Well, I had an interesting thing happen last week. I had a person leave a few comments on one of my A2D Facebook posts that really made me angry. And then I made a separate Facebook post about those comments, along with some pictures of our music room, and that post took off, with over 484K views and 2.5K comments as of this morning.
I’d say about 70% of the people who responded understood what I was trying to say. But about 30% responded with things like, “Oh, don’t let mean comments get you down,” and “Why do you post on the internet if you only want positive feedback?” Those people missed the point…or maybe I didn’t make my point clear because you can only say *so much* in a Facebook post before it gets too long and boring and no one reads it. So I’m going to try again in a blog post.
First, let me make it abundantly clear. I don’t care about mean comments. I don’t whine and complain about mean comments. There was a time when mean comments really affected me. One mean comment would stay with me all day long. It would ruin my day. That time ended many years ago. (I wrote about that moment that I stopped caring about my critics here.) And now, after 17 years of blogging and putting my projects and our house online, you better believe I’ve developed a very thick skin by now. If I wanted to whine and complain about mean comments, there would be plenty to whine and complain about.
I average about one idiot a day on my Facebook page, with some of them being real nutjobs, whose only goal is to insult me. And I’m not talking about the people who say, “I don’t like your kitchen cabinet color.” I don’t even put those comments in the “mean” category. That’s just a person expressing their opinion, to which they’re entitled. I “like” their comment (to indicate that I’ve read it) and move on. They don’t hurt my feelings, and I couldn’t care less if some random person on the internet doesn’t like my kitchen.
No, when I talk about mean comments (or comments that are clearly intended to hurt or insult me), I’m talking about comments like this one from this person who left a whole slew of comments like this on several of my posts…
I literally laughed at that. There’s absolutely nothing about this tiny little man-child that I would ever take seriously or take to heart. Interestingly, when I hovered my cursor over his name, the first thing it said under his name was that he is the owner/designer at Gregory Jordan Interiors in Chicago. I got curious, googled that name, and was led to his Houzz account. Then I gave him some free advertising by pasting some of his room designs into my response to him, and that really set him off.
I’ll even give him more free advertising now! If you’re in the Chicago area, and you’re looking for an interior designer (ASID-certified, even!), and he seems like your type of guy, look him up! Give him a call! Again, that’s Gregory Jordan Interiors in Chicago.
Those are just two of his comments. In all, he left about six or seven comments, all the same tenor and tone, and all calling me a whole slew of creative things and insulting my projects. AND I LAUGHED AT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I was highly entertained, because the more I laughed and responded calmly to him, even giving him free advertising in all of my responses, the angrier he got, and the more entertained I was. Maybe this is a character flaw in me, but I sometimes enjoy riling up petty people. I find it to be quite fun and entertaining. And I average about three of these types of whackos a week. So if I wanted to whine and complain about mean comments, I’d have PLENTY to work with. I could probably make whining and complaining about meanies a full-time job. But I’d rather laugh at them and poke and them and watch them get angry and unhinged just like good ‘ole Jonathan G. Wells. That’s much more entertaining.
All of that to say that I do not care about mean comments. I don’t know how to make that any clearer. So none of this has anything to do with mean comments or someone hurting my feelings. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t get angry at some comments, and that’s what happened here. Again, I wasn’t angry because this person hurt my feelings. I was angry for other reasons that I’ll explain.
It all started when a real estate agent from Louisiana commented on one of my posts and said,
“You definitely need to start a series on how to bring the value of houses down doing your own DIY.”
But that wasn’t the only comment she left. She continued to double down, and later said this,
“I didn’t tell you what to do. I just said you should teach the class on how to devalue your property when trying to sell it.”
This one? Oh yeah, this one made me angry. But here’s the deal. She didn’t make me angry because she hurt my feelings. This woman couldn’t hurt my feelings if she tried. I am confident enough in my DIY abilities that there’s absolutely no way that some random real estate agent from Louisiana could make me feel bad no matter how hard she tried. And I’m also confident enough in the fact that everything I’ve done to our house has increased the value of the house. I mean, it would take a real idiot to say otherwise. The post she commented on was my studio, but even if a person doesn’t like my particular decorating style, you’d have to be a complete moron to say that what I did decreased the value of our house.
So why was I so angry at her comments? For one reason…
Because as a DIY and decorating blogger who has made it my mission in life to encourage homeowners to design and decorate their homes for themselves without constantly worrying about what some random, possible, future owner might think, THIS is the very type of person I’ve been railing against for 17 years now. She randomly appeared in several comments on my page and became the very face of that mindset that I hate so much — that mindset that keeps homeowners scared to make their house a home for themselves.
