Making Your Home Your Home

By Jeffrey Hauser

Article Word Count: 919

I’ve lived in three apartments, one condo, one cabin, and six houses. During that period, I experienced a variety of furnishings and interiors. Different color schemes, themes, layouts, and traffic flows. Each seemed to go with our lifestyle or age. For example, in the beginning, avocado green and harvest yellow appliances were all the rage. Bright foil-covered wallpaper and Formica countertops were huge. So went followed the decorator trends like everyone else. In later years, our taste changed and we toned down our interiors. We also learned about quality versus price, comfort versus style, and fad versus classic design. It was an education process.

I have pictures of every house I ever owned. It’s a rude awakening to relive the past experiences and try to understand our mindsets during certain eras. Or make that, errors. The outlandish wallpapers that were a pain to put up and seam, were just one instance. I can still visualize an orange shag rug. We had scoop chairs that were amazingly uncomfortable and plastic beads for a window treatment. Slowly, we evolved back to a civilized world. The sad part was that we made all these poor decisions out of free will. We got to choose anything and everything we wanted, and, unfortunately, did.

But we were influenced by: (a) television shows, (b) decorator magazines, (c) salespeople, (d) friend’s and family’s homes, (e) model homes which we loved to tour, and (f) our own taste in color, style, and fashion. This holds true for most everyone to this day. But it doesn’t have to be so. To prove it, you should see what we’ve done in our present home. We designed it to strictly suit our needs. Notice I said ‘our’ needs. That means, we didn’t consider anyone else. It’s custom designed around our lifestyle.

Here are some examples. We don’t encourage overnight company and, therefore, don’t have a ‘spare’ bedroom. We eat at a large, solid quartz kitchen counter. It also serves as a workspace and where we read the morning paper. We don’t own a kitchen table, because we don’t need one. Instead, our eat-in kitchen serves as our office area. It contains his and her desks for our home-based web business, ‘The Nurse’s Choice,’ including computers, fax machine, copier and other office equipment. A reclining chair and couch face the glass doors so we can look out toward the back yard and our mountain view. The former formal dining room, is a combination game area with a chess set and gaming table and music room, There, I play the keyboard, harmonica, bongos, and guitar. The living room has just a couch and widescreen television in an entertainment center. In the ‘country’ corner, is our imitation mountain fir tree, large hand-carved, wooden bear and logs. At Christmastime, the tree lights up.

The rest of the house is also designed to fill our needs. The second bedroom serves as a gym with exercise equipment and a large walk-in, custom-designed, closet with built-ins for my wife’s clothes. The master bedroom has another widescreen television so we can watch movies in bed. There I have my closet, also with custom built-ins. The third bedroom is a hobby room for craft projects and has a single sofa. The closet is also custom-built for our travel gear as we are gone a lot.

We chose all the bath and kitchen cabinet woods and colors. All the floors are tile with a few area rugs because we hate wall-to-wall carpeting that holds dirt and dust. Every wall is painted in a color because we dislike white walls. All the lighting was designed and installed to enhance and provide what was needed for each space.

I have my own wants and tiled the garage floor, to keep it easier to clean and insect-free. There, I have a custom workbench, storage cabinet, and custom lighting. Everything is stored off the floor and I even have a phone.

The back and front yard is low-maintenance with a minimum of plants and trees. It’s on a drip system, grass-free with river rock, and a block wall fence that never needs painting. All of these things were our choice. We ignored what is traditional and opted for personal function. It’s a great house and suits us to a ‘T.’ In the beginning, we got a few comments from visitors but they understand this is our home and our design. We don’t need or intend to please anyone else.

And that is premise. Make a house you own. It doesn’t have to meet anyone else’s agenda or standards. Make the choices that you have to live with, not the other relatives. If they were making the mortgage payments, then I could understand. You’re the one that spends the time and it’s your money. Invest in yourself and lifestyle and you’ll be better off But remember, it’s your castle and treat it that way. And so, if you need to install an alligator-filled moat…

Jeffrey Hauser was a sales consultant for the Bell System Yellow Pages for nearly 25 years. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Advertising and has a Master's Degree from Monmouth University. He had his own advertising agency in Scottsdale, Arizona and ran a consulting and design firm, ABC Advertising. He has authored 6 books and a novel, "Pursuit of the Phoenix," available at amazon.com. His latest book is, "Inside the Yellow Pages." Currently, he is the Marketing Director for thenurseschoice.com, a Health Information and Doctor Referral site.