This house tour made me cry.

My odyssey to figure out why

I love a good house tour.

I love clicking through photos of strangers’ living rooms and zooming in to read the titles of their coffee books. I love inspiration by way of an inky blue-black front door or the soft, inviting look of a vintage waxed pine kitchen table. I like to imagine myself drinking tea nestled into someone else’s velvet settee or showering in someone else’s jade tiled bathroom.

I love a good-looking home.

But sometimes (especially if I’m viewing photos of a home inhabited by children), if I fail to detect any evidence of actual lives being lived in these good-looking homes (ugly plastic toys, not-perfectly coordinated powder room towels, a bowl that doesn’t match the other bowls, colors that aren’t immediately recognizable as being “on trend”), I’m left with a curious sense of emptiness. These types of house tours appear visually cohesive and aesthetically harmonious, but I don’t necessarily feel anything.

I guess the disconnect occurs when I’m conscious of looking at a domestic space that adheres to all my preconceptions of what beauty is even if that beautiful domestic space looks more like a stage rather than a home where people cry, fight, spill, love, bleed, and spit out mouthfuls of water due to sudden, uncontrollable guffaws.

While homes featured in stereotypical house tours vary widely in terms of design, size, shape, and color scheme, most rely on a certain level of perfection to inspire and influence; most house tours don’t make me cry.

But author Catherine Newman’s house tour, featured recently on Cup of Jo, did make me cry. I talked to 5 experts-according-to-me (including

Catherine Newman

herself and

Joanna Goddard

) to figure out WHY.