WHAT HAPPENED TO HOME SWEET HOME?
A perky young presenter beamed at me from
TV the other day and said, “Of course, we all want to
make money from our houses, don’t we?.”
That’s a given. With expectations fuelled by stellar
prices, the young and the perky don’t want to know that
the home they inhabit might someday be less valuable than
it was yesterday.
I told one bright-eyed investor recently that seven years
ago houses languished for months without buyers, often selling
for tens of thousands less than the asking price. In the late
1990s the only word for real estate was dire. She winced a
little, but I could see she was thinking, well, that was then,
it’s not like that now…
So the lust for ever-smarter homes rolls on and on, with every
woman apparently hanging out for a “gourmet” kitchen
with granite benches, shiny appliances and thousand-dollar
light fittings. Halogen lights must shine down like stars,
everything has to be remotely controlled and polished wood
must gleam underfoot.
It’s all very wonderful. But when, I wonder, did houses
become just commodities, more valued for their net worth than
their warmth?
We can all look back to plain-jane houses we grew up in. My
childhood home still had a “safe” – a food
cupboard on the kitchen’s coolest wall with a wire screen
to the outside that let in air and kept flies out. I can still
smell the mouldy basement where my mum laboured over the clanking
wringer of the washing machine, with its grey rubber tubes
draining into dank concrete tubs.
Our house had clattering Venetian blinds and tufted candlewick
bedspreads. The floor was covered with felty stuff called
Bisonia Squares until we got real carpet. Cold, bare floorboards
were a shameful thing then, with homeowners yearning for the
day when they could afford wall-to-wall Axminster.
My grandparents’ old villa still had a scullery –
a dim corridor with a grotty old sink where my gran scrubbed
at the pots.
Roll on two generations and the smartest new homes have not
just sculleries but butler’s pantries too (as if we
all have a Jeeves on the payroll) and every carpet in sight
has been ripped up to display the floorboards. Once again,
dropped plates smash, fluff gathers in corners and winter
floors chill bare soles. Fashion is a contrary beast.
And worst of all, housing fashions are changing so fast that
a place you might have thought was hunky-dory 10 years ago
might now need a new fortune spent on it to keep it up to
scratch for far-too-discerning buyers.
Overdosed on too many episodes of Changing Rooms, My House
My Castle, Location, Location, Location and the House and
Garden Show today’s home seekers can’t help yearning
for the buffed, lush living spaces those shows espouse.
We sneer now at the boxy, boring houses that were just about
everyone’s lot in the 1950s. Who’d want those
awful floral carpets and flocked wallpapers? And yet, we lived
rich, real lives in those houses, didn’t we?
People partied and sang and made home brew, argued and cried,
mourned deaths, leapt into bed and made babies just the same,
albeit on kapok mattresses rather than inner-sprung.
All the marble tiles, power showers, stainless steel range-hoods
and plasma TVs in the world haven’t made for greater
happiness, have they? But against all reason, householders
as yet un-stung by any property reversals keep on believing
that greater luxury will bring lasting contentment. Stacking
the glossy mags high on their designer coffee tables, they
dream their dreams and wait for the day when they can sell
at a fat profit.
It seems the world now views houses as little more than money
in the bank. And once up for sale, they’re not even
allowed to be seen as personal spaces. You’ll have noted
all that advice about removing family photos and clearing
off fridge magnets so as to make rooms as neutral as can be,
devoid of life?
But without people, houses have no life at all. After we’ve
moved out, the people stuff is all we remember – what
happened there and what it did to our hearts. We recall the
emotional highs and hurts long after we’ve forgotten
whether we chose the “right” colour for the walls.
Or at least, that’s how it should be. If choosing superior
cupboard facings and hand-rail styles really seems more important,
then we’ve devalued something that used to be precious
– the real meaning of “home sweet home”.
Experience magazine
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