makes for a perfect evening!

If money were almost no object...I'd have won the nightstand and dresser I was bidding on. Dresser went for over $2000...
nightstand for over $400. I quit bidding on the nightstand because the people who were bidding on the dresser were bidding on it as well, and I thought they should stay together.

As it turned out...a THIRD bidder came in at the last minute and bought the dresser. Whoa.

Someone must have recognized the dresser for it to go from well under $500 up to $2k+ at the very last bidding...pal...I'm linking the dresser. If you recognize it, let me know! I coveted them for the lines. I really don't know much about things...but perhaps I have a good eye?

melanie

Here is a link that might be useful: dresser I lost :^(

Hand painted scenic wallpaper. Over the top for my humble home, but I'd enjoy it anyway :p

Have someone that knows what they are doing come and plant some gardens. I can decorate in a house and though not to a lot of peoples taste, it suits me and I am happy. But get outside and I have no vision, limited funds, minimal knowledge & to be honest lack of ambition. Thus I just can't get started.

I'd buy a Welsh dresser, a few hundred years old, painted, very well-used with many age marks. I'd use it to display china and other things.

Palimpsest, did you happen to win the lottery and plan to grant our wishes? If so, thanks in advance.

I'd either like to build my dream home that fixes the annoying little things about my current house like no coat closet and noisy neighbors. Grrr.

Or I'd like professionally landscaped yard with pool and patio and a gardener to maintain the landscape. I don't have the slightest green thumb and the dogs trample what I don't kill.

I had a long-time dream to buy 2 small houses that sit next to each other down the street from us, and tear them down and build one larger one with a great yard. Part of that dream house would be a basement-level, 2-story gym (a small size version of our friend's massive and awesome gym.) This gym-in-my head would be about the size of a raquet ball court; we'd shoot hoops, play wally-ball, I'd do yoga, the dog would run around in there, and DS would have his band buddies over for practice. It would also be our party room. Like our friend's gym, it would be connected to the house under ground, through a kickin' basement.

Sadly, one of those 2 houses just sold (for over $500k for the lot - they're tearing down the house.) So I won't be getting my gym. Sigh...

I guess I'll ask for a Porsche. Red.

Cut and paste exactly what eandhl said. I just don't get how to plan outside and mine is a mess. Totally overgrown. I had someone in to give me a quote to rip it all out and he was horrified. :) Said I was crazy and should trim, move things, etc. It gave me a headache and I did nothing.

I'd want to buy the most ecclectic and whimsical pieces I could find. House inspired by Disney, perhaps. I LOVE this piece.

It's only like $9000. There are other pieces in this vein that I love. And anything MacKenzie-Childs.

busybee: you would be MOST welcome. Yes jazz piano, I got him a 6'3" grand for his birthday a few years ago. Our neighbors love it , they say they do anyway :) when warmer weather comes as DH leaves the doors and windows open and folks come by to listen.

Boop and eandhl , we need to form a club. I look and look at pics and I call folks to come and give estimates and make plans....it seems to always come to nothing. I am determined this year...I WILL get it squared away. Of course it would really help if we would stay out of a drought for just one year and also if I would stop riding back and forth across the country for months at a time LOL. Oh well...where is that gardener hiding,,,that is what I REALLY want ! c

What do you dream for Palimpsest?

Good question, Deedee.

For me, since we're dreaming, a Rothko. I'd do nothing but sit and look at it all day. Might even get me off Gardenweb.

Hey, I said "no new houses" :/ :)

My list is extensive and would probably vary depending upon what kind of house I lived in. I am leaving out things like the womb chair which I might just buy one day.

If I lived in an 18th-early-19th c. house, like Casey and awm03:

Wallpaper. Mine would be DeGourney or Zuber with a grisaille background and colored figures: probably $50K for a typical room:
{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

And a First Period highboy: (this one is $43,000--$100K not uncommon)

IF I lived in a Modernist house: a Nakashima Long Chair in Black Walnut. (can you believe I went to college with a girl who had one in her apartment?) This one is $70,000 retail.
{{!gwi}}

If I lived in a Brutalist house, A console by Paul Evans. This is bronze, polychrome, slate, wood and gold leaf. I know they are ugly, but no apologies. These top $100,000 at auction:
{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Finally, if I lived in a Queen Anne, Shingle Style or some house with Aesthetic Movement character. (or a spare glass box), something by Carlo Bugatti. This 1890 suite(Mosquee)is retailing for $100,000 (again, ugly but no apology :)
{{!gwi}}

Pal I want to shop with you lol

So funny...I think we are doing the yellow sully 2200 so is that really a no object thing? I wanted yellow in the last house and swore I'd have it eventually. I may work up the guts in this house...we will see but either way a 2200 sully will be in the new kitchen.

