rate my space - how I got hooked

Thanksgiving weekend 2007, I went online to join getdecorating.com for about the 4th time, but I found HGTV's free Rate My Space site instead. Intrigued, I decided to share a few photos of my dining room, still quite puffed up with pride in the 11 foot silk curtains I'd finished and installed just days before. So I signed up with a creative username (marykay) and was in business in a few minutes.

What fun to read the comments and watch the views add up. Such nice people! One even asked when I was going to show more of my home. So having already become addicted, I snapped photos of the kitchen. In my typical fashion, I shoved stuff out of the way for each shot...no fancy staging here. There was no time - I wanted to get back in the RMS action fast! Since I'm a clean-countertop kind of gal, it looked pretty good on camera. At least that was MY opinion.

My Small But Efficient Kitchen became a favorite fast - 11,000 views in 2 days, which was a lot in the days before RMS the TV series flooded the site with thousands of newbie users. The humble space went to page ONE, among the top rated and most viewed spaces for a month or so. Go figure!

After a couple of days, the nitpickers came out of the RMS woodwork and got on my case for the cookbooks on the hutch being too messy, or too numerous, or taking up space that could be displaying something lovely. Hello?...People? It's MY kitchen and the cookbooks stay, OK?

Ditto the keys, cell phones, sun glasses, golf balls, grocery lists, etc. At least until each December when Grandma's 90 year old Nativity transforms the old pine hutch into a little slice of Heaven on earth.

So how did YOU get hooked?

If you'd like to see more, take a video tour of the kitchen here.