A blog about bringing beauty, meaning, and soul into home and garden

Home.   A simple word, but one that resonates with meanings and associations unique to us all.

Regardless of whether “home” is a room, an apartment, a cottage or a mansion, how “home-y” it seems depends first on two physical factors:  light coming in on two sides, and a view of greenery or the sky, says Clare Cooper Marcus, Professor Emerita of the Departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California Berkeley. “We yearn for nature. Houseplants or a view of a garden is a universal desire,” she says.

While working on a low-income housing project and a series of case studies, Marcus came to understand “ that people consciously and unconsciously ’use’ their home environment to express something about themselves,” she writes in House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home. For Marcus, our evolving self-image is directly reflected in the homes we create, like a chambered nautilus, around our deepest selves.

Sometimes we discover that our evolving self has outgrown the “shell” in which we currently live, and a change is in order, says Jill Butler, illustrator, creativity coach, and author of Create the Space You Deserve: An Artistic Journey to Expressing Yourself Through Your Home. This could be the result of:

* A shift, such as downsizing to a smaller home or returning to life as a single adult.

*A celebration, as in finally being able to build a custom home.

* A milestone, as in a first apartment or a new baby.

“Creating a soul space, or a nest, is not a new idea for women,” says Butler. “What might be new is creating the nest that supports you and makes you feel loved and nurtured when your world might not. Taking the time to understand the deeper need is the first step.”

What Transforms a House into a Home That Is Uniquely You?

A house is “more than a roof over your head,” says Butler. Yet, in recent years, “houses became our savings account,” she says. “The whole idea of a house became skewed when we worried more about resale value than actually living there.” It’s time to consider “return on emotional investment,” she says.

A house becomes a home only when we put our own personal, emotional imprint on it. “A home is people-made,” says Alexandra Stoddard, author of Feeling at Home: Defining Who You Are and How You Want to Live. “Our home is our essence, the ultimate earthly place where we live and love and have our being,” she writes. “All the more reason to ask ourselves: Are we living with harmony, fulfillment, and joy at home?  Are we living as well as we would like, or are we too often anxious, emotionally exhausted, and stressed?”

As we sit at home and look around us, what do we see? “Homes that say nothing of who we are—what we believe in and values that we aspire toward—are places of tumultuous spiritual discontent,” says interior designer Kelee Katillac, author of House of Belief: Creating Your Own Personal Style. “By filling the space around us with benign objects—department-store clones with matching accessories to fill every nook and cranny—we lock ourselves into a gilded cage of fashion for which our creative spirits have no key.”

Taking Stock: The Who and What

Before we can create a home that truly expresses our deepest selves, we need to rediscover who we are now, where we are in our lives, and what we want.  This calls for an assessment, an inventory, or a “before” snapshot.

Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul: How to Add Depth and Meaning to Your Everyday Life, recalls a “reading” he did of a woman’s home: “My idea was to see the house’s poetry and alphabet, to understand the gestures it was making in its architecture, colors, furnishing, decorations, and the condition it was in at that particular time.”  After the exercise, “we both felt unusually connected to the place,” he writes, and “I was motivated to reflect on my own home and to think more deeply about the poetics of everyday life.”

How well does our current home feel like we want it to?  In Feeling Home, Stoddard lists 15 elements that contribute to the emotional intelligence of a home: light and a view outside as Marcus mentioned,  plus color, comfortable furniture, change, privacy, fresh air, nature, beauty, art, order, a working kitchen, a home library, and favorite objects. How many of these elements are in our homes, if indeed, each one is important to us?

Sidebar:  Five Ways to Discover Ourselves through Our Homes

Taking stock involves two parts. Our beliefs and values first, then our homes as they reflect—or don’t reflect—those same beliefs and values.

Make a List. Stoddard has her clients simply list ten words that define who they are now. The list might include words like “love,” “green,” “food,” “memories.” The next step is going from room to room and seeing how well each space mirrors these values.

Draw a Picture. Marcus gave her clients a large pad of paper, crayons, and felt pens and asked them to detail their feelings about home in a picture.  In creating a concept of home that they could actually see, the clients were better able to make those changes in their actual homes.

Take a Field Trip. Katillac suggests taking a “field trip” in your own home. “Walk through your house now and look for things that exemplify something of your beliefs and values,” she suggests. “List objects and areas that have special meaning for you. This meaning may only be known to you—more of an association. You may also see many things in your home that have no meaning to you whatsoever; it’s time to let them go.”

Ask Questions. Butler recommends asking the “W” questions.  “Where are you now?  What do you want? What do you see around you? Ask yourself what pleases you and makes you feel good,” she says. A certain color? A fresh breeze through the window? Coziness? Family photographs? Are these elements part of your home now?

