Thread: Home sweet home Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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I've been wondering a lot recently: what is that intangible something that turns a place from a flat or house you rent to an actual home? I've posted this in Purgatory because I want to avoid facile answers like "Cats!" and explore the concept of what makes a home, gives that sense of home, in more depth.
Some people are able to walk through the door of a new place - house, flat, bedsit, tent, whatever - and regard it as home straight off, others take longer, some never adjust to that particular place. What is your definition? If you know it's only going to be for a fixed period - maybe six months, two years or so, is it still home?
Perspectives can change. A place that felt like home can cease to feel like that, or a place that didn't, can become that. It doesn't have to be as the result of any major emotional event in life, sometimes you feel that places get stale, and that sense of "home" evaporates. Or conversely you might develop an attachment to somewhere after a while. But what is the key to making those transitions?
How is it really possible to get attached to an actual place? I know we mostly all do it, but places don't reciprocate. And yet we seem to have relationships of sorts with them.
Anyway, your thoughts are invited on aspects of "home".
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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Interestingly, this was the topic of discussion in the Serum debate at Greenbelt.
I think the two things that I would take from that debate are a) Home is something about safety and security, and that can be represented in a physical location; b) "Home" as a concept is probably imaginary, at least for some people (myself included), which indicates that it is important. Even when we don't have somewhere that we consider home, we make one up.
Just insights that might help.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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Home is where the heart is -- as the old saying goes.
So the clue seems to be this "heart" business, the thing so oft referred to in matters of profound emotion.
Maybe when folk come the a fresh house with the possibility of moving, and pick a vibe it is because something is tweaking their emotional possibility. Another time when you move into a new build and the place feels as if it has no soul, could it be the emotion has to build of it's accord -- putting down roots as they say.
So the long and short of it does seem to be this inbuilt attachment aspect to our personalities, something unconscious that seeks security in physical surroundings. Not necessarily permanence or objective but similar in transience to love in other forms.
Er, right, so what makes a house a home without getting into more pat phrases? Jos-sticks.
Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on
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There is "home" and there is "Home." A place of safety and security can be a home, without the emotional connection that makes it some place more...a Home.
For example, when I rented an apartment, I'd "come home" from work. But I never formed an emotional attachment with those apartments. They were places to hang my hat, but they did not have a place in my heart. For that matter, I get that same feeling of safety and security when I get inside my hotel room when traveling, yet I would never say that the hotel room was "Home."
So, yes Home is where the heart is. For a place to "feel like Home" there needs to be some emotional tie. So what about those places where a person first sees it and it "feels like Home"? Well, because the emotional tie is in the appearance of the place. If I am in a place that resembles where I grew up (wooden floors, old clocks, wood fireplace, Persian rugs, plenty of books in built-in bookcases) it will "feel like Home" to me even if I never saw the place before. In fact, back to travelling, I once stayed in an Inn that did have that Home feeling to it precisely because of this. I loved that Inn.
Indeed, part of what drew me to buy my current house was the wide wood floors and built-in bookcases. And the fireplace. Since then, I have made it even more Home by filling the bookshelves, loading it up with clocks and putting down rugs.
And then that feeling of Home has grown with fond memories attached to this specific house. For me, that is usually tied to Christmas and Christmas decorations. I love my house when I have it decorated for Christmas. It is never more "Home" to me than then.
So why does a place stop feeling like Home? Because any emotional attachment can fade. If a person's feeling of Home was tied in to there being children around, then when those children grow up and leave it is very possible that the house, although structurally the same, will cease to feel like Home. And, for such a person where the presence of specific other people is part of the feeling of Home, it is possible that no other place will ever feel like Home again.
Of course, for me, if the feeling of Home starts slipping, I just need to buy another clock. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by Teekeey Misha (# 18604) on
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I find this question almost impossible to answer. I'm sure there is something about "the heart" or emotional attachment in some sense as mentioned above, but I'm not really sure what. Then I suspect that I am probably unusual in my approach to "home".
I don't live somewhere, growing to love it, developing that emotional attachment, until the place somehow suddenly becomes "home". I move in and it is "home" immediately (or at least as soon as I've unpacked my "stuff"!); the emotional bonding happens or it doesn't, but it doesn't affect my attitude to "home".
I spent my career in education, mostly working in boarding schools, so over the years I moved a fair few times to different schools or to different quarters within the same school. Maybe this moto perpetuo caused me to adapt to "home" in reverse fashion? I am very possessive of "my space" and I think that territoriality was probably caused by the same thing; I need to assert possession of "my"space and settle into it quickly. Home to me almost is "wherever I lay my hat".
As I say, though, I suspect that is unusual. I've no idea what makes home a home for you other home loving bodies.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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I think home is people. Particular people, the ones you love and hopefully feel comfortable with. Though if your family is the very reverse, that tends to screw up "home" as well.
