Are you house proud?

I've got a home that's a showplace
Still I can't get no place
With you

Some people take meticulous care of their house. Nothing is too good. They spend hours grooming the yard, buying furnishings, cleaning and burnishing. They like nothing better than showing it off, talking about it, admiring it quietly on a Sunday morning.

Other people (e.g. me) just want a roof that doesn't leak, a furnace that doesn't smoke, and furniture that won't collapse without warning. If the neighbors aren't openly hostile to the mess in the yard, we are well-contented to let it go another week.

Where do you stand?

A little from column A, a little from column B.

i live in a lean-to iirc

i'd like to be but i don't really have the resources (money/energy/manpower) to do the place up june cleaver style. i don't really like housework; i tend to leave messes until they become borderline comical.

I kinda hated our house until a tree fell on it and the insurance money provided the resources to get some work done on it beyond just the repairs. It's nice to listen to the rain falling and not wonder where the roof is going to spring its next leak. I enjoy gardening...but not so much the interior chores and house cleaning. We still have scribble marks on the walls from the kids of the previous owners. (We've been here 7 years, the longest we've ever lived in one place.)

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/njsouthall/sets/72157608931368946/

Reasonably house proud.

Clean but messy, I guess.

They like nothing better than showing it off, talking about it, admiring it quietly on a Sunday morning.

Yes, except for the showing it off and the talking about it. I like my spaces. They please me. That's what I ask of them and of myself.

I dunno... I guess I don't like the question, or the term. Yes, pride is a sin, but surely the alternative can't be lack of respect for your surroundings. Having pride in things you own is your incentive to take care of them. Unless the real question is, "Are you a prick?"

Chill out dude.

Well, no, seriously, I think that is the real question. Do you preen and gloat, or do you not?

I spent £2k on a sofa. I don't preen and gloat. I sit on it.

Well, there you go.

Home is a rage
Feels like a cage
Home is what you read
How you breed
Home is how you live...
I feel boxed in
I feel boxed in

Do you preen and gloat, or do you not?

Being houseproud is different from having expensive possessions though. You can be poor as a church mouse and houseproud, furnishing your place with a kind of simple living aesthetic (though you might risk getting written up in Momus's blog)

My house is pretty ace, Ned can attest to that, but I could care less about the things in it. Honestly, I'm not attached to the things I own. Also, if I didn't have a cleaner, it'd be filthy. I would do the most essential things and that's it. Also, having kids now, you can't have a pristine house. Impossible.

My house is pretty ace, Ned can attest to that

Ha, very true. :-)

I'm apartment-proud and quite content with that!

I'm actually mostly proud of the building itself. FIVE BEDROOMS YO and THREE BATHROOMS YO. Alas, it isn't mine yet. I am destined to get it from my parents. :-D It's big but doesn't feel that way (as it's *layered* instead of spreak out.) It's smack in the centre which makes it easy but otoh I wish we lived in the countryside (for the kids)

My wife and I try to strike a balance between what I want, which is a house that looks like we live in it, and what she (sometimes) wants, which is a house that looks like a catalogue showroom. But otherwise, no, I figure my house is for living in. I don't much care who else likes it. I do try to take care of the yard, though, at least in terms of mowing and making sure it's not covered in dandelions and crap like that.

Oh christ, I'd never want a "catalogue" house. No fucking way.

i don't think i'll ever be house proud. i don't understand decorating at all

It's smack in the centre which makes it easy but otoh I wish we lived in the countryside (for the kids)

Understood but I think they'll grow to love it on its own terms.

i don't think i'll ever be house proud. i don't understand decorating at all

High frickin five to that. I just don't have the home-improvement/tinkering/whatever gene, frankly. Likely that's a big part of why I've never felt the drive to own a place, I don't mentally do a 'I can change this here and repaint this there' process when I've looked for a new spot. It's always been 'oh hey, this looks comfortable, thanks!'

i do want to own a house though because i love tinkering and fixing stuff and would like to own my own thing. but someone else is going to have to find furniture for it or else it will be all empty except a bed, a table, and a chair.

