Hooked on Hopping off the "Stage" Coach, Or: Relax! That Old House is not for sale!

Thank goodness it's Friday, and it's time for Julia's Hooked On . . . blog party.
See end of post for information on joining in!

Simple and plain. And dull.
When is enough simplicity too much?

Plain, plain, plain . . . .
Come with me as I try and jump off the Stage coach!

Last year, we sold a house with which we had an intimate relationship,
and we had to turn it into a stranger to do so. Now, I am stuck in a staging rut.

***********************************************

When you buy a fixer-upper, and you are young, and you need to do the fixer-upper-ing yourself because you can't afford to "pay the man," you get to be on very intimate terms with your house.

In my mind's eye I can see every square inch of our old brick Craftsman bungalow, inside and out, every cranny and corner and nook, every scratch and dent, every boo-boo, every perfect place. Here it is in October 2007, our last autumn there:

Our former house

My girls stood at the top of those steps every September for their First Day of School pictures. I have a lot of what my Mom called "heart pictures" of this house.

We made this neglected and abused house our home. We fixed and painted and replaced and restored and nursed along everything in and on this house, and our family stamp was everywhere.

And then, 21 years later, we decided to sell and buy a bigger place. Time to rub out the family stamp and, if HGTV were to be believed, make this house -- meant for family life -- look as if no one lived there.

We rented storage space, and I ruthlessly packed away the family pictures, any collections, any decor that didn't look as if "Designed to Sell" would buy it for an Open House, unnecessary furniture, everything -- until there was no sign of a family or hobbies or life. Perfect.

Eerie, but perfect.

Our daughters, away at college, came home to bedrooms stripped of their accumulated "stuff," with all their photographs and knick knacks and treasures bundled away as if they were porn.

My daughter Anne, the design student, walked into her room and wailed, "Oh no! Mom, it looks like Pottery Barn in here!"

Yes, it did look like Pottery Barn. Anne's room, once painted in Martha Stewart's Jadeite Green, was a triumph of serene anonymity in sandy beiges and white. And that room was a favorite at Open Houses. "I could stay in that room all day!" sighed more than one prospective buyer.

Well, yes... but I guarantee you couldn't live in it! It looked like a hotel room, not like the room of an artistic 20-year old with a theatrical bent. As Gertrude Stein said, "There is no there there."

But good news -- our home sold, and we were outta there.

The problem is now. I understand about staging for sale; I don't really have much sympathy for chuckleheads who can't see past lavender paint or moose heads on the wall, but I do understand about the staging.

We moved to That Old House, and I can't jump off the "Stage" coach! After being so obsessed with turning a very personal home into an impersonal stage set, I still feel as if I need to keep things spare and clutter-free and anonymous. But -- is it clutter if you love it?

I have been resisting adding "clutter" to my rooms.

My end tables are bare.

My sideboard is woefully under-decorated. (I don't count the music system as decor!)

My bedroom dresser has a lamp, and just recently I went quite wild
and put a little Limoges tray and hair receiver on it.

(Oops... unmade bed reflected in mirror. My bad.)

By the way, this little dresser tray and hair receiver are so cute... and they don't match!

A married pair:

Last night I put something on the coffee table in the study,
other than a stack of books and magazines:

Wow. No Clutter Police knocking on the door. :-)

Baby steps. Not enough, not yet pretty, but baby steps. I still can't get things up on the walls. Our upstairs hall -- 7 doorways, 2 stairwells, and nothing on the walls but paint:
Our downstairs hall. This is our entry, and there should be something welcoming about it!

I've got boxes full of prints, paintings, photographs. About the only thing I feel confident hanging are mirrors, and you can't get much more anonymous than that.

I didn't say I wasn't hanging wacky mirrors, just anonymous ones.

I've been defeated by HGTV, browbeaten and cowed by television decorators who still need to use Clearasil. How sad is this? Stand with me, my blogging friends; tell me I can fill my shelves with whatever I like, from the sublime:

Meissen tea pot

. . . to the ridiculous:

also a tea pot, but -- not Meissen.

Help me reclaim my decorating muscle!

Family pictures are not naughty French postcards!
Anne, below, playing "dress up."
(She will be going to grad school for costume design; could we see that coming?)

Well, maybe some family pics are a bit of soft porn. . .

Alida, below, showing her usual lack of inhibitions.
Fun times at our former house.

Sorry for the detour; I found those pics by accident and they cracked me up.
But I ask you, would family photos really stop someone from buying a house?

(We looked at a house that was filled with oddball collections, including life sized dolls
with plastic bags tied over their heads, like hostages taken by ZipLoc.
Somewhat unsettling, but if we'd liked the house it would not have been a deal breaker.)

I need help. Look at my fireplace:

How sad looking is that?

Do you manage to decorate for yourself, your own tastes? Or are you hung up
on something and does it hold you back? Is there someone's opinion that makes you think twice?

Have a lovely weekend! -- Cass

***************************************************

Join the Hooked On party. . .

Make sure you visit Julia's wonderful Hooked On Houses blog,
for more "Hooked On..." posts today;
they are always such a wild and wonderful collection of stories! Click here to go there!