It's true.
I'm addicted to buildings. Always have been.
I suppose it's the artist in me. The same uncontainable imagination that helps me create characters and paint pictures, also flings me headlong into the hidden mysteries of houses. I can't help myself.
I doubt there is any help for me. I am hopelessly enamored of houses of every size, shape and age. You want me to buy your sappy romance novel, just put a big house on the cover. (Some of you can relate, I know it.)
You see, the lovely, interesting, or surprising has always delighted my eye. The marvel of architecture old and new, captivates my mind. I am seduced by the sensual dance of light and shadow, of line, texture, color and design. These thrill me. The audacity of skyscrapers, for instance, makes me laugh out loud and feel like skipping. Even now, at my age.
But it's houses that most stir my blood. Because houses are about people's real, intimate lives, and yes, people do make my world go 'round. I love people like God loves people. I do.
People and houses go together.
So, houses, and the stories that unfold behind their decorative doors and sparkling (or even grimy) windows, the secrets they keep, the joy they bring, the lives they nurture -- houses and the history and promise they hold never fail to catch my imagination and run with it. I love houses for the people (and pets) who have lived in them, live in them now, and and those that will live in them someday.
A favorite game of mine is to read a house like a book. As a child traveling the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its many and varied neighborhoods, I would amuse myself by imagining all the interesting people and their amazing lives. From rowhouse to mansion, shotgun to multi-storied flat, to the fancy painted Victorian ladies, I loved them all. Even the rather plain post-war framed homes tenaciously hugging the hillsides, or the mid-century brick ranches and split-levels of my own working-class neighborhood just west of downtown. It's a love affair that has never for a minute waned or faltered.
I lived a few places since those girlhood days, from coast to coast and north to south. I now reside and work in Atlanta. America is a treasury of wonderful homes of every imaginable style. Every state has it's share of pure gems, and Georgia is no exception. Atlanta and it's surrounding communities are a house-aholic's dream!
And that's why I'm doing what I do. After years of flirting with the idea of someday getting into real estate and actually making houses my business, I finally made the leap. And let me tell you, even in this challenging market cycle, I have no regrets.
Because I get to do what I love -- houses.
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