Haha, I'll third alla that. Whenever my gf talks about stuff for her apt I'm just like *shrug* yeah paint it that color, cool. Beyond arranging the furniture so the place can accommodate guests I don't get too involved.

actually i would be proud of some stuff but not normal stuff. like i really want my house to have a root cellar.

I'm house practical. I'm clean and neat but I have no natural aptitude for decorating (if left unchecked, I would probably decorate our apartment to look like a cross between the Addams Family house and Norma Desmond's bedroom) and aside from a few Ikea things, the majority of our furniture is from second-hand shops. Also the toilet paper holder in the bathroom has been broken for years and we just never got around to fixing it. But it's not like you'd come in and think we were filthy, disgusting savages. Unless you were a total asshole.

xp I shit you not, I was just thinking yesterday that I wish I had a root cellar! I would also like an outdoor clothes line.

I've always been half tinkering and fixing engineer and half artsy fartsy designer type so house stuff fits pretty neatly into this. I'm not great at either but can fake both pretty well.

I'm proud in my house because we bought a (relatively) cheap one that hadn't been touched since the mid 1960s. We spent a summer doing tons of work on it - nothing really that major, but pretty significant, including basically a full kitchen remodel - and all the bits and pieces are things we chose and I think it all looks damn good. You can do so much for cheap too if you really want to, and I don't care about the pedigree of my building materials as long as they work and look good. We built a patio this summer out of a pile of old jackhammered concrete for instance, and it cost us maybe $200 in sand, dirt, and tool rentals.

That said, we can be lazy slobs so nothing is immaculate.

Basically the blessing and the curse imo. I dig my house. It has "curb appeal", but the interior is going to require a good deal of work and money to get it where it needs to be (it suffered a botchy DIY makeover sometime in the mid-80s).

Also it's time to repaint the exterior, and being all wood it's going to cost an arm and a leg. I'm too busy (and too lazy when I'm not busy) to attempt it myself.

I want to paint again, too. Soon, I will.

This thing is totally fun to play with: http://www.sherwin-williams.com/do_it_yourself/paint_colors/visualizer/

I think my living room needs a display wall in the color called "Obstinate Orange".

Em and I are both into design, but we're also both quite lazy. Also, we have big fluffy cats. Hence we have some nice furniture etcetera, but our house is never pristine.

I like my place.

I would like your place, too, Mr. Sitting-In-The-Catbird-Seat.

I would settle for the liquor cabinet, if you really want to know.

Even if it smelled funny.

I spent £2k on a sofa. I don't preen and gloat. I sit on it.

― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Saturday, September 5, 2009 4:27 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

i need to know what a 2K couch looks like pls

i think i would be house proud if i had furniture or nice things, but i don't. so i'm not really. once a week i go nuts cleaning everything up and it looks good (well, as good as a sparse, not architecturally stimulating place can look) but in a few days it gets cluttery again.

i need to know what a 2K couch looks like pls

― Hillary had Everest in his veins (sunny successor), Saturday, September 5, 2009 3:53 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Comes with a guy in a trucker hat on it.

i like our apartment, the space and way it's laid out, but we're pretty terrible about having stuff piled up all over the place. we could blame it on the kids, and we do, but every place we lived was like this even before kids. i think it's just how we live. i'm not proud of it, no. but i guess i feel comfortable squirreled in among it all.

I haven't really finished setting up my bedroom in my new place and tbh it's kind of driving my crazy. I'm not meticulous, or even particularly neat, but I like the challenge of using space efficiently.

I'm not meticulous, or even particularly neat, but I like the challenge of using space efficiently.

this is my latest obsession. we have a fairly large one bdr apartment, but we just seem to have so much stuff - our dining room is basically a bike workshop and our living room doubles as book-making studio. the book-making thing is taking up way way way more room than i had anticipated.

Bought our flat 4 years ago and it was in pretty bad nick (no central heating, leaky roof, decor not touched since the 70s, broken windows repaired with wrapping paper). Still it has a great layout and loads of light coming in through the skylight.

Anyway we saved up and recently had the whole lot re-done - new electrics, everything. Been planning it for a year and it was hell while it was a building site but it is absolutely gorgeous now. We hadn't done a single thing to it in the meantime (except put in central heating and repair the windows) - not even buying any lightshades or a new oven to replace the monstrosity that was there when we moved in - we wanted to do it all at once.

