My close friends and I have long had a fantasy about buying a large piece of property and building a retirement village for the bunch of us. I’ve even designed the compound, which would be comprised of a large common building surrounded by tiny houses connected to the common space by hallways. It’s a little weird looking, but I think it would work beautifully. Alas, we can’t agree on WHERE to put the house (and none of us are especially flush with cash just now), so our grand plans have come to nothing. However, while we can’t seem to get it together, there’s a group of young women in China who have made our dream their reality.

What started as an inside joke among a group of close friends has turned into a beautiful reality in the suburbs of Guangzhou Province. These seven young women have long fantasized about buying a big house and retiring together, but they never believed it would actually happen. However, their dream came true when they discovered a derelict mansion for sale. After some intense discussions and phone calls, the group realized they could actually afford to purchase and renovate the huge house. The 7,535-square-foot, 3.5-story building has oodles of communal space and seven bedrooms – one for each of the women.

“We’ll probably cook together, barbecue in the fields, sing and collect food in the village. We joke that each of us should practice one skill so that we won’t be lonely and fight with each other 10 years later … Some can cook beautiful food, some know traditional Chinese medicine, some play instruments and some grow vegetables.”

The renovations are all but done, and the group even had enough left over to build themselves a tea pavilion in the rice paddy beside the house. The whole place seems like something out of a fairy tale. They’re inspiring me to resurrect our golden years home idea…