Every Spring and Fall we hear about the "Homes Show." Whether it is called the "Cavalcade of Homes," "Parade of Homes," or the "Spring Medley of Homes," it is all the same thing. Various builders offer up what they view as their best work for a kind of "open house." The Three Ring Circus decided to take this latest "tour." Prices of the homes that we walked through ranged from $170,000 to $580,000.

Hubby is usually the one with the "moving itch," the yearning to get away from the townhouse scene and get a single-family homestead.

After touring a lovely "mid-range" home (read that as $350,000 or so, mid-range to what we saw that day) I immediately got the "can-we-buy-a-house-now? fever." I don't remember much about each individual house, we visited nearly a half dozen homes. I do remember, however, some of the rooms/features that I liked.

The lowest price house had some good ideas, but the rooms were a lot smaller than what we have now. Some would call it "average-looking."

One home's master suite caught my eye, and my heart right away. French doors lead to a quaint sitting area with two big comfy chairs, a small table with a lamp in between. The chairs faced a fireplace that could be enjoyed from the bedroom and the bathroom. To the left was the bed. A large, stately, four poster with canopy draped with ivory (because it is far too elegant to be considered 'off-white') chiffon tucked and swagged and flowing from every point of it. There were, of course, rows of pillows and a fluffy comforter just begging to be enveloped in. The best part; you had to step up two or three small steps to get to the wall-to-wall platform the bed was on. If I lived there, I would never leave that room.

The bathroom was equally as rich. Whirlpool tub, fireplace, double-bowled vanity with space to sit and primp and fuss, wonderful lighting, and a separate shower. The toilet was apart from the rest of the bathroom, in a little room/closet all by itself. (We saw that in nearly every house we went into. I understand the concept, but who wants to feel like they're being exiled or shunned just for answering nature's call?)

The most expensive house was amazing, of course. The builder that was showing this house, actually lived there with his family. There were murals painted on the walls of several rooms. The floors looked to be marble or granite, definitely "designed," and highly polished. Each room was immaculate and decorated to perfection. The sons' room was fashioned to look like a log cabin, complete with wooden "logs" and part of a roof on one wall. River rocks were glued to the walls in the bathroom (to blend in with the mural) and the vanity appeared to be resting in place on top of two wooden barrels. The children's playroom appeared larger than the size of our garage.

We discussed kitchens and utility rooms and basements and possible uses for some of the other spaces provided in some homes. Essentially, we began to build a wish list of the rooms/features we would like in our next home. We built our mental dream home. It only has one level, and the only stairs go to the basement.

A few things that our dream home must have; warmth, coziness, and the ability for anyone to walk in and feel comfortable. It's amazing how some of the houses we looked at were missing the warmth. The most expensive house looked like a museum, some rooms were even roped off. There were far too many rooms for individuals to "hide out" in. You could probably go for days without ever seeing any other family member. Even some of the lesser homes made it difficult to imagine that a family could live and function there. As the price of the home increased, the warmth decreased.

We returned to our humble abode and my first thought was laced with relief, "we're home." I realized that, although I had started out our tour with the wish to have something a little nicer, the yearning to have a little more space, and knowing that we wouldn't be house shopping "for real" anytime soon, I was quite happy with the home that we've built for ourselves. No matter how many stairs there are.

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one year ago