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While measuring a home in River Oaks built in 1927, the Seller told me one day a lady rang her doorbell and explained her 90 year old grandma was married in this house, and wanted to know would it be OK for her to come visit ... she wanted to see it again.
The conversation started as I was admiring and remarking on the skillful contractor work done to the property over the years, the space had been re-purposed but the "bones" of the house were not disfigured and remained intact. This prompted the Seller to tell me about "grandma" coming to vist and she saw photos of the house during the wedding .. and I was right ... the changes made were not overwhelming or distracting.
She said she had plenty of notice (3 weeks) and the WHOLE family came over and of course Grandma brought her wedding album... with pictures of her as a young bride standing on the same staircase holding her wedding bouquet. The wedding was in the home and they also had a very elegant lawn reception in the rose garden (which is now a swimming pool).
She said everyone thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, revisiting the home and comparing the wedding album photos to today. I asked her what were the major changes and she laughed and said, "Well, I went right out and bought that crystal chandelier"(pointing to the one now hanging in the Dining Room) ... explaining when she saw how beautiful the cyrystal one was in the wedding album, she decided the one she had could be replaced, and set out to find a copy!
It was a nice break in my day as the Seller reminisced about that visit and I said, "You know when getting a home ready to sell, we really don't focus so much on its human history ... just the "value" of the home as a product on the marketplace. But the little kiddoes who spent their first Christmas in this home are retired now with grandchildren and great-grandchildren of their own" ... and she smiled and agreed.
When I'm in an old house, I frequently reflect on the families that called that space home and all the happy memories ... birthdays, anniversaries, first steps, rocking babies in rocking chairs and chasing after toddlers and the all-important vists by Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.
I always smile when I come across a door jamb marked with measure-marks labeled with names. I can easily imagine the little brother stetching to his upmost, maybe even onto his tippy-toes in his feety-pajamas to prove he wasn't a "little squirt" anymore, but truly catching up to big brother. Something excruciatingly important to a "little squirt" is now something to be painted over ... and move on.
Good for Grandma for making her request ... and hurray for the Seller for graciously acquiescing, it seems all benefited from that day --- even the Floor Plan Lady who just happened to hear the story while measuring a home and getting it ready to go onto the market.
Judith, The Floor Plan Lady
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SMARTePLANS® is the premier marketing system for luxury homes featuring online easy-to-read pictographic floor plan pictorials, where the photographs launch from inside the floor plan … NOW all the photos make sense! SMARTePLANS® is very effective at selling high end luxury properties. You can seamlessly click around the property, viewing the photos in relationship to the pictographic floor plan drawing. This is not a video ... you choose what you want to view ... or not. [TIP: Hold down your CTRL key and roll your mouse wheel to quickly zoom in and out of the drawing --- no detail is too small to see!] The compilation above is the original creative work and copyrighted property of SMARTePLANS®. You may link to it; but it may not be copied, nor reproduced in any form or format in whole or in part without the express written permission of Judith Sinnard.
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