When I was younger and I was still living with my mother, I, as every adolescent does when they are entering their twenties, dreamed of having a place of my own. I longed for the day when I would be living alone in my own house. A home that is spacious, impressive, clean – and most importantly – my own. A home that I looked forward to returning to every night after a long day’s work – and a home that is designed exactly how I want it and has my life’s accomplishments hanging on it’s walls. I have lived in four different places since I left my mom’s house in 1992 – but as wonderful as all four places were – it is this one that is truly my home.

When Sandy and I lived together, the house was a perfect house for a couple. Our items were blended perfectly thanks to her good taste – and tolerance for beer stuff. But now that we are no longer together, I decided that since I lived alone now – it was time to make the house truly my own home. So after some re-arranging of some furniture and re-hanging of some pictures – I have my home – and it is by far the best place I have ever lived.

The house itself is every person’s dream. After walking up a flight of stairs, you are greeted by a spacious living room that contains a coat closet, smoked mirrored walls and a huge bay window. The black carpet that covers the entire bottom half of the house (which came with the house along with the aforementioned mirrors), gives the house a very modern feel and the living room a very grandiose appearance.

The kitchen is also a modern masterpiece. Accented with green cabinets and a matching tile floor, there is enough space for a three-seat kitchen table, which leaves the “dining room” for my homebar. The homebar, with slotted mirrors lining the far wall and accented with the same black carpet, is an immediate open extension of the living room. Add a bar with three stools, a bar server with a dozen kinds of liquor, a ceiling fan, a Miller Genuine Draft neon sign, a wooden butler holding a humidor – and an inflatable South Park chair – and you have got the makings of the perfect homebar – my perfect homebar.

After you walk up the six steps to the second level of my dream home, you have three rooms to enter. The bathroom is ultra-modern. It has a bath/shower with glass sliding doors and a marble sink top. The bedroom is as spacious as the living room of the place I used to live with a closet so big that it makes every girl who sees it drool – because they wish they had a closet that big. The room itself, although containing nothing more then a queen size bed, a single dresser, two small end tables, two hampers and a night stand, is my little sanctuary within this palace of mine. Indeed, it is the perfect place to sleep.

It is the office that I spend the most time in, so it is therefore to me – the best room in the house. Once covered in pink and purple paint and lined with Barbie stickers, the room is now painted white and lined with frames encasing the different accomplishments of my life. My desk, although a simple computer workstation, is covered with my personal effects and various photos, stickers – and memories. My bookshelf is in arm’s reach when I am sitting at my desk – and the desk that belonged to my father sits alongside my own – as I wish my father could sit alongside me.

Are you as proud of your house as I am of mine? You should be. The home we make for ourselves is our sanctuary. The place that is our own and is ours to do with as we please. The place we go to sleep in each night and wake up to each morning. The place that we spend time alone in, entertain in, keep all of our stuff in – and live in. After you read this column, take a moment to walk through your own house and really admire it for what it is. Or, realize that if it is not the way you like it – you can turn that feeling around by simply moving that to there and hanging this here instead of there. Remember, the house you live in says a lot about who you are as a person – so why not make it the best it can be.

Screw you guys – I’m going home.