Why the Holidays Can Be the Best Time to Be a Homeowner

By Bill Primavera

Another holiday season, another checklist of planned activities around the home. As a homeowner, that magic time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day has always been my favorite time of year, each and every year.

Others may prefer spring when the garden is awakening and we may be spending most of our time outside, or mid- or late summer when the flower and vegetable gardens are in full bloom, or perhaps the fall when the rich colors of nature can take our breath away.

But for me, I have always been most grateful for my home and the pleasures it affords in the dead of winter. When I owned a single-family home, as opposed to a condo, that was always the time when, finally, that stubborn grout weed that plagued my property was in remission for the season, the leaves had been raked and composted and my time was suddenly expanded exponentially for other duties inside the house.

Those duties might have included anything from refinishing that horrible floor in a guest room that had been hidden by a rug for many years to tiny chores like gluing on the knob to an antique chest that fell off 10 or 12 years earlier to disguising all those furniture scratches that have accumulated over time with Old English Scratch Cover. (When my wife and I owned an antiques shop early in our marriage, Old English was the single most important defense mechanism in our bag of tricks to make our furniture inventory look twice as good as when we bought it at auction, short of refinishing.)

In recent years, our holiday time has not included tackling major projects in the extra time that had been gifted us by those Fridays off after Thanksgiving or around Christmas and New Year’s because we are fortunate enough now to live in a maintenance-free home. Or rather, if any maintenance is needed, someone else does it.

But whether in a single-family home or condo building, the holiday season has always been the time when our homes never looked cleaner or better with decorations, ready to receive guests.

For many years, I wrote about my journey as a homeowner planning to sell my home and all the preparations that went into it. It gave me a lot of material to write about. Now comfortably ensconced in a place that is as settled in as can be imagined, I can only relate my homeowner history, or write about others’ experiences.

My wife and I are at the stage in life where we no longer anticipate that next big home project, and thankfully so. Now, all of our time at home can be spent enjoying the fruits of many years of joyful labor and living.

So especially this season, we really enjoyed utilizing our extra holiday time to appreciate our home and the many memories it holds.

Bill Primavera is a realtor associated with William Raveis Real Estate and founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc., the longest-running public relations agency in Westchester (www.PrimaveraPR.com), specializing in lifestyles, real estate and development. To engage the services of Bill Primavera and his team to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.

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