It’s nice to have the type of thing that helps enhance life’s simple pleasures, or at least makes minorly pleasurable the necessities that otherwise wouldn’t be, like opening bills. A letter opener makes opening mail satisfying. It’s a satisfaction like that of popping bubble wrap.

If you let your mail build up, like me, then a letter opener is especially nice. I like to open all my mail at once, in a feverish bout, before I read any of it. Rrrip! Rrrip! Rrrip! It’s visceral! And it’s an even safer expression of blade-associated aggression than fencing.

Please allow me to dissuade you from the alternatives to the letter opener. Fingers get paper cuts. Do you like paper cuts?

A pen is inaccurate, takes strain, and can stop halfway and rip down the side of the envelope if you keep forcing. Then what do you have? A ruined envelope with accidental pen doodles on the paper inside.

A pair of scissors or an actual knife will be dangerous, first off, and secondly, they’re too sharp. They, too, will end up ripping down one side of the envelope, like an over-eager shark getting its jaws stuck on its prey.

No! The lunacy must stop! Bona fide letter openers are the only way to go. Mine isn’t too special-looking, but even Google Images runs dry when it comes to finding a cute letter opener.

It’s a worthy design project, I reckon.

Lee Valley's Fridge Super Magnets

Don’t laugh. I’m about to let you in on the secret of the Ultimate Fridge Magnet. In My Ultimate Home, you see, everything will be Ultimate. Thus, even unassuming items like fridge magnets will take on a fabulosity that requires capitalization. The Fridge Magnets in question will come from that wonderworld of home improvement, Lee Valley.

I found out about this place through my mum, who loves home renovation, but I’ve never seen ads for “The Val” anywhere. Their catalogues arrive in the night by magical garden gnomes into the mailboxes of a chosen few.

So anyway, Fridge Magnets. They’re plain and simple and they stick like crazy. According to Lee Valley, each one can hold at least 12 pieces of paper to your fridge at once. My Ultimate Fridge Magnets will enable me to lose the reams of housewares bills I will surely acquire, by hiding them behind old grocery lists, mysterious scrawls on scraps of paper, and Cathy clippings.

Hurrah! What a charmed life I will lead!

Aquaovo's Ovopur water filter/dispenser.

In my dirty Normal Home I drink a lot of water from the tap, but I’d certainly change my chlorinated ways if I had Aquaovo’s Ovopur water filtration … egg. So what if it takes up extra counter space and you probably need to refill it manually? My Ultimate Home’s acreage of kitchen counter space and droves of oompa loompas will be able to handle it.

Honestly though, I am aware that my blog is starting to look like it was designed by a six-year-old who likes bubbles and rainbows, but the thing is, I was once that six-year-old. I’m not going to fight it, I’m going to revel in it. I love the playful minimalist design and I would gladly spend my time refilling the water egg if it would supply my eight glasses a day.

Inhabitat tells me the thing was actually designed to circulate the water better than a normal water cooler would, using Viktor Shauberger’s principles. When I first read this I felt relieved that maybe this time my desired object might not be so ludicrous because It Was Scientific. Unfortunately one look at Shauberger’s Wikipedia page slapped me back to reality. The guy’s theories about this have not held up to scientific testing.

But then again, who cares. It’s a water cooler. Plus you can dress it up on Halloween, or just whenever.

Ever since my mother read the Barbapapa books to me as a child, this family of amorphous blobs has fascinated me. What are the Barbapapas exactly, and what were their creators thinking when they invented them? With a “Clickety click, Barba trick!” the Barbapapas mould themselves into any shape, but one would think that this ability alone wouldn’t be sufficient premise for an entire show. One would be wrong. The Barbapapa franchise is still going strong, as I have witnessed in Scandinavia and Japan.

What do the Barbapapas have to do with My Ultimate Home? I would contract them to build it for me, of course! The episode that’s stuck with me most was the one in which the family Barbapapa decided to build their own house by moulding some sort of concrete around their bodies. The resulting bubble house still fills me with self-sufficient glee. Plus, there’s something pleasantly womb-like about a rounded room.

