Your Sexy House?

I just clicked on the number of people online a moment ago and found this unusual post about Sex and real estate and there is actually a book about it. As I considered the post it hit me I have a couple of stories that might have been considered for that book if only the author had known. The book isn't eally about SEX so much as it is about the feelings that sex raises in most of us-excitement, affection, passion, maybe even eventual disappointment?

So in the interest of sharing perhaps I'll tell them here? First one: I have often joked that I was fated to be drawn into real estate at some point in my life as payback for my mother's obsession with every new home near our home. Her goal was to find new decorating ideas and frankly everyone who ever visited my Mother's home had something to say about it. Whether it was the unbelievably large flowers on the kitchen walls in the Illinois house to the vines on the ceiling in the AZ house. (Blue walls) So the sky was on the bottom? I never understood that kitchen and never dared to come home after drinking too much with the IL house. It was hard to face those flowers when sober for breakfast! Can you imagine facing them on a rocky stomach? Whew! I highly advise loud bright flowers on the kitchen walls when your kids hit their teenage years-perhaps it will work for them too and they too will swear off drinking due to the reaction they would have in the morning to the wall paper in their kitchens!

Homes are such personal things. Different things about a house attracts different buyers to it as a home. Sometimes it's the kitchen and the bathrooms. If you speak to most experienced REALTORS about what you should update to get the most money out of your upgrade investment they will tell you to work on the kitchens and the bathrooms. Now you know why. These are places where we come to be "home" for the food and the baths and the relaxing. It's where you might keep a bottle of wine cool or the best man-sized sandwiches in town. In Texas it's where the best chili in the neighborhood might be slow cooked to perfection. It's where we gather to rehash the terrors of the day and find a warm hug that makes it all better. Therein lies the feeling of home, you see? It's not so much the place as the place where the people who matter will gather. It's the images in our minds that we see when we visit a home. It 's whether we can smell our families favorite dish being cooked in THAT kitchen and them at the table happily enjoying the great food coming out of THAT oven. It's the outdoor seating area where all can gather and laugh, tease and sip cool drinks late in the day. It's the windchimes swinging from the soffit that draws that calming reaction to a place and time.

It's seeing a jet tub in the bathroom that leads a very stressed mom and dad to believe that this house will finally give them some peace, rest, relaxation so that they can be a better parent and spouse to their family.

Second story: my very first house and then home wasn't really a house it was a 3 bedroom villa that had old green carpet and ugly vinyl floors when I bought it but, something about that cozy villa spoke to me, it wasn't the kitchen or the bathroom! It was the fact that it had a garage! In Illinois! I had a garage and I was in heaven-no more scraping of the darn windows on the car every morning of my life-this divorced thing was getting better in some ways. I was a newly single mom and very nervous about being singularly responsible for two other lives all by myself but, now I wasn't going to have to scrape car windows every single day or warm up the car to be sure that I could get to school for the kids and work for me! Whoooeee (that was passion!) I hate scraping.

I had a vision for that house to become a home and started in right away. The walls were white so I could live with that for a bit, but the floors were killing my visual spirit. I called the carpet supply guys and they made a visit leaving me with samples until the next week. They tore out all of the old ugly green and put in a fresh raspberry in the living room and down the long hall, the bedrooms were redone in a silver grey and I was happy! it was a whole new home, it was gorgeous and heaven help the child that spilled anything on "the rug". They loved it too so there were no arguements. I did the vinyl myself for the kitchen and attached laundryroom and then I started asking friends to visit. It became home, right after that first visit by friends and family. (I was proud in a good way.) It's funny what makes a house a home. What makes your house -home?

p.s. for those of you who might think that I inherited my mothers taste in wild decorating? I have one thing to say-when I sold that little villa-I made almost 10K in less than two years. Not such bad taste after all! eh?