We've been in our current home 16 years, and I really don't want to leave it. And yet, if my son grows up and moves cross-country, I'm fairly sure Mr. Lamb and I will follow (provided we're welcome). A physical building just doesn't cut it besides our only son. And I'd have a hard time making a new place feel like home if I had no memories of the people I love in that location. In that case, it would feel like a temporary stay en route to somewhere else--rather like college did.
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
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The feeling of "home" in my flat of 28 years began to evaporate as soon as I filled the first boxes of books preparatory to moving to another town. "Home" then transferred to where those boxes ended up, and strengthened once they were in bookcases, which took about 4 months, as I was building the bookcases after work and at weekends.
Let's not completely deny the place of cats in giving a sense of "home." They are people too.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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No, it's people who make home home, for me.
I moved around a lot as a child with Dad being a minister. So I learned not to get attached to places. All my family have died or moved far away from here - but it's the friends I've made who keep me here, not the house or the district. I do love the area as we are minutes away from many excellent walks but also 15 minutes by train away from the big city.
If I moved away I wouldn't miss the place 'tho. I'd miss the people.
Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on
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Having just moved from our home of 22 years to a completely different kind of house (110-year-old villa to 17-year-old all mod cons), in a different zone(urban to semi-rural), some 60km away, its very definitely my partner and our relationship that makes home for me.
We had been planning to move a lot further (400km), but after my mother died, that plan was put aside. On impulse, we took a drive up the coast to look at what was available. The 4th house we saw, we fell for and now live in. I think we could see ourselves living there, gardening (big section), and making music, and that was enough to lever us out of our lovely old house.
It only happened six weeks ago, and we're still feeling as though we're camping, but I have no desire to go back.
Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on
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Why do I have such a deep attachment to this place?
I was 35 when I married, the Grandad some years younger. So he had savings, and I had some years' contributions to the teachers' superannuation scheme to draw on, and we were able to design (a friend from Uni was a rising architect) and build on a City Council subdivision. After being closely involved in the building (we painted, laid cork tile floors, poured concrete paths) we moved in with a very special feeling of This is Our Special Place – we belong here, we have made it, we will be happy here, we'll share it with children...
46 years later, it's still part of me; I've said I'm here till they carry me out in a box.
We were lucky: it's in a quiet, peaceful cul-de-sac ten minutes from the city on the other side of the hill; it's a community of nine neighbours who look after one another. I've become the kuia (elder) of the whanau (extended family).
It's having been able to create our home that made it Home.
Matarangi is where we've had our second home for 30 years. By virtue of our having spent so much holiday time there, accumulating memories and friends, it has its own special 'homeliness'.
Yes, every day I count my blessings.
GG
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on
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Some nice stories here.
I have an attachment to this old place due to 22 years of (mostly, personally) trying to stop it falling down. The thought of doing so much work again really turns me off, so I can't imagine moving, even for a big workshop which I'd really love. But the area when we moved here was rough, I'd been burgled, and I never felt very good coming back to the place if I'd been away.
That changed when our kids started to attend a (very) local primary school. Now the streets are often full of people I vaguely know, and that makes me feel a lot better about being around here. I'll miss it as the kids grow and move on to a high school further away, and that general sense of community starts to fade a bit. It will take more work to maintain it.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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Following my mother’s death, the family home we’ve owned for over 50 years is now on the market. I hated living there in my young days and couldn’t wait to leave. I avoided it for years, not just because of family tensions but because I sometimes found the place creepy. My mother also found it so although she wouldn’t usually admit it.
I stayed there (for the first time in years) the weekend she died and I couldn’t wait to leave. Any feeling of home had gone, and the creepiness was out in full force. On subsequent day visits there was no such feeling, and I experienced a strong emotional pull to the house. None the less I went ahead with having it cleared and put on the market and I haven’t been back since then. It’s where my mother spent the last part of her life losing her sanity to dementia, in fear and distress and darkness.
I’m still deeply ambivalent about the place. It’s my family home. I find it difficult to think that strangers are coming in – although the rooms have been stripped of every single personal touch and furnishings that made it recognizably ours – appraising it, and thinking of living there. But it’s in an inconvenient location, and if I did go back there would be too much emotional history in that house to live there easily. So I’m trying to sort out what are the elements that I need to put into my next place: what, for me, makes a home.
One thing that house had was silence, a deep, impenetrable, utter silence. It could be very restful, and healing, but it could also be unnerving and creepy. But I think that’s one of the main things that I would look for in a new home: that sense of restfulness and quiet that you can sink into. I think that's going to be hard to find.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
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I've lived in far too many places but the vast majority of them have truly been "home" for me.
How and why?
Maybe the ability to put our own mark on the houses/ flats?
