A Forever Home

You know those adorable little dogs that you see on Saturdays when you go shopping at the pet store? The ones who need a home? The people who volunteer at the pet rescues refer to it as a “forever home”—as in, something wonderful, where they will be happy for the rest of their lives.

From as far as I can tell, Moorpark is an entire city of forever homes but in a different sense.

Hope you love where you live because you may not be able to sell it and move anytime in the foreseeable future. It is time for homeowners who are trying to sell or thinking about selling to rethink their plans—unless, of course, you absolutely must sell your house because you are moving very far away. Even then, you just might need to investigate the benefits of suddenly becoming a landlord.

The value of Moorpark real estate took a nosedive when the entire market sank during the past few years. However, it did plateau for quite a while. Those days are now over and the real estate values are sinking daily. There’s no way to know how low it will go, but it appears to be picking up speed as it heads downhill. I don’t see anything in the near future that will slow that train down.

I think it is time to have an attitude adjustment. If you can’t be in the house you love, love the house you’re with.  Don’t be angry, don’t be sad. Look at wallpapers, don’t do plaid. Etc.

Since you cannot realistically sell your house anytime soon, this is a chance to decorate it exactly the way you want, without giving a single thought to whether it will hurt a sale. It might surprise you to see your artistic side emerge.

Let me tell you about the ugliest room ever. It was in my first house in Northridge. Never mind the orange carpeting throughout the house and the orange and yellow flowered sheet vinyl in the kitchen. Ignore the lime green plastic knobs that were inexplicably used on some decorative doors. I won’t even dwell on the hole in the wall in one bedroom, created by the doorknob when the door opened.  I guess the former owners had never heard of a doorstop. And I will breeze past the thousands, no exaggerating here, thousands of cigarette butts that we found in the back yard and in the fireplace—all just waiting to kill my new puppy—and the enormous dead tree towering over the front yard. And the roof that leaked like, well, a leaky roof.

No, those were nothing compared to the “guest room” just off the kitchen. One wall was paneled, probably from the original owners in 1960. But I am certain that the folks who sold us the house did the decorating here. Orange carpeting? Check. Orange painted window shutters? Check. Orange faux suede on all of the walls, including on each slat in the heating vent? Triple check.

One other incident happened in that house. While we were getting it stripped and repainted, I huddled in one small bedroom with my dog. I brought a full cup of coffee in with me but as I reached for the phone, the cord knocked over the cup on the brownish carpeting. When I returned from retrieving some towels to clean up the mess, it had disappeared! Nothing was visible so I started feeling around with my hands for the wet area. No wet area anywhere. THE CARPETING HAD EATEN MY COFFEE! I couldn’t start screaming or I would frighten the painters in the other room. But I knew, somewhere in that old and apparently hungry carpeting, lurked an entire mug of my coffee. I have had an aversion to walking barefoot ever since.

By the way, I did the entire house in white; carpeting, walls, window treatments, everything. It looked fabulous.