My husband, Bobby Sherman, and I plan to fix this place up |
I’m getting a little weary of looking at houses. Normally this is my favorite part of moving. You get to walk through people’s houses, look through all their stuff and not get arrested. It’s cool how the law works that way. Not only are you allowed, you’re supposed to do it.
When I was young I used to draw floor plans of my dream house. Whenever I would visit someone who had a mansion (that is, anything bigger than a double-wide) I would go home and draw out the floor plan so I wouldn’t forget it. I had floor plans for my houses in every situation of whatever fantasy I had at the time – the Hollywood home I shared with my husband, Davy Jones of the Monkees (we had horses, because if he wasn’t a former jockey, he was short enough to have been), the cute n’ cozy three bedroom ranch with the tuff finished basement I shared with my Asian doctor husband, the old giant mansion from Rebecca that I lived in with my older, millionaire widowed husband and creepy housekeeper, and the big colonial with the pool out back and the white picket fence in front that my seventh grade crush I and our seven children had in Boardman.
I had those houses decorated, knew every piece of furniture and the fabric in every drape and curtain, and knew what was in each kitchen cabinet and drawer. Most of the houses were furnished from the JCPenney catalog, and they all – including the house from Rebecca – had the barrel table and chairs in the kitchen and a brown leather couch in the living room with those big metal studs along the armrests.
I always thought it would be fun to get a Realtor’s license just so I could do the Tuesday tour of homes. Maybe it’s a matter of the carpet is always whiter on the other side of the neighborhood, but I just love other people’s houses. They just open up so many new possibilities for pretending it’s all mine.
I don’t know why this time is different. Maybe I’m older and more tired. Maybe I’ve maxed out on seeing great rooms, parlors, foyers, lofts, sunrooms and other rooms that should have quotation marks around them. (Like, what’s a ‘media room’ anyway?) My husband is sending me houses on the Internet to look at and I’m going through them like I’m itemizing expenses on a tax form. They’re all very nice houses. They’re big, have very nice kitchens, they have enough bedrooms and bathrooms, they have pools and lanais and more luxuries than I deserve – hell, more than Davy Jones’ real wife deserves.
But they’re just not tripping my trigger. I tried to look at pictures of one kitchen and pretend my stuff was in there. “Where are you going to put the wine accessories?” I asked myself, hoping to spark some kind of excitement. Living in Florida . . . havin’ some wine . . . there’s music playing . . . we’re entertaining Tiger and the Woodses on our patio . . . Tiger’s wife is sitting at the barrel table . . . I’m wearing something really pretty and flowery and flowing . . . Nothing. I got nothing.
I actually considered having my husband buy a house without me seeing it first. He called and said he saw something nice and wants me to see it. I’ll have to make arrangements for the kids, get a flight, sit in airports, clear my calendar and do all that traveling just to see a house. I seriously thought about just saying, “I’m sure it’s fine. If you like it I’ll like it.”
But I caught myself in time. What was I thinking? I have to go see the house. How will I know if the studded leather couch will fit in the living room?