We used an architect & interior designer, mainly for the architectural stuff as there were supporting walls being moved and all that, although the designer did save us spending years deciding on a colour scheme etc. (The best room, the bathroom, we designer ourselves though). Uncovered an awesome orignial fireplace too.

I feel v v houseproud now, and really wary of taking care of it, not scratching paintwork, etc. Mind you it mainly looks good because we now have usuable loft space that we didn't before so loads of our crap has gone up there rather than being stored in piles of boxes all over the place.

Before, every crappy thing about it bugged me whenever I looked at it - like a piece of dirt or something that I couldn't clear up. Conversely, now everything that is good about it is really satisfying to look at. It's so nice to have had the opportunity to sort out everything that bugs you about a living space.

It's easier to keep cleaner and tidier now although there's still clutter around, it would be weird if there wasn't.

They like nothing better than showing it off, talking about it, admiring it quietly on a Sunday morning.

It's Sunday morning now and my other half is currently taking pictures of every square inch :) - this is mainly because we haven't taken any yet and people want to see it, and mainly because we need some to advertise it when we rent it out to strangers WHO WILL WRECK IT!

I dunno, I guess your living space is something that's really important to get right and at least not be constantly annoying you with bad use of space or crack-den-style decor (unless that's your thing). I definitely don't spend ages/loads of money buying stuff for the flat though, we got a nice fluffy rug and comfy sofa and don't need much else.

Sunny:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2583/3793986721_cb93c9f848_b.jpg

The cats like going underneath it when it's hot.

thats a pretty couch. i like the tv stand too.

place i'm working this month has several model homes that are decorated exactly how i would decorate if i had the $ and it's making me really frustrated that i don't.

This is why our house is not neat & tidy.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2552/3893634581_fcdbf3a34c_b.jpg

soon-to-be-ex-housemate (who i think lurks on ilx :/) treats his plasma like it's the last known giant panda on earth or something.

Also seeing as I'm soon moving into the first place I've bought, I suspect I'll be somewhat house proud

This is why our house is not neat & tidy.

Yr house is ridiculously tidy - even the wonky poster looks kind of like it's supposed to be wonky! I'll show you untidy...(oh at least I will if i remember to take a photo of Mrs. T's home office).

yeah i feel like i'll be more house proud when we one day buy our own place. right now, every time i think of doing something significant i feel like 'what's the point, we're just gonna move sometime in the near future anyways'.

soon-to-be-ex-housemate (who i think lurks on ilx :/) treats his plasma like it's the last known giant panda on earth or something.

― wilter, Sunday, September 6, 2009 5:36 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

makes sense to me

I sort of like renting because I feel less responsibility for things...I mean, I try to keep the house basically clean and functional, but it's nice not to be on the hook for major maintenance and repairs. That said, I love my new apartment, and spent an hour yesterday rearranging the living room around our new pink space-age looking couch ($100 from craigslist, impressively ugly).

Peoples photos in these threads of expensive furniture and pin-tidy living rooms make me so depressed.

He's tactfully refrained from posting that picture of the 'his and her' iMacs side by side...

I am really not a neat and tidy person at all, so I was kind of surprised when I first moved into my newish place that I was taking more time to tidy, clean, etc (not that it was ever going to be on the cover of any interior design mags or anything, just by my own low standards) cz it looked new and shiny and I wanted it to stay that way.

Soon I realised that stuff is gonna get scratched and scuffed and discoloured anyway (hello mysterious scratch in cooker top, hello bathroom mirror and fittings which I just cannot unsmear) and apparently decided that I didn't care any more. Oh well.

Haha, we long since sold the his'n'her iMacs and... bought one big one and 2 iPhones.

The key is to take photos only when it's tidy:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2500/3875959374_5727ae72e3.jpg

Right now this chair is covered in bras and towels and a big pile of socks.

What the bedroom looks like more normally:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3593/3591792152_70b692bdff.jpg

Love the string of lights!

So does Bob:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3452/3834997356_bd1cd4fc3b.jpg