Embrace Opposites. Katillac asks client couples questions like “What do you want more of in your life?” She finds the commonality in their answers, but also celebrates the opposites—what each person wants without considering the other person at all. For example, one might want zen-like and serene, while the other loves rustic and outdoors, but they both want family-friendly and casual.  So, “Zen Cabin” could translate into a meditative blue as well as a distressed wood dining table in their casual, family-friendly home. “I love the juxtaposition of two different ideas,” says Katillac. “It’s all about helping people create a home that is about who they are and who they want to be.”

Getting Clear: The How and Where

When we figure out who we are now and what is important to us in a home and in life, we have a new direction. “Having figured out the ‘What,’ the ‘How’ will take care of itself,” says Butler.

The first “how” is to clear away.

Disarray is a mirror, Butler says. “It says there’s an overwhelming, sinking feeling.” Our creative action—or inaction—shows up most visibly in our homes. “Many of us create by default, by just letting things happen,” says Butler.

Clutter—the accumulation of things we no longer really need—“is not wanting to let go or move on from a stage in your life,” says Marcus, whether that stage is child-rearing, professional life, or a relationship that has changed or ended.

“Life doesn’t function very well when you can’t walk through a house for all the ‘potential’ in it,” says Katillac with a wry laugh.

When we prune away things that are no longer necessary to us, we can better see the path ahead. “In clearing up the disarray, something becomes clearer in the mind,” says Marcus. “One is not so anxious and worried or stressed.” We can sell, recycle, donate, or throw away things that no longer serve a purpose.

Clearing away the unnecessary helps create order, a condition that makes us feel more peaceful, confident, and thus ready for creative action, says Butler.

Creating a “New” Home: Putting It All Together

Now for the creative push.

“We tend to relegate creativity to the recording artist, the painter,” says Butler, “Yet we’re creating all the time.”  Our creativity might have resulted in a notebook full of pictures culled from magazines, paint chips, product literature, and to-do lists. We have the information and the ideas, now we have to make it all happen.

Some creative home projects are relatively easy and inexpensive to do ourselves.  We can make a static space like a living or dining room function better for how we really live—make it more informal, colorful, or lived-in by changing the type of furniture or its arrangement, says Katillac. “The secret to using every room lies in setting up the room exactly, I repeat exactly, as you want it,” says Butler.

We can paint a room in a color we really love. Hang or even make our own artwork.

We can decorate with objects that really mean something to us, with less of an eye to the price. “Living artfully might require taking the time to buy things with soul for the home,” writes Moore. “Good linens, a special rug, or a simple teapot can be a source of enrichment not only for our own life, but also in the lives of our children and grandchildren.” Adds Katillac, “By surrounding ourselves with the trappings of our past successes or things we associate with those who have achieved the success we want in our lives, we begin to believe in the possibility of our dreams.”

We can engage all the senses with favorite music, scented candles, fresh flowers, soft throws or silky pillows, a garden visible through a window.

When a re-vision for our home involves tearing out walls, adding on rooms, or building from the ground up,  however, it’s time to call in the experts: architects, interior designers, contractors, plumbers, painters, the works.  That can seem daunting at first. But there’s a secret:  Find a professional with the credentials you want for your project, and he or she will generally lead you to other qualified people. “Each lead, each name or name of a service, leads to the next lead,” says Butler. “Each time you meet someone and get help, he or she will answer questions and invoke more questions yet to be answered, and on and on it goes.”

How Do You Know When You’re Finished. . . For Now?

When our home project is finished, we’ll know because the space contributes to our well-being, says Butler. “We’ll feel nurtured, nested, and protected.”

We feel at home. “Feeling at home is a way of life, an inspiring journey of discovery as well as a bridge that leads us to great appreciation, reverence, and beauty where we’ve transformed our spirits because we’ve learned how to follow our own heart,” writes Stoddard.

And the effects are ongoing. “Through this process of belief-based decorating, nothing seems beyond transformation—negative thoughts, financial trouble, loneliness, nothing,” says Katillac.

Illustrations by Jill Butler from her book, Create the Space you Deserve.  See her website, www.jillbutler.com or email jillbutler@jillbutler.com.

For other contact information: find Judith Fertig at www.alfrescofoodandlifestyle.blogspot.com; Kelee Katillac at www.keleekatillac.com and www.katillacshack.com; Clare Cooper Marcus at clare@mygarden.com; Thomas Moore at www.careofthesoul.net; and Alexandra Stoddard at www.alexandrastoddard.com.