Decor

It’s probably one of the most ambitious things you can do in life: purchase a brand new house off a blueprint. 

Think about it. You’re asked to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars for your potential dream home – based on a smooth flyer that features a two-dimensional layout. Sure, you have measurements, and if you’re really creative, you can picture where your furniture will go. You can almost see it. A cozy family home which is everything you wished for, and more.

But then, blueprint becomes reality. And your dream home looks *slightly* different than you had envisioned.

I’ve been there. In 2006, my then-fiance and I purchased our very first home together, in an up-and-coming subdivision scheduled for occupancy the following summer. I remember pouring over blueprints in the sales office, certain that I could easily fill the home with gorgeous-yet-functional furniture. In fact, so confident was I in my interior design capabilities, I completed shopping for the major furnishings before we took possession. And once inside, I was pleased that my eye for style was bang on, reveling in the way my brand new furniture filled my brand new house.

Yet something was off. 

My main floor, an open concept layout, was adequately sectioned to create “rooms” based on the blueprint. A living room upon entry, followed by a cozy dining area and then a long, spacious family room. However, just six months in, we quickly realized that although our home was furnished, we spent 100% of our time at the back of the house in the kitchen/ family room area. The front – designated for a combined living and dining room – was absolutely, completely wasted space. We were not living in our home.

The funny thing? It actually never occurred to us when initially purchasing our decor to make the most of our living space. We decorated based on what the blueprint told us to do; hence, if our living room was 15.5ft x 9 ft at the front of the house, that’s what we assumed it was – not thinking that a living room not lived in would be a colossal waste of effort. A bar area? Puh-lease. We rarely drink! …

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If you were a child in the 70’s or 80’s, chances are, you encountered a couch condom.

Okay, so maybe you’re unfamiliar with the term. You may know them as slipcovers, or the shrink-wrapped plastic that our parents layered on the furniture to preserve and protect what was underneath. You know, like a condom.

And what were they protecting the furniture from? LIFE, of course! Sticky fingers, wayward juice boxes, muddy pants, shedding pets, sharp toys, cookie crumbs and baby bums… all the things that come with being blessed with a family. Plastic slipcovers were the equivalent of a velvet rope; lifted with caution – and only for VIPs.

I often wonder why furniture required such proficient preservation. I mean, did our parents think that they’d be handing down that sofa through the generations? Or maybe in the off-chance the Queen visited for tea, the pristine velvet couch would signify grooming and grace.

Regardless, the message was loud and clear: this is our home, but we don’t actually live in it.

Did you grow up in a shrink-wrapped home? Did you have a formal living and dining room that were only used on “special” occasions, and then, just as quickly preserved the second the guests left? Looking back, I often marvel at the amount of space in homes that was for show only; the living room at the front of the house, the overly formal dining room, the guest room that was perfectly made up – and perfectly unused. However, times are changing.

A recent Ipsos-Reid survey conducted on behalf of Urban Barn revealed the majority of Canadian homeowners (71%) are “living” differently in their homes compared to the one they grew up in.

“Homes are evolving to accommodate the ever-changing ways in which Canadians are living in their homes”, says Candice Laughlin, architecture & home design expert, Urban Barn. …

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