Last week, as I continued my tradition of ending the year with a two-part look back at the preceding 12 months, I shared my favorite lessons for the first half of 2015. Here’s what a check in my rearview mirror reflected for the past six months. Top takeaways range from cutting a sofa down to size to finding the next best thing to home for an elderly parent:
IN JULY, after four years of living a vagabond life as a live-in home stager, helping to sell other people’s houses, I traded in that way of life for a permanent address and no lockbox on the door.
DC, being the perceptive man that he is, knew that the way to my heart was through my home. Sure, I could keep living my life as a human prop, or I could accept his offer of a beautiful new house with a wonderful stable man attached. The same afternoon that DC signed the loan docs, he opened a kitchen drawer inside the happy yellow house, pulled out a little box and asked me to marry him. Houses and relationships go hand in hand, and what makes a house a home is the love inside.
IN AUGUST, I discovered you can shorten a sofa. On paper, the two 7-foot-long micro-suede sofas fit perfectly on the landing. But when the movers set them down, one sofa overshot the half wall it backed up to by a good 2 feet. “Aaach!” I thought. “If I could only chop off one end.”
That led to a Google search: “Can you shorten a sofa?” which led to a wonderful local upholsterer who picked up the sofa, took it to his shop, cut out the midsection, smacked the two ends together like bookends, and turned the three-cushioned sofa into a two-cushion love seat. Magically, the back panel of fabric stayed seamless.
The before and after reminded me of those miracle weight-loss ads: same person one-third smaller. Lesson: Good upholsterers can do much more than recover worn furniture. They can remodel it.
IN SEPTEMBER, I learned that if you want to get to know a person, sofa shop with him.
“I didn’t think it would be so hard,” I say, as we left our sixth store one evening.
“Or take so long,” DC added.
Then I realized what the holdup was: This sofa would not only make the largest statement in the largest room of our new house, but it would also dictate the design direction of our merged households. Would we be traditional, transitional, contemporary, modern or rustic? The right sofa would be the kingpin that would hold up — or not — our eclectic blended ensemble of furniture. The phrase “blended families” takes on a new meaning when furniture gets involved.
IN OCTOBER, I faced the blank wall. If you want to experience full-body paralysis, stand in front of a vacant set of built-in shelves, and try to accessorize them with style, meaning and purpose. The effort petrifies even the most accomplished home decorators.
The task is paralyzing because what gets displayed is a shout-out that says: This is a 3-D representation of my character, interests, taste, intellect and travels. And it’s worth it. Putting your collectibles (and they don’t have to be expensive, just interesting) on display is what gives your home soul. Moreover, collecting beautiful accessories needs to be part of your life well lived.
IN NOVEMBER, I fought city hall, almost. I promised my friend, an advocate for preserving historic homes in our town, that I would support a motion before the city commission to toughen up historic preservation laws. Who wouldn’t be for preserving our town’s historic charm? Well, at least 200 citizens in a standing-room-only auditorium, many carrying protest signs, that’s who. That eye-opening evening pitted those in favor of historic preservation against those in favor of property rights.
“Who owns my house, me, or me and the government?” one asked.
“I don’t want the city telling me what color I can paint my house,” said another.
Clearly, this issue hits people where they live, and divides communities. While I don’t have a perfect answer, I can offer some thoughts. Laws aside, here are my rules: If you don’t like historic homes, and don’t want to remodel them according to their heritage, don’t buy one. If your home contributes to the architectural ambience of an historic neighborhood, respect that. If you want to build your dream house, go ahead, but don’t knock down a historic home to do so.
IN DECEMBER, I moved my 93-year-old mother from California, her home state since 1948, to Florida, to be closer to me. I had visited her at her assisted-living facility in Los Angeles two months earlier. Mom, who has some dementia, looked at me and said, “Seeing you makes me realize how much I miss you.”
I felt the same way. Then she told me that more than anything, she wanted to go home.
Although Mom couldn’t go home, she could be closer to my home, the next best thing. Now that I finally had a stable home, I could do this. In a few weeks, I cleared the numerous hurdles that stood between getting mom — who is on oxygen and incontinent, and needs help bathing, dressing and eating — from one coast to another.
Since she arrived, I have visited her almost daily. We’ve had meals together and done crossword puzzles. I’ve curled her hair, and tucked her in. She is home for Christmas.
It’s a wonderful life. Happy New Year.
Syndicated columnist Marni Jameson is the author of two home and lifestyle books. Her new book, “Downsizing the Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go” (Sterling Publishing), comes out Jan. 5.
