You Don’t Need Twelve Million Dollars

…to have an amazing home.

In my inbox today: this stunning Malibu home, courtesy of my subscription to Trulia (otherwise known as Crack for Designers.)

I am supposed to covet this home. It is owned by actor Matthew Perry and is on sale for a mere $12,500,000.

It gives me the screaming horrors.

Because the proportions are all wrong.

This is not a house for human-sized humans. This is a roller skating rink. It’s a hotel lobby. It’s icy, bland, agoraphobia-inducing and soulless.

Take a look at the seating areas. You can’t have an actual conversation while sitting on any of that furniture. The distances are too great. You’ll be screaming at each other across a vast tract of sand-colored space.

That kitchen? It might as well be an industrial cafeteria. Nobody is cooking a simple pasta dish with basil and fresh mozzarella while kibbitzing with guests over a bottle of Merlot, in that kitchen. Instead the caterer is slinging pre-fab hors d’oeurves and plotting revolution.

Is this where we’re eating dinner? Or is it the company cafeteria?

If you’ve ever wondered how it feels to sleep in a fish tank, now you know.    Behold, this magnificent and pointless excess, and now listen here to me:

You can do better than this.

You can have a home that fits you–physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. You can live in a place that fits you like a glove, and gives you room to soar.

And you can do it without spending anything close to twelve million dollars.