I live in the magic house. That's what my friends call it. So do all the children in the neighborhood, lots of flower clients and two old boyfriends.
I bought this beautiful bungalow 16 years ago that was purchased 95 years ago from someone who picked it out of a Sears's catalog. It was special then and even more so now. The magic house has experienced a lot... thousands of beautiful designs created inside its walls, countless holiday and New Year's Eve parties, two infamous backyard theatrical productions/blow-out parties, the famous Mermaid Soiree, and four photo shoots: Baltimore Magazine, Style Magazine, the Catholic Review and the Jewish Times. Even its garden is magical-- it was featured in Baltimore Magazine's Secret garden issue in 2004.
Ever since I bought the magic house, I have wanted to paint it the colors of the sea and citrus fruit, decorate it with layers and layers of texture and adorn it with things that make me happy and feel soft against my skin. That's what you get to do when you own your own home, you get to decorate and paint it any way you desire because it's yours, right?
Not so fast. The magic house is on the market and has been for six months now. That 16 years of living and loving shell-beaded mirrors, silk hanging lanterns, and insect-covered switch plates has come to an abrupt end. Why? Because it seems people need gray, beige, or white in order to see what color their new life's chapter will bring. People want a clean slate, a clear palette, upon which they can imagine the home of their dreams.
Lime green and "Raspberry peony" walls are being converted into eggshell and light gray. Patina and moss covered urns, shell-filled apothecary jars and collections of bird's nests continue to get packed up. And then there's the vintage persimmon Art Deco bark-cloth curtains that got replaced by beige Pier One damask panels. Is this what will sell the magic house?
Maybe, according to my realtor. But what about the flat white chalk covered walls and Rent-A-Center furniture I had to erase in my mind in order to see my world settled inside such a lifeless interior? Why do we have to strip the color and personality from our homes in order to sell them? Does it really make a that big a difference?
That's what they tell me. Funny how none of my friends have neutral houses. What ever will they do?
Until that sea-worshiping, citrus-fruit loving buyer discovers the magic house, I will just have to continue un-coloring, un-gluing and un-adorning the walls and rooms of a home that provided me and my family more life than I ever could have dreamed. Talk about neglected beauty.
All photos by C. Langrall
4 comments:
So sad to know you have to deprive yourself of your very personal sense of style in -still- your own house in order to sell it. It would be like being prisioner in a mental institution with white off walls and roofs... Big fat torture :S
That must be so difficult. I like your house and its decorations. Perhaps you should through a strike party and treat the denuding more as taking down a theatre set after a successful run. You are preparing the stage for the next director. And freeing yourself to create the next new world.
Charles :)
While you are removing the color, beauty and the very soul of your 'home' from the walls and floors, you are restoring it to a 'house' for some else to make their 'home'. However, you get to pack up the very soul of your 'home' and take this magic with you to where ever you will unpack and begin again to make your new 'home'. So when looking for your next 'house', look past the vanilla walls and see the magic that is waiting for you there. Don't go to far away please! We all enjoy sharing your beauty.
Heidi
I wish I could buy the magic house.
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