My total bs dreams are things that will happen like rebuilding the four story water tower original to the house or tunneling into the cistern which will be a wine cellar. They won't happen before a kitchen but they are dreams we want to achieve in the next five years.

I love the last desk. You posted. We are going aestheticish (my word) with a sort English feel to the place because of our owners origins. The desk would fit right in and someday we hope to invest in quality like that. I'd kill for a belcher anything :) may get a window this year if I play my cards right lol but I want the over the top furnishings :).

What do I really dream....I want a set of faupbulou old outdoor marbles, turn of the century or earlier for my garden gate area. They tend to push 20 plus thou....so given their total lack of usefulness....definitely a dream lol.

Inside, I would get a set of the Wegner Wishbone chairs that are on sale at R&B right now. Not sure what color/s. I am intrigued by the four stock blues and would consider a combo of several of them. But, I'd probably chicken out and get them all in Baltic Blue or Magnolia.

Outside, I would love to splurge on very large trees around my house. Like brought-in-on-a-tractor-trailer big. Big-before-I'm-old-and-even-grayer big.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wegner chairs

Our exterior needs work such as the landscaping, walkways, fencing, etc... all need re-dos. I would also add a nice hot tub to make dh happy and to relax in. I'd consider an in ground pool if it were self maintaining and esp if it were heated (solar), and could be glassed in.

I'm aiming kind of low compared to some of the above wishes, but right now, I'd buy all solid core interior doors.

It's something that's far, far down the list of priorities for this house (especially if you ask DH), so to even think about it seems kind of extravagant. I've cleaned and polished the old, scarred, tacky, hollow slab doors as best as I can, and am replacing all of the hardware, so it does look better than it did, but I still cringe every time I open or close one of them.

Oh, and a post at Apartment Therapy reminded me I'd buy a huge supply of Weck jars for all the jamming, canning and preserving I do -- enough jars that I could give them away to my friends and not worry about getting them back.

Here is a link that might be useful: These are some top-shelf jars alright.

oooo...I want to change my answer. I, too, would buy all-new interior doors...solid mahogany...finished to look like my hollow core, mahogany skinned doors. I'd reuse the existing hardware.I love the look of my doors, but the veneer is starting to go on some of them. I'm tired of re-gluing!

For me it's a toss-up between either Wishbone chairs or Brno chairs for the dining room (10 please) and a lovely large budget for art. Any of those would make me silly happy. None of them are happening.

Lots of things, but they'd depend on the house. For this one, more dry laid stone walls and more stone pathways. Surrounding the entire property, historically appropriate split rail wood fence. To replace the old, overgrown yews around two sides of the house and the old juniper on another side, mature boxwoods. Woodland peony (P. obovata) to completely surround our pond. Either a new pool or the removal of the one that's here; if the former, let's add a new pool house while we're at it.

For the inside, a total redo of the attic into a library, complete with beautiful built-in shelves. If I thought there'd be enough wall space for both shelves and wall, I'd add linenfold paneling. (Historical accuracy? What's that?) However, I don't think even floor-to-ceiling shelves on all the walls would be sufficient for all our books. Are you sure I can't add a new house to my wish list?

An antique oushak, roomsized, for the sunroom.

At least one pietra dura table, maybe a couple while I'm at it.

For the sunroom, even though they won't go with my new tables or the carpet or the style of the house, a couple of Chihuly chandeliers and sconces. I guess that should do it for now....

I forgot about this one. A Steinway Model O in satin ebony. Current retail about $68,000.

I learned to play on Steinway. My piano teacher, an elderly nun, had two ebony full uprights, and two mahogany grands. I grew up in a Catholic town and nuns and priests could get someone to donate anything.

I was allowed to play them to "increase my hand strength" since I had a peripheral nerve issue. I have a hard time not banging hard on a more "lightweight" keyboard

{{!gwi}}

Alright, alright, I cheated because my choice required a new house. (I still want a gym... an honest to god 2 story ceiling, wood floor, etc. gym.) But since that won't fit on our current house...

I'd redo the front porch, making it bigger and maybe across the whole front of the house. New front door that would knock your socks off, and replace almost all the windows in the house. Of course my new front porch would come with new landscaping in the front yard!

An infinity pool in our tiny back yard-- it would just fit behind our patio, with the water appearing to go over the edge of the ridge, and allow me to enjoy this view while floating around on my back in lovely warm water. In the winter the mountain peak is covered with snow.

