[Note: This post had been unpublished while we filmed House Hunters International. I’ve recently republished it.]

I hadn’t seen the apartment since June, when it was covered in an inch of plaster dust and had a gully running the length of the floor where the wall once stood. Now it was August, the renovation was complete, the furnishings I’d bought in June had been put in place by an interior designer I’d hired to pull it all together. I’d just arrived from New York and was going to be staying in my new apartment for the first time. My hand actually shook as I turned the key in the lock and opened my door. What I found inside made tears spring from my wide eyes.

It looked exactly as I’d envisioned. I stood dazed, taking it all in. For months, it was just an architectural drawing, a collage of ideas, a string of emails. Now I was standing in the middle of it, the smell of fresh paint making it real. Sunlight smiled on it, streaming in from the two large windows, now draped in chic, striped curtains. On my new kitchen table, a note from my decorator:

Welcome to your new HOME! I hope you will be happy here. But I am sure you will!