I am just a sucker for curly koa. I am fortunate enough to have some koa furniture, but I’m greedy - I always want more! The color, the fabulous grain - honestly, I don’t think there’s a prettier wood. I linger at the window of Martin & MacArthur (I have one piece of theirs, but I still regret the one that got away), King & Zelko, Nohea Gallery, Richard Dellera Studio … I know I’m leaving another place out.

I finally figured out a way to curb the lust to buy (more…)

… apparently, it’s not just for inside the home any more: people selling homes on the ML also stage their yards:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/realestate/30cov.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Hmm, interesting concept. I have a small but nice yard, with some mature trees and plantings, and some I’ve added myself, but during certain times of the year, like now, when it’s so hot, I just sprint up the steps to my home and basically ignore the outside, except for watering the plants by the door. My housemate has commented on how nice the yard would look, if only it had some basic upkeep, and has been trimming some plants, weeding, etc. and when I took a fresh look at the place the other day, it did look better. I guess I’m more an inward-looking person (how does my home look to me) than outward (how does my home look to passers-by), but now her actions and this article are inspiring me to take a fresh look and do a little more outside (only in the early a.m. or late p.m., though, when it’s not so broiling!).

…all my musing about how to present/arrange/live in my home circle one question: do we arrange our homes to suit ourselves or to present them to others? Now, an individualist like me has a hard time not tossing out an indignant “to suit ourselves,” but a little reflection on that reveals that it’s not quite true, at least for me. For one thing, I don’t live in this house by myself. I still remember one of my daughter’s young friends coming over and looking around our home, which I thought was creative and stimulating, and frowning, said, “Why is your house so messy?” Since then, I’ve taken a more objective look at the house and tried to differentiate between the creatively messy and the just plain disorgaized and messy, so that (more…)

… well, I had the opportunity to go to the midnight show of Pirates of the Caribbean (part 2), but forwent the chance to stay home and put my money where my mouth is on the house (lest you think I’m a total dweeb who would forego fun just to stay home and clean, I note that the movie is well over 2 hours and I’d probably get home after 2:30 am, and I would have had to get up four hours later for work, so….).

Anyway, my bedroom is usually the nicest place in the house anyway, but it’s got clutter along the edges - clothes tossed on a chair (ok, two chairs), clutter on the vanity, by the closet … get the picture?  The main part of the room is clear and looking good, but the corners…!

Anyway, it’s almost all done now, and I have to say that it feels fresher in there already (it’s gotta be the decor, as the thermometer still reads 82.5 degrees).

As I said, I’ve been thinking a bit about the possibility of selling my house a few years down the line, and the idea of living in my home, now, as a staged house is intriguing. I love the lack of clutter and resultant spacious feel of a staged home. Why not live like that now? Why not get rid of clutter and come home to a house that looks special every day, not just when (after an exhausting bout of cleaning) I’m expecting company?

I guess what I like is (more…)

… back when I was looking at houses to buy, I didn’t realize that there even was a term for the art of decorating a house for sale so that it looked inviting. I do remember looking at some houses with the owners still living in them that were off-putting as they were dingy, crowded, and run-down. Fifteen years later, I still remember one home in Mililani with an awesomly crammed closet, one that made the whole bedroom seemed crowded and a little sad. It was only the new homes in Mililani that had the “staging” - furniture and decoration brought in to give people an idea of what it would be like to live in that house. In the early days, these staged homes looked somewhat contrived, but as we continued to look over the months and years, the new model that came on line became stunning. In fact, these Mililani homes looked so good that they launched the career of Shari Saiki, who decorated many of them, and became a professional stager and opened her own furniture store, mesh.

You’d think that (more…)

… it’s not that I’m obsessed with dwellings so much as I consider them an integral part of what it means to be human. Yes, beaver no doubt strive to build the thickest dam, birds the fluffiest nest - I’m not saying that only humans build personalized habitations. I’m just saying that the strictures that people choose to live in fascinate me more than, say, the clothes they chose to wear. To me there’s something much more personal - in this age of mass-produced clothing and the magazines to tell you how to wear it - than there is in home design and decoration.

Which is why I have my Google webcam set to the Eiffel Tower. (more…)

too much junk? That’s one of the issues I’m grappling with now, no matter whether I stay or I go. If I stay, less junk frees up space, reduces clutter, improves the flow of chi so important for feng shui, makes me less crazy. If I go, so much less expanse and HASSLE in moving. I’ve been watching a neighbor move in, and the amount of stuff she has - for her tiny one bedroom apartment - just boggles my mind. I’ve given her a hand with a few things, and she keeps saying, apologetically, “I’m going to put it on craiglist!” … doesn’t it make sense to do that before you move (and she had a month and a half’s notice), rather than rent to U-Haul, hire two movers, and pack it in to her tiny space? Yowza!

Lee Cataluna wrote a wry column on this in today’s Advertiser. Talked about the bloody fortune people here pay to store stuff they don’t really need … in places that are nicer than their own homes … yeah, that makes sense….

… as I said, I’m thinking about moving away - not right now, but perhaps in a few years. I was afraid to voice this thought, as I believed that then I’d lose all desrie and enthusiams for my home improvement projects. I didn’t like the idea of that sapping my motivation.

Surprisingly, (more…)

… I know this is a weird thought from a blog focused on improving my house, but lately I’ve been giving more thought to leaving the island. Why? Family, of course … if there’s one thing that should be understandable about why someone would ever leave here, it should be family. Oh, usually it’s the other way around - your kids go to the Mainland for college, find an exciting world out there, maybe get a job or an advanced degree there, too … and then Mom or Dad falls ills, needs some help, and the kids are reeled back to Hawaii. Most of them don’t seem to regret it, but quite a few that I’ve met still miss their old home on the ML.

I guess I could hang tough and wait for the kids to boomerang back home, or even lure them back home with tales of ill health, but that would be bogus.If they’re all there, and I’m here without them, except for the obligatory one-week-home-a year visit … then why am I still here?