## Step 2 - Reading

Building our dream home
You are going to read a story about a family who are building their dream home.
Je gaat een verhaal lezen over een familie die hun droomhuis aan het bouwen is.

- Work together with two or three classmates and do exercise 1.
  Werk samen met two of three klasgenoten en doe oefening 1.
- Read the statements of exercise 2.
  Lees de beweringen van oefening 2.
- Read the text and do exercise 2 by yourself.
  Lees de tekst en maak oefening 2 alleen.

#### Oefening ​1

Discuss the following questions in your group in English.
Bespreek de volgende vragen in je groep in het Engels.

- Would you rather build a house or buy an existing house? Why?
  Zou jij liever een huis bouwen of een bestaand huis kopen? Waarom?
- What would your dream house look like?
  Hoe zou jouw droomhuis eruitzien?

Building our dream home You’ve probably heard people saying it before: “We are building our dream home!” Or “we have built our dream home!” Most of the time they mean that they hired a contractor to build a home for them. We, however, really mean it. We are building our dream home as a family, all by ourselves. In the last few years we have moved from rental home to rental home. Although we liked the houses we’ve lived in, they never really felt like home. My husband and I have had this dream of building our dream home ever since we got married fifteen years ago. So last year we did it. We bought our dream property: two acres of land in East Sussex and a 20-minute car drive away from our favourite city, Brighton. Designing our house was a lot of fun. My mom is an architect so we asked her to design our dream home. We decided on a 5-bedroom house with a large kitchen and two bathrooms. We want the house to look like a typical English country home. The outside walls are going to be made from brown-reddish bricks and large windows will let in lots of natural sunlight. I have always loved the look of houses with a thatched roof, so we added that to the design as well. We also got the kids involved because we want this house to be their dream home too. They were allowed to choose what their bedrooms would look like and we took their hobbies into consideration. Sam, our oldest, loves to swim, so we decided to build a pool in the backyard. Our little girl, Penny, is very creative. Nothing makes her happier than painting or drawing. So, we added a craft room to our building plans for her. Last Saturday was a big day for us. We officially started building! Building the house will take at least a year. So, until it is finished we will stay in the rental home that we live in now. I’m sure the built is going to be difficult and I’m certain a lot will go wrong. But we are so excited and we can’t wait until we can finally move into our dream home.