House personality and character (hardwood floors, how much, feng shui, fireplaces)

[zanna vaida]

Every house like an individual has its personality and character. What do you like about your house?

[Driller1]

My house is a nicely remodeled older home. It is solid! New windows and blown in insulation, we can not tell if it is windy!

[zanna vaida]

Sounds great. It comes handy when there's lake effect outside and Erie lake freezes. We becomes very windy.
Is that what you call a house character and personality?
I love a house with fireplace.

[Greenchili]

Well....I want our new home to convey a light,open,breezy,atmosphere.
Light and bright! Thats why Im going for the cottage/beach/modern
look. I want It to be casual and comfortable! I hope!

Greenchili

[HappyNCGirl]

I've been a Realtor for 18 years. For the first 10 years I was a general brokerage agent. After showing many houses over the years, I started noticing that every house has a "personality". Some houses seemed like happy places, comfortable, calming, appealing. Yet other houses seemed forbidding, cold, unsettling, places you wanted to leave quickly.

Sometimes it was hard to figure out what about that property caused me to react a particular way. Turns out it was an intuitive, subconscious reaction to "cues" in the house. There were some homes that would sell and then come back on the market with in a year or two, over and over again. I can think of two houses that every couple who bought that house ended their marriage in divorce. Coincidental I'm sure.

Since learning about the principles of Feng Shui and the Indian version called Vastu Shastra, I now know its not a mystery that peoples homes contain subtle cues about the emotional state of the people living in the house. It could be the furniture arrangements, untidyness or other things that create negative feelings in the casual observer. Some house plans, even landscaping or placement of the house can create barriers to positive energy (sounds so New Age doesn't it?).

My husband thought I was insane when I told him these things about how houses affect me. Until we were looking to buy a house and previewed a dozen or so. He started to understand what I meant.

While I certainly don't buy into all the Feng Shui stuff, quite a bit of it is just common sense. We've used some of the principles in arranging furniture, use of color, place of landscaping etc. Everything is tidy, even the garage and attic storage. Visitors to our home always comment on how much they love our home, how calm and serene and pleasant it is. Its simply a matter of arranging things so that those subtle subconscious messages are pleasant ones.

For example, its not uplifting to our spirits to come home at the end of a hectic stressful workday and drive into a messy chaotic garage, fighting to even open the car door, tripping over junk. Or to come in the front door to a scene of chaos and messiness. Your already tired jangled nerves are going to be that much more irritated, right? Conversely, being able to pull into the garage with ease, actually being able to open your car door enough to get out, and easily walk through the garage ....you get the idea.

[zanna vaida]

Originally Posted by Greenchili

Well....I want our new home to convey a light,open,breezy,atmosphere.
Light and bright! Thats why Im going for the cottage/beach/modern
look. I want It to be casual and comfortable! I hope!

Greenchili

Hope is good, but you have to do your homework by knowing where's what. Good luck!!

[zanna vaida]

Thank you for your sensere responce. I understand you as a Realtor. And agree. This is why I started this thread. I want to know how people feel and what they think about my question. Thanks and Best to your familiy and career.

[escapetacoma]

Originally Posted by zanna vaida

Every house like an individual has its personality and character. What do you like about your house?

In no particular order:

- The porch. Glassed in, 3/4 round, 3 season porch.
- Unpainted woodwork. Almost all of the windows, doors and their associated trim has never been painted.
- The style. Classic Victorian. We had wanted one for years and were finally in a position to afford one.

[brokensky]

HAPPYNCGIRL: so agree w/ what you wrote!!!! Houses do give off a "feeling" . . .

I love Georgian architecture and 18th C design . . . and bought my home specifically b/c it is a traditional Georgian . . . where my furniture lives happily, LOL. It is not for everyone but it is what my DH and I enjoy.

I also was thrilled when I found this house b/c it is all brick and solid as a rock. I love my nice sized master bedroom and little suite off it (wh/ is my office). Our landscaping has been a challenge, as the elderly man who owned the house had neglected it for many years . . . but we have made significant improvements and continue to work on it . . . The satisfaction we get when a project comes together is tremendous. We have more work but it is shaping up and we get a lot of joy from seeing our plans come to fruition.

[FlourChild]

Our house is on a treed corner lot (pin oaks, pecans, dogwoods and magnolia). It's brick, with window boxes, looks very cottagey, has hardwood floors throughout, and we've painted the interior in warm (warm-ish) neutrals. The previous owners did some beautiful landscaping, so the house has enormous curb appeal. No fireplace, but this close to hell itself, you don't need fireplaces. (Ah HATES hot weathah.) The house just has a good feel to it.

Our previous house not only had a horrendous floor plan, but (talk about sounding crazy) I saw and heard things in that house that I could not explain. It always felt WRONG somehow; dark, oppressive, mazelike, and just generally not safe or secure.