My Home within Ours

The process of renovating the kitchen cabinets has led me to think about the meaning of our home to me. What have we been creating over the eight years we have been here, and how am I reflected in it as an individual?

Someone remarked the other day that it was funny that the house of an architect would not be finished after eight years. I was surprised by that comment, since I have seen our house as finished a little over a year after we moved in, when we completed the alterations to put all the rooms and the plumbing in the final order. To me, we had established the house to a functional state that established our image of it in its life context. We began living our complete home life in our century old house at that time.

Since then, we have made repairs, embellished and accommodated our home to reflect ourselves more, but we have defended the essential character of the original house. We have merged with our home, having been peacefully changed by it as we change it peacefully.

My relationship to this place is particularly tied to its age and continuity. I am grounded by a place which is sheltered, but not disengaged from the elements. I am strengthened by an indoor environment which shows a direct connection to the unsheltered out of doors. I find the building assemblies, even the ones which were not very good ideas, with their reproducibility and repairability a strength in the conduct and construction of my personal life. It is important to me that our home looks like it has been in successful, hard service for one hundred and twenty years now.