Excerpts taken from House Thinking by Winifred Gallagher

I live in an antique home that I've made my own through a significant remodeling and decorating process.  I have found that it is a joy to come home to my "home" and I am continually amazed and inspired that I get to live in a space that completely reflects my interests, tastes and activities. It is at once an exhilarating and peaceful place to be.  In my summer reading I stumbled across the book House Thinking by Winifred Gallagher and was immediately drawn to her philosophy.  A noted journalist and cultural critic, Gallagher, as publisher Harper Collins describes, "takes the reader on a psychological tour of the American home and explores many of our deep but often unarticulated intuitions about the power of place."

A home should meet and reflect its inhabitant's physical and psychological needs. For example, a social individual needs a house that is easy and fun to be in.  An antique collector might need a house to desplay their treasures.  A young family would need a home that welcomes crayon marks and roller skating down the hallways.  The process of making a home more fulfilling need not involve significant "designer" alterations; but does require thoughtful time spent understanding what makes "home" personalized for each of us. It often involves thinking what a space feels like and not what it looks like, though the two are actually integrally related. "What really makes a house a home is how successfully it supports our daily activities and expresses and nurtures our best thoughts, memories, feelings, and patterns of behavior- our way of life, of which our current residence is one manifestation."

The well thought out home has much less to do with a piece of prime real estate or the latest decorating trend than with it's responsiveness to deep evolutionary needs, personal preferences, and cultural influences. We may not have words for these satisfactions, but they infuse our favorite houses and apartments and make us feel at home.  More importantly than your home looking like one in a magazine or your friends and neighbors houses it should support your identity, foster both privacy and sociability, buffer you from stress and connect you to the larger world. Because a home like this satisfies you on evolutionary, personal and cultural levels -- it invites you to feel relaxed and interested, sheltered and fascinated.

Creating a home that is just right for you involves list making:  things that you've loved and hated in past and present homes and activities that are and aren't important in your daily life.  Ask yourself these questions, "Are there homes from your childhood that evoke happy feelings?  Or, were those homes full of bad memories?  How have the homes from your past affected your future living environments? 

I would like to challenge you to think of your home in a new, behavior inspired way: as your partner in a relationship that, like your closest human ties, is meant to fulfill your deep inner needs and make you feel at home in the world.  Your home is your most private environment, so you can express your identity fully there in a way that you might not be able to anywhere else.  Your home can be the full package -- the private refuge that provides you with comfort, meaning and beauty as well as all the psychologically healthy benefits of personalized space.

Have I inspired you as this book inspired me? If you would like help thinking about your home in a new light I would encourage you to read Winifred Gallagher's book, House Thinking or contact me to discuss the possibilities for your home.  Our design practice is grounded in these beliefs and principles of design. It gives us great satisfaction and pleasure to guide clients through a process of discovery -- to create homes that bring increased joy and fulfillment in life.   Call us for a consultation.