WALKING THROUGH HOMES

I have a thing with walking through model homes and open houses. I'm obsessed. If I see a new neighborhood pop up anywhere within thirty miles, you can bet I'm gonna be walking through the models in a matter of days.

Guys and girls have different eyeballs when it comes to looking at homes. Girls are like "Oh my gosh, I love this kitchen! Look how they decorated this! The baby could sleep in this room!" and guys are like "This is boring. And also, there's a foundation crack as evidenced by this crack in the corner. We couldn't live here. The soil's not right." And then the girl is like, "Yeah, but look at the BACKYARD! There's a POOL!" and the guy's like, "And are you going to be maintaining the backyard and the pool?" And the girl says no, probably not, and the guy says we're not living here.

The thing is, model homes will almost always be nicer than your home. They're staged. They're supposed to be better than your home. You'll never see dishes in the sink or clothes draped over the couch, or the pile of maternity clothes that you keep meaning to pack away. Accessories are perfectly placed on (and often glued to) the Restoration Hardware tables. Your year's income probably couldn't furnish a house like that. And ladies simultaneously love looking through the homes (it gives them ideas for decorating) and hate it (it makes them feel inadequate, but is also weirdly motivating). Guys just hate it (all they see are bills and maintenance).

Then there's the strange occurrence where you walk through a home and you're like, "hmmm, our house is better. Let's never move." I experienced this a couple weeks ago. There were two open houses for condos on our street, so we took Henny and walked over. Floorplans were inferior. Updates were desperately needed. Views were better than ours, but parking was inconvenient.

Does this signify some sort of transition into adulthood? Actually being happy with what you have? I mean, I just had a baby, but still don't feel "grown up." Whatever that even means.
(I'm sure it also has a lot to do with our recent kitchen and living room renovations.)