Ohh, some great ideas and pics. My wish would be for a barn with lots of storage space and a dedicated project room; concrete floor (with drain), huge old soapstone sink, paint storage, lots of windows, good acoustics (so I can rock out while I work), high ceilings and a sealed off paint chamber where I can paint stuff without dog hair and woodstove ash becoming fossilized in the finish. Of course, a conservatory with hot tub would also be nice, but I think I would take the project barn first.

sandyponder

I think we have one of those Piano's in my family. I will have to ask my dad what model. My brother is going for his doctorate in classical piano. My family has been schlepping it around since the early 1900's. Nice that my youngest brother has been putting it to good use! My father has spent a small fortune on the upkeep of the piano. luckily my brother has not had to pay much for his schooling. Scholarships are a wonderful thing.

I would settle for just that view. Amazing!

Man, susanka, if money were no object I think I'd buy land like yours. That's a *rainbow* of colors. Just needs water to be 10% complete : )

And I'd like to add: for the garage: a Tesla roadster (does accessorizing the garage count? :))

LOL that would be 100%, not 10%. Devil's in the details.

flyleft, a Tesla roadster, YES!

...and our land cost very little, 25,000 bucks. This area is one of the best buys in Colorado, we think. Neighbors on each side, but a view to forever out almost every window. When we were looking for a place to move to and driving below this ridge, I said to DH, "I think I'll call to see how much land is here." He really wanted to be closer to town, but thought he was safe, figured these were million-dollar properties. Nope! So here we are.

trailrunner, at least you seem to have a valid excuse. Travel & drought. Me and it appears boopadaboo, not so much.
Every house I walk into I think, I would do this or that etc but outside "NOTHING comes to me". I see pretty pictures but then think they look to expensive for us or to much work. I am ready to plant peppermint and let it spread, hoping it will kill our pachysandra. I pull and dig, clear a 2 ft X2 ft patch of it and the next day it is popping back up. It now gets to much sun so it doesn't even look pretty.

How about a total house makeover?

The kitchen needs updating; all my paint colors are just a bit short of "spot on"; I yearn for the furniture pieces I should have gotten if I could've looked into the crystal ball and seen the 4-legged furball that would soon come into my life and leave hair all over; the patio needs fresh bricks or pavers and can't-kill plants ...

And I'm sure it wouldn't be too much to ask if a really talented designer who "speaks" my language -- casual contemporary -- and his/her "staff" came in and did everything while I went on vacation! (I hate thinking about what it's like to live with this going on -- even having to be here when the handyman was changing out bathroom fixtures was a hassle and a boring waste of time for me!)

In lieu of all that "all at once," I guess I'd really want something money CAN'T buy: Total satisfaction with what I have. Well, maybe when I get the patio redone ... that's next on the list unless my homeowners' association finds something else I need to take care of first!

(PS: Can I pls borrow the pool boy? please please please? I have no pool, but I can find some other tasks around the house to keep him busy -- like making me some mojitos and cleaning the fridge and stove once in a while!)

Ok, I am back. and cheating. I really really need a cottage on a lake. I mean lakefront with a dock. let the dogs out the door and they can run to the water. Big front porch,facing east so we dont get run out by the hot sun. A vintage wooden run about so I/ we including the dogs can run over to get groceries from the other side of the lake.
To me the sully is over the top- but a yellow one would be cool in my cottage.
Oh and I want Bono to be my neighbor.So the rest of the band can come over and jam on my front porch.
And I need a beautiful original Shelby Cobra- blue with white stripes. That is at least a hundred grand. I guess I could have a detached garage that looks like a very cool outbuilding. It would hold my Shelby and My DHs car collection. Oh and a boathouse.

susanka, what a wonderful story! And in Colorado, too. Wow. How much land do you have?

Oh, not a big bunch of land at all, a tiny lot about 10,000 sf. But the neighbors are very quiet and we just don't see them much. DH didn't want the 30-minute commute, but there's almost no traffic, and scenery almost all the way. You can buy lots here for $8000 or so; not with quite our view of 5 mountain ranges and a lake, but with great views. We're in the Greenhorn Valley. I sound like I belong to the Chamber of Commerce, don't I? But I don't. Where are you, flyleft?

I'd go with a English style conservatory off the back of our house--with a little airtight wood burning stove in it!

Well the first thing I thought of was this bed. I saw it somewhere for about $7,000 dollars. I would want it custom made though to be larger than a king and put on feet like in the second photo instead of the typical sleigh bed style.

But...... then I thought about my 50 gallon fish tank and how much I would love a larger one, so then this came to mind. Not sure how much it would cost to have this set up.

However.....I have decided to be practical and go with something that can keep me doing well even when times are hard. Its the next best thing to having a money tree in the backyard. This all diamond chandelier 220 carats. :) I might want to have it redesigned though.

Sorry Pal, I know I'm ignoring your guidelines, but if I had a spare million, I'd pass on King Farouk's castoffs and buy Cooperbailey's cottage.