Absolutely nowhere in my post had I mentioned anything about us selling our house. If you’ve been around here for long, you know that we have no intention of selling. We bought this house with the intention of making it our forever home. And yet, what was her immediate go-to mindset? That what I’ve done has “…devalu(ed) your property when trying to sell it.” She had no regard for the fact that WE are living in this house right now. She had no idea how long we’ve been here. She had no idea if we actually plan on selling in the future. She knew none of that, but her go-to was that I’ve devalued it for the NEXT person. In other words, I’m not actually supposed to live in and enjoy my home. I’m not supposed to make decisions that make me happy as the homeowner. I’m only supposed to preserve what I bought, presumably in the state in which I found it, so that the next person will be more enticed to buy it without all my projects mucking up the quick sale.
Again, if this were just some internet rando, it probably wouldn’t have made me so angry. But this is a real estate agent who has profound influence on homeowners. People tend to listen to real estate agents. And while I know for a fact that not all real estate agents are like this (there are some GREAT ones out there, and if you’re in the Waco area, I know one I would highly recommend), what I do know is that this mindset isn’t rare among them. The types like her are like cockroaches. Where there’s one, there will be a thousand more.
These people have been my nemesis for 17 years now. While I’ve been over here in my corner of the internet screaming at the top of my virtual lungs, trying to convince homeowners to make their homes their own, and trying to teach people how to DIY things if you don’t have the budget to hire out things like building bookcases or refinishing hardwood floors, I’m working against thousands of people on the other side of that argument, making homeowners scared to make changes, scared to put their personalities into their own homes, because the next owner might not like it.
How many times have I written about this on my blog? How many years have I been preaching this same message? I looked back to see if I could find the first post I ever wrote about this topic, and the earliest one I could find was from 2012. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t one before that, though, because I’ve had the same message for nearly two decades now. And I’ve known I’ve been fighting other voices with the opposite message, so when this Louisiana real estate agent decided to show her face on my page with her message that was diametrically opposed to mine, I got angry. I didn’t get angry because she hurt my feelings. She doesn’t have the power to do that. But she (and the thousands of real estate agents like her) does have the power to influence thousands of homeowners with her message, and that message makes me angry.
And when you consider that the voices of these real estate agents who always drill into homeowner’s heads about “future buyers” are also mixed in with the voices of shelter magazines continually telling us what’s “in” and what’s “out” for this year, and what trends we need to get rid of, and what new trends we need to adopt to remain current, it’s a wonder that any homeowners can truly find their own style and infuse their home with their own tastes and personalities. I genuinely want all of these people to shut up and go away.
Case in point, as I opened up my laptop computer just this morning, and opened up a new tab on my browser that automatically opens to the MSN home page, the very first article that appeared in the upper left hand corner was this one.
These articles are everywhere. I see at least one a day. I got curious, so I clicked on it, and…well…according to this article, I now need to repaint every surface in my house to remain “current”.
And what even is this next one? “The standard double vanity and bathtub and shower combo are getting tired.” What? Are you kidding me?
And I also need to swap out my gallery walls, even though I absolutely love gallery walls, for large art.
And evidently, I now need to get rid of my pink settee in the music room, my purple chairs in the living room, and my purple benches in the breakfast room and replace them all with neutrals to be “in”.
And this has to be the most tone-deaf thing I’ve ever read. Stop buying the affordable artwork that fits your budget. We all now need commissioned artwork.
To be clear, I am all for supporting artists, and I think if original commissioned artwork fits into your decorating budget, it’s a great way to personalize a home and support artists who should be paid well for their original work, and especially commissioned work (since commissioned work is one-of-a-kind that they can’t make additional money on by selling prints). But to put people down and make them feel bad if original commissioned artwork doesn’t fit their budget, and they happen to find something they like a World Market or Hobby Lobby that they want to hang on their wall, is so tone-deaf to me.
Anyway, I told little miss Louisiana real estate agent that she can go pound sand. And so can every other real estate agent telling homeowners that every decision they make for their home needs to be with the future owner in mind. And on top of that, I’ll also tell these shelter magazines to go pound sand with their stupid “what’s in and out for this year” lists. I despise all of them because every single one of them goes against the message that I’ve been trying to get across to homeowners for nearly two decades now. I have been beating this drum for the last 17 years, and I’ll continue to do so as long as I can.
And the next real estate agent who shows up on my Facebook page or my blog and tells me that I need to be thinking about the future owner will get the same treatment as this one because I will use every opportunity and every example that presents itself to me as an opportunity to continue preaching my message, and that is this…
Homeowners, if you have no plan to sell your home in the very near future, make your home your own. Do not make decisions based on what some faceless, nameless, possible, potential future owner of your home may or may not like, because you have no idea what they will want or like. Make your house your home while you have it.
UPDATE: I just now sat back down at my desk (at 10:20am) after helping Matt do his morning exercises, opened up a new browser tab, and once again, this is the first article that showed up on the MSN homepage.
I didn’t even bother clicking on this one because I simply don’t care about trends. It’s all an effort to keep you continually discontent, and to keep you in the constant “consumer” mindset. Just say no to all of it. Find what you love. Do what you love. Surround yourself with the colors and personal items that you love. Create a home that you love. The end.