I guess it was the fortishness of the Barbapapa home that appealed to me as a child—same as the appeal of sofa cushion forts on the living room floor, or driftwood forts I erected among beach logs, or that awesome tree fort my dad built for my siblings and me when we were little. Thinking back, I appreciate these forts not so much for their play value, but for their coziness.

Rainbow Chair by Patrick Norguet for Cappellini.

I would give up the pot of gold if I could keep the rainbow. That is, the Rainbow Chair designed by Patrick Norguet in 2000 for Cappellini. It’s made of meta-acrylate (a.k.a. fancyplastic?) plates that have been joined by ultrasound.

I don’t even want two Rainbow Chairs. Just one! Unfortunately for me, just one costs about $13 000 USD. Literally worth a pot of gold. Even a sane rich person wouldn’t buy this unless she were starting a chair museum. Hmm … maybe that’ll be my excuse to include this one in My Ultimate Home—in my chair museum. Yes. Right beside my shoe museum.

A workman mows the grass roof of a government building near the capital city of Torshavn August 13, 2009. REUTERS/Bob Strong (FAROE ISLANDS SOCIETY IMAGES OF THE DAY). From blogs.wsj.com.

On my recent visit to Scandinavia I witnessed several examples of homes with grass rooftops, especially in Norway. These aren’t particularly modern looking houses. They were actually quite rickety and barn-like, which just goes to show that you don’t need to have an ultra new house to go green.

Still, a green roof is both beautiful and functional and would look fantastic on a modern home, My Ultimate Home.

And it’s not just easy on the eyes. One CNN story I found from 2001 about the green rooftop trend in Chicago reported that a greenery-covered rooftop saves 20 to 30 percent in air conditioning costs in summer for a single story building.

Another story from Altenergymag.com details other extensive personal and environmental benefits to green roofs. For example, the turf will filter pollution out of rainwater, and will contribute to absorbing atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis. The grass also acts as a reservoir that soaks up the water from a downpour and releases it slowly over a longer period of time, preventing flooding.

This strikes me as much the same process as happens in a forest compared to a deforested area. A healthy forest (like a green roof) will soak up rain water and release it slowly into streams and rivers, whereas a deforested area (like a non-green roof) doesn’t absorb as much and makes waterway flooding more likely.

Supposedly a green roof also lasts longer than a regular roof, which offsets the price of getting the whole kit ‘n caboodle installed in the first place.

Green roof drawbacks: the roof must be accessible for regular maintenance; it must also be able to hold the extra weight of turf, at the very least, and at the most, a full-blown garden. That is, if you want to get fancy, and I do.

Now where to put the solar panels?

The bottom of an Ultima Thule beer glass, designed by Tapio Wirkkala for Iittala.

The Finnish glassware giant Iittala has been around since 1881, and their classic designs are fresh as Finnish fish. Consider the famous Aalto Vase, designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto in the 1930s. The vase looks good anywhere and never seems dated, unlike my grandparents’ crystal candy bowls.

What makes Iittala stuff special is that it has never seemed innappropriate to current decorating, whatever “current” may have been over the last 80 years. Cut crystal, on the other hand, needs de-grannying. It can look great in the right eclectic context: a nonstereotypically granny setting. In contrast, Iittala items seem to have skipped their awkward going-out-of-style phase altogether. Has Iittala found the design equivalent of the fountain of youth, or are Finnish grannies really hip?

Either way, after a spendthrifty trip to Finland I already have a hoard of Iittala for my Ultimate Home.

Blossom & Bill plate by Sandra Isaksson

Happy, carefree, and playful. If only we could all be like Blossom and Bill. Plus, I bet they could teach us a thing or two about organic wine, and how to make a delicious soup from locally grown gourds.

They remind me a little of Saturday Night Live’s Lovers sketch series with Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch, except cuter. Still, some spiced lamb shanks wouldn’t be out of place on this lovely plate.