February 22 2008
My wife likes to call me an “alpha consumer,” whatever that means. In her mind, I think it means that I buy too much stuff; usually books, music and wine. However, in my mind, I buy only the stuff that I want, which is well within the normal bounds of human consumption, and, frankly, I buy stuff that I use as relaxation tools—music, reading and a glass of vino all fit into that category!
However and perhaps more esoterically, I might actually be a demographers dream because I seem to have a sense for stuff that is way ahead of the curve. I recently bought a book on foraging and cooking wild plants. I have no idea why, but it is an interesting book and, heck, maybe I will want to make a dandelion salad someday. Or, perhaps, cattails will become a culinary rage in three years time at which point I will be well prepared.
Another notion that I have been having a re-occurring urge over is to find a little piece of property close to my house as an urban escape.
I have been living in our new house for about two months. It is the place we plan to raise the family and the place that is suburban replacing my urban first home. Better still, there is room in the basement for a cellar. Yet, I crave more.
Hmm … maybe that is what the wife means when she calls me the “alpha consumer.”
I am enamored with the idea of buying a small tract of land somewhere in the midst of trees, it does not have to be a completely wooded lot and it definitely does not have to be remote, because accessibility is actually the key. It would be near my house and like one of those little lots that pop up for sale that you drive by and are not sure what to do with it because it has been encroached upon by housing development, but is not developed itself.
On this small lot with some seclusion, I would put up a dwelling—not a house, but it would be heated, have running water and electricity; consider it kind of an urban decompression bunker.
Lo and behold, if you look for this on the Internet, there are answers to questions. On that small lot, I would drop one of these: a metrocabin; a metroshed; a shelter-kit; or a cabana.
I fancy this as kind of an escapist outpost and I keep coming back to this and coming back to his as almost a compulsive urge. So, color me surprised when I read an article in the New York Times a couple of week’s back that talks about a similar burgeoning trend called “condo storage.”
It is like a storage unit, but instead of renting, you own it and you can deck it out however you want—if you want to build a facsimile of a wine tasting room for your collection, put up the 52 inch plasma and hang out, then by all means do … and people do … (check out GarageTown USA here)
Maybe I am not so crazy.
I think I might opt for the more refined MetroShed, but just the same, my place (whenever I get a spare cash pile laying around to do it) is going to have the following: a kitchenette, a fold out couch and living area with a gigantic flat screen HD TV and a couple of built-ins for books, hot tub on the deck, a steam sauna adjacent to the hot tub, a nice recumbent bike, a computer work area for some undistracted blogging, and a temperature controlled 250 – 500 bottle wine storage area. Oh, and yeah, I would have a table to play some cards, too.
The key thing with this is the wine area. I guess I could do a full on renovation of my existing basement and have the cellar and everything, all the toys, at the house, but it almost seems like it’s better to have it as an escapist outpost, an oasis in our crazy world: a place befitting complete relaxation to open a bottle of something and contemplate it while taking a sauna and hot tub before blogging.
I think, at the end of the day, this urge is a response to environmental stimuli to create a proverbial shelter from the day-to-day storm, but just the same, it seems like it would be pretty cool.
What would you have in your MetroShed?
Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (2) |
I work for GarageTown USA and we have some owners very passionate about wine including our national sales and marketing director Carri Berglund (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). I can say that if my uberconsumer life hadn’t filled my unit with stuff I would immediately have turned it into a place away from home to enjoy some time and drinks with my friends. The beauty of GarageTown is that you own it and you can do whatever you want to with it…including crafting wine, beer….whatever. I wish you the best with finding that special space for yourself and your wine.
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My metroshed would include all my wine, my wine books and magazines, the internet and a very large window with a vineyard in the back ground. A wolf range and lots of cooking tools.