Why Your House Will Never Look Like a Model

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Real homes are to model houses what we normal women are to fashion models.

Supermodel Cindy Crawford famously admitted, “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.  I have fat days, ugly days, blimp days, days that I just feel terrible about myself. I don’t want to have to be beautiful all the time.”

The same goes for our houses. If there are real people living in them–with dogs, cats, and kids–our homes are going to have fat days, ugly days, and days when we feel pretty terrible about them. That’s just life.

Click “more” below to read why our houses can never stack up:

Author Marni Jameson says she spent a lot of years wondering why she couldn’t get her house to look as good as a model. Then she talked to a designer who specializes in decorating those model homes for builders, and this is what she found out.

There are things that a model home has that our homes never will:

A fresh start. When designing a model, designers begin with a clean slate. They come in at the ground level and specify every single finish and detail in the home–tile, grout, wall colors, flooring, cabinetry–to make sure the whole house coheres. Most of us make do with what’s there.

No baggage. Model designers don’t come to the project with favorite pieces of art they’ve collected or furnishings they’re attached to. Instead, they custom order and select art, mats and frames, and every stick of furniture to coordinate with the interior scheme.

No arguments. Model home designers don’t have to argue with spouses or kids over how to do a room. They just get their way.

Real money. Because builders know that the more decked out the model is, the more homes and upgrades they will sell, and the faster they will sell them, they give designers the budget and okay to do the whole house. I can only dream.

Smoke and mirrors. Model designers order furniture that allows foot traffic to flow and that makes rooms look larger when necessary.

Less stuff. Because their goal is to let people see the home and its architecture, not the stuff, they allow zero clutter.

False fronts. When staging bookshelves, they select books for their covers, not their contents. Sometimes they cover all books on a shelf in the same leather. Who buys books only for the color of their covers?

Theme rooms. Designers typically peg one child’s room for, say, a boy golfer, and another for a girl horseback rider. In the boy’s room, they’ll have four golf shirts, a bag of clubs, three golf hats, and golf ball handles on the faucet. The girl’s room will have tall riding boots, a crop, and some jodhpurs. No real kid is that one dimensional.

Storage Style. Model master closets feature a monochromatic wardrobe that ties into the master decor, meaning all the outfits go with the bedspread, and who buys clothes that way? 

(From Chapter 3 of The House Always Wins. All rights belong to the author and Perseus Books. Photo at top of this page is one I took in a model of a home office that was pretty, but not very practical.)

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This is part of a week-long series inspired by the book The House Always Wins. I’m giving a copy away on Saturday, March 22.

To enter the giveaway: Leave a comment on the original post and your name is automatically entered. Bonus: 1) tell us why you want to win this book or 2) tell us why you’re hooked on this website, and your name will be entered twice.

Check out the other posts in this week’s series based on The House Always Wins:

• To Move or Not to Move: That is the Question
• How to Choose Wallpaper (If You Dare)
• How to Pick Paint Colors
• Building Character One Doorknob at a Time