Why your home needs an Aviance night

When I was a little boy in the 1970s, there was a fragrance commercial on TV that fascinated me. It featured a housewife doing a suggestive dance in her kitchen, anticipating her husband coming home from work.

The way she wiggled out of her apron and whipped it aside, then pulled off a rubber glove finger by finger was a kind of striptease. Though I only had a vague idea of adult sexuality, I knew there were important clues in this 30-second clip, if only I could decode them.

Unsurprisingly, it's available on YouTube, and watching it now leaves me laughing at this time capsule of another era:

In a way, it's a perfect articulation of the double role women were expected to perform: efficient keeper of the household by day and irresistible temptress by night. To ease transforming from one to the other, the commercial offers Aviance as the must-have elixir.

This day-to-night transition is something our homes do all the time. You wouldn't know it, however, from the typical images in shelter magazines. The bright, evenly lit spaces show us what's in each room in an almost clinical way – fine for getting ideas for furniture layouts and not so fine for understanding how our interiors might behave hour by hour.

A better approach would be to present two versions of each image, each shot at a different time of day, giving us cues about how to be creative in accommodating the different roles a room performs. Since that's not likely to happen soon, it's up to us to act.

One of the best mood-shifters for your home, as in the Aviance commercial, is fragrance. These days there are so many options, from incense to diffusers, but I'm a big believer in the tried-and-true scented candle. Not only does it intrigue your sense of smell, it creates an eye-catching glow as the sun goes down.

Scent is so personal that I'm not going to tell you what to buy – but I will let you in on what works for me. My go-to for years now has been the Teakwood & Tobacco Soy Candle from P.F. Candle Company. It's masculine without being overbearing and sets just the right evening tone for my living room.

Do you have any day-to-night routines in your home? Got a room-transforming tactic you'd like to share? Let me know and I might feature it in an upcoming edition of this newsletter.

Affectionately,