20 years, 10 homes, 1,040 columns
I might get a little sentimental today. This is the 20th anniversary of my — well, really our — weekly column. In addition to feeling old, I also feel grateful.
It was actually slightly more than 20 years ago that I was living in Southern California, working as a freelance writer when an editor from the Orange County Register called. The paper was launching a monthly regional magazine targeting owners of luxury homes — think Laguna and Newport Beach — and he wanted a column that would be the antidote to potentially pretentious content.
“So,” I said, “you want a column that is not about rich homeowners and their chichi architects and their museumquality art collections and the exquisite homes they build on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific and how the whole experience was one giant lovefest, and they had money left over?”
“Right,” he confirmed, “a reality column.”
He'd found the right writer. At that point,
I had built two homes from the ground up, had the debt and cortisol levels to prove it and had an arsenal of frustrations.
Still disbelieving, I said, “You want me to write about the tile mason with the drinking problem, the neighbors who won't speak to you because you've had an outhouse and a dumpster parked in your front yard for three months, the dogs who got so fed up with the construction they ran away in search of a rescue and about how the remodel took three times as long, cost three times as much and you weren't speaking to your spouse at the end?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Sprinkle in some advice. Be the girl next door who has the same problems as everyone else but is two steps ahead because you've made the mistakes and know who to call.”
Eighteen months later, my thenhusband and I moved from Southern California to Colorado — just one of my many moves. And soon, I had a syndicated column. That former editor congratulated me, then ominously said: “It's great to have a weekly column, but one day, you are going to run out of ideas.”
Until then, a dry well hadn't been on my worry list. I flashed back to when I was in kindergarten and got in trouble for talking too much in class. I wound up in the principal's office with my mother to discuss “the problem.” When the principal asked why I talked so much, the answer was easy. “I just have so many important things to say,” I said, which was unintentionally hilarious.
So here we are 20 years and 1,040 columns later and I still have things to say and no shortage of topics. Because I have never been able to see where home design stops and home life begins, my columns are about both. Here's a brief look back at some of the moments we've been through together: THE CALAMITIES >> You were there when my two custom 7-foot sofas arrived with the upholstery fabric inside out, when the back patio in our new Colorado home fell 3 feet into a sink hole and when our rescue dog on his first night with us tested our commitment on the one-day-old living room carpet. (Who gets a new dog and new carpet on the same day?)
THE MANY MOVES >> You were there through 10 houses and nine moves, including the move to Florida, where I had a stint as a live-in home stager and moved six times in four years.
THE LIFE CHANGES >> You were there when I sent each of my children off to college, entering some sort of self-imposed dorm-decorating contest in which I was the sole contestant. You were there through my divorce and remarriage, the loss of two parents and the gain of three grown stepchildren.
THE MICRO AND MACRO >> Together, we've covered the minor (how to choose drawer knobs and tea towels) and the major (the meaning of home and belonging and how to leave a meaningful legacy.
THE CELEBRITY ENCOUNTERS >> We both learned from world-class experts including the late architect Michael Graves, goddess of domesticity Martha Stewart, “This Old House” star and carpenter extraordinaire Norm Abram, the Property Brothers, and other illustrious and less illustrious experts who generously shared their expertise.
THE UPSIZING, DOWNSIZING, RIGHTSIZING >> You contributed in so many ways to my domestic documentaries that resulted in seven books about all things home — decorating on a budget, trying to live beautifully with those who don't, downsizing, blending two houses into one, and rightsizing your life to live where, how, with whom and with what you want.