What Can Dream-Home Style Say About You?

I have bought and sold many homes over the years, from the affordable two-bedroom starter condo to the five-bedroom floorplan with a pool, and I am now at the stage where an empty nest and aging knees are pushing toward downsized, single-story simplicity. But because my oldest son is in the process of buying his first home, I began to think about architectural styles again--and what our preferences say about us. It is an interesting question for fiction writers, who must create believable characters and their environments. If the protagonist lives in a romantic Victorian, an anonymous suburban tract home, an austerely decorated urban loft, or a luxurious mountain lodge in the pines, readers will make different assumptions about likely background, lifestyle and psychology. Of course, the house we dream of owning and what we can afford are not always the same; and a dissonance between desire and reality has its own interesting character ramifications. But let's assume you can attain that dream home. What does your choice say about your personality? Some research shows that if you like a Craftsman home, you tend to value home and family, and thus a style that is classic, functional and good for down-to-earth entertaining. If you dream of an ornate Victorian with turrets and gingerbread, you are probably both an art lover and a detail-oriented fan of traditional order. In contrast, if you yearn to move into an urban loft with an Industrial look--lots of exposed brick, raw wood and steel--you're a more casual, eclectic soul, maybe with a tattoo or two. If you're not sure which home architecture really calls to you, discover your style preference with the attached quiz. You may be surprised! http://www.stylishhome.com/Design/Style-Maker-Quiz

When a 'Bad' House Joins the Cast of Suspects

Without giving away my next mystery plot, I can reveal that a strange old house is going to figure among the murder "suspects." I'll be drawing in part on memories of an old Victorian home that my parents rented briefly when I was a teen. The "gray elephant," as they dubbed it, had many unsettling quirks. For example, my bedroom was upstairs at the back and was pierced by four doors: a door from the upstairs hall, a door to the servants' stair from the kitchen below, a door to a cavernous closet under the eaves, and a door to narrow steps up to the attic. At precisely 2 a.m each night, all those doors, if not firmly closed, would open together on their own, with eerily groaning hinges and sighs of musty air from their black portals! It was definitely scary, and it became my nightly ritual to carefully check that every door was tightly shut before climbing into bed. There was probably a logical explanation, but it was natural to suspect unseen, hostile forces. And like most old places, the house had its share of unhappy past occupants and deaths. Many people believe houses can develop a "negative energy," whether paranormal entities or the lingering aura of past residents. Just witness the success of modern "paranormal investigators," feng shui planners, and the "space clearing" services featured in a June article in the elite New York Times. I don't believe the old "gray elephant" was haunted in the usual sense, but it did seem to have the sort of dark magnetism that would repulse positive, upbeat buyers and so favor unhappy histories. I will leave it to future readers to decide whether my fictional house is the cause or the result of unpleasant human energies. Have you ever experienced a "bad vibe" house? If so, for a rather tongue-in-cheek NYT article on space clearing, see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/garden/scrubbing-the-house-right-down-to-the-vibes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0