One of the most common reasons people renovate their homes is a change in their lifestyle - an upcoming wedding, a new baby, or grown children moving away.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I tell people marriage is a compromise, and so are renovations.
My kids have moved more in their twenties, you know, than my parents have moved in nearly 40-something years of marriage before they died. So there's a part of me that laments what we have lost, and that is a sense of community.
For many of us, owning a home signaled a passage into adulthood that coincided with the start of a career and family.
I think it is just a function of the fact that I moved around so much as a child that I learnt early on to make every place my home.
For the baby boomer generation, a home is now seen not as the cornerstone of advancement but a ball and chain, restricting their ability and their mobility to move and seek out a job at another location.
Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
Once you have a child, you change so much along the way, you don't even recognize yourself by the time they're ready to move out!
It took me so many years to move out. I'm definitely a bit of a Peter Pan, reluctant to grow up. It all seemed really nice at home-why change it? Part of me would prefer not to have any responsibility whatsoever.
You see much more of your children once they leave home.
People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.