Why home is never finished

We all dream of the perfect moment of home happiness. It takes place in an impeccable room, which is beautifully nestled inside a flawless house. A static moment hoped for at a distinct point in our fluid life. And so we mood board, Pinterest, plan, budget and spend our hard earned savings and hopes on a well-designed house that will deliver this perfection to us. 

Except that in the interim our lives may have changed. Or more importantly what we want from our lives and our shelter may have changed.  

Often when we prepare for renovations, we are already at a memory marker point in our life. Our first home, first ‘big’ home, or our potential last home are physical manifestations of where our emotional lives are.  So, a kitchen extension may just be that, but it also might be imagined in preparation for having a family and gathering around a table. And this may be  a tangible reflection of something you had growing up – or something you didn’t. It is of course easier to focus on choosing worktops, than wondering why you want/need this extension.

I have mentioned my kitchen before. In past homes, I have designed kitchens swiftly. I am (or have been) the cook in the family – and cooking for people has been a big part of who I am. Gathering harmoniously around a family table wasn’t something that happened for me as a child and so I know why it feeds me now. I was always most interested in the oven, work surface and taps as the facilitator of my prowess and ability to give, rather than being overly interested in the cabinets or other aesthetics. Glasses, linen napkins and the perfect roast chicken – yes. Brass versus chrome – no.

Recently, the cooking in our household has been taken over by our 23 year old. Food has become her work life and life, at the same moment my business has become mine. And so the kitchen has become her domain. I haven’t been able to decide whether I am mourning what I have had to exchange, or enjoying joy, because now there is another adult beautifully taking up a place and space that was one solely mine. Our kitchen takes on new meaning for both of us – and it looks and feels different as she brings herself into our space.

I think of a home as two things. One is the physical space - how many rooms, the shape of it all and the functionality of how it works for you. The second part is the story you plan to weave through it for as long as you live there.

With the first, it is sensible to plan as far ahead as you can, thinking how your home can be future proofed for whatever life or decorative changes that you would like to make. Think about how each room can adjust and change as you need it to. What is a child’s bedroom now, may become a study for you later – or an ensuite. One of the best long-term strategies I’ve come across was letting a house that started life as two flats, morph into one home as the family grew and then snap back to two as the family flew the nest.  Extreme perhaps, but also incredibly sensible. If only to enjoy the trees planted as saplings 20 years earlier.

The story telling is of course the most difficult. 

Ask yourself – how do I/we want to live? - now of course, but also what do we feel we want in the future. What rituals and traditions to you want to incorporate into your domestic space and what does that look like? Some of these questions are behaviours and some are purely decorative. 

I have hankered after hand painted wallpaper for a very long time. Firstly, because I love the look of it. But also, because it reminds me of a woman I read about often – Pauline de Rothschild – look her up. I feel her thoughts and ideas on life were simply fantastic and I guess I would like a whiff of her spirit in my own home. This wallpaper will replace pale grey walls, but hopefully they will also lead me gently out of the kitchen into a different way of living.  

I’m ready.