I admit I’ve been duped a time or two. I have purchased bogus creams touted to eliminate freckles and thin thighs. I have consumed carrot juice until I turned orange thinking it aided weight loss. I’ve bought a Wonder Bra and dental bleaching kits thinking that doors would start to magically open for me if I lifted my chest and smiled.
This partly explains why I swoon when I go through model homes. They suck me in because they’re perfect. I want perfect! I study the backgrounds, the furniture, the fixtures, the accessories, and think: This doesn’t look so complicated. Surely my home can look like this.
But hard as I try, my home never does. I’ve come to realize it never will and now I know why.
Next time you’re in a model home, before you go all weak in the knees and soft in the head, think about what you see: The boy’s room has only three toys: a bat, a ball and a glove. On the wall are a ball cap, two baseball pennants and a signed Cal Ripken poster. The girl’s room has three princess books, one doll, a tutu and a tiara. The parents’ closet has four perfectly pressed outfits all in the same tasteful color, three pairs of never-worn shoes, and a hat one would wear to the Kentucky Derby.
The table is set with unstained place mats and pristine, pressed cloth napkins. It looks as if the wave of a wand would put dinner on the table without a mess in the kitchen and with everyone in the family getting along.
Like that’s real life. In reality kids’ interests change like the weather. One week they’re an aspiring soccer or tennis pro, the next week a dancer or race car driver, then they hit their ninja rock star phase. Plus, they have stuff: school papers, singing hamsters, gum wad collections, Russian nesting dolls, ant farms and boxes of dead butterflies. Parents’ closets are a mayhem that reflect career changes, expanding and shrinking waistlines, outfits in style four presidents ago, and nothing suitable for the winner’s circle at the Derby. Most kitchens are just a blizzard of mail and manic meal making.
In short, model homes are to lived-in homes what movie sets are to real life.
“Designing a model home interior is entirely different from doing residential design,” says Mary Miranda, vice president for Hillary Reed Interiors, a Littleton firm that has done nothing but model home design for 30 years. “We create an essence, a feeling of possibility that can never exist because people don’t really live there.”
I knew that.
OK, so if it’s all a facade, what exactly stands between real home design and model home design?
“Most people know models are just for show,” Miranda says. “They don’t really think their homes will look like that.”
“No, of course not,” I say, lifting my chest and smiling. “Who would think a thing like that?”
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. You may contact her through .
A pro reveals her secrets
Longtime model-home designer Mary Miranda shared these tricks – and advantages – of her trade.
Fresh start. When doing a model, designers begin with a clean slate. They come in at the ground level and specify every single finish and detail in the home – tile, grout, wall colors, flooring, cabinetry – to make sure the whole house coheres. Most of us, on the other hand, simply make do with what’s there.
No baggage. Model designers don’t come to the project with favorite pieces of art they’ve collected or furnishings they’re attached to. Instead, they custom order and select art, mats and frames, and every stick of furniture to coordinate with the interior scheme.
No arguments. Model-home designers don’t argue with spouses or kids over how to do a room. They just get their way.
Real money. Because builders know the more decked out the model is, the more homes and upgrades they will sell, they give designers the budget and OK to do the whole house. I can only dream.
Smoke and mirrors. Model designers order furniture that allows foot traffic to flow, and that makes rooms look larger when necessary.
Where’s the stuff? Because their goal is to let people see the home and its architecture, not the stuff, they allow zero clutter.
False fronts. When staging bookshelves, they select books for their covers, not their contents. Sometimes they cover all books on a shelf in the same leather. But who buys books for their covers?
Theme rooms. Designers typically peg one child’s room for, say, a boy golfer and another for a girl horseback rider. In the boy’s room, they’ll have four golf shirts, a bag of clubs, three golf hats, and golf-ball handles on the faucet. The girl’s room will have tall riding boots, a crop and some jodhpurs. No kid is that one-dimensional.
Storage style. Model master closets feature a monochromatic wardrobe that ties into the master décor, meaning all the outfits go with the bedspread. No one actually buys clothes that way.
