I love homes where people have a really good foundation (great space, good colour palette, wonderful furniture– think a great cake recipe) and over time layer it with all those finishing touches a la HGTV that come from family, travels, art that you picked because you loved it– not the...
Whilst I am a fan of the background image, I think most of these sites if you take that away all look pretty much the same and are quite boring. I believe there are a lot better sites out there using the full screen background imagery and that provide far greater engaging experiences....