Maybe that ability to design our own immediate environment? To cause our living area to be ideal...for us?
In all probability, maybe the living areas were not to our friends and extended family's tastes. But they were to ours. Which is what made those places home.
Interestingly, i'm not everso certain that my current place Is home, at all. In fact, only the garden is!
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
If a person's feeling of Home was tied in to there being children around, then when those children grow up and leave it is very possible that the house, although structurally the same, will cease to feel like Home. And, for such a person where the presence of specific other people is part of the feeling of Home, it is possible that no other place will ever feel like Home again.
So true. Towards the end, my Nan (who had Alzheimer's) started getting more and more upset about wanting to go home, even though she was right there. She just lost the ability to recognise the place as her home without her husband and kids being there. ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on
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Whenever I've moved, it's always taken time for things to find their natural place. I might make a conscious decision that the glasses go in *this* cupboard and the cutlery goes in *that* drawer, but when I come to use the place, I instinctively look somewhere else for those items. So they get moved to where my instincts make me look for them. Then it's home. It's a place where I know where everything is.
It's why I then get quite irritated when people move things. My mother thinks my passport should be tucked away rather than sat on the corner of the table. But the corner of the table is its natural place. I don't know why it is, but it just is.
I've also experienced "de-homing" where the home I grew up in (with its cheap black plastic furniture, awful avocado green bathroom and faux crushed velvet orange curtains) got slowly turned into a middle class retirement home for my parents. Bit by bit, as they made 'improvements' part of my childhood home was lost. They'd still refer to it as my home but I was more than happy to move out at the age of 18. By then, so much had changed, the only remnants from my childhood were the address, the little blue tit on the door number sign, the rickety side gate and the pointless little wall out the front that I constantly tripped over.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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For me, home definitely relates to people (which includes memories of people) rather than property. I still find myself thinking "I'm going home to visit mum" even 30 years after moving out of the house I grew up in. That house will always be home, though I don't expect to ever live there for more than a few days visit again.
My first flat here took time to become home, rather than just somewhere I slept and ate my dinner. About 10 years, and almost certainly when I'd made major changes to the property (replace the bathroom suite and redecorate, strip out and replace the kitchen) that helped a lot in making it feel like home. On the otherhand, moving into the house with my own family felt almost immediately home - partly we'd done a lot of redecorating before we even moved in to put our own stamp on it, but mostly because that was where my family lived. Even after three years, with complete strangers living there, that house still seems much more "home" to me than the flat I now have - coming back from church on a Sunday I still find myself getting in the lane approaching the roundabout to turn towards that house rather than my flat. I keep resisting the temptation to go over and look at it - I don't want to know if the apple trees we planted have been dug out, or whether the play house we put up for the children is still there.
I'm in the process of redecorating my flat now, after more than 2 years it's time to see if putting my taste to the flooring and walls will start to make it feel like home.
Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on
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quote:
originally posted by Lamb Chopped
I think home is people. Particular people, the ones you love and hopefully feel comfortable with.
Does that mean that people who have to live on their own can't have a home ? I don't mean that question to sound as though I am attacking you for your point of view, I am sure I would feel the same if I were lucky enough to have a wife and children.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Does that mean that people who have to live on their own can't have a home ?
I think everyone is different.
But, maybe a common feature is that home is somewhere that is important to you, or contains that which is important to you. Clearly, for those with family that they love then home is where their family are - or, the place where they were before moving out (in which case, maybe it's the memories that are important). For others, maybe it's their cats that are important, and that defines home. Or, their books or record collection. Perhaps the building is important, reflected in work done to renovate and fit it to their lifestyle.
And, it's quite possible that what's important to someone doesn't exist in a dwelling. You find people for whom the outdoors is important, and who may only ever feel at home striding across mountain ridges.
And, since this is a Christian website (yes, I know. I have a mug saying ITTWACW), do we consider our churches to be "home"?
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, since this is a Christian website (yes, I know. I have a mug saying ITTWACW), do we consider our churches to be "home"?
I can only speak for myself, but it's on a case by case basis - I feel at *home* in my own house (which is both good, and just as well!), but then *some* churches, and other places.
Current church, lovely though it is, not really. I feel supported, and part of a community - does it feel like home though? No.
On the other hand, the house/town where I grew up, Pusey House, the chapel of Britannia Royal Naval College, the clubhouse of Moseley RFC, are all places where I *do* feel at home - it's got to be a combination of nostalgia, formative experience, and deep psychological calm (yes, even in the case of Moseley).
I have a small list of "holy" places in my head (both religious and secular), I think that's not too unusual - pretty sure Harold Macmillan talked about the same concept.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
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Fascinating thread. I've always been hooked on houses* from the technical aspects to the emotional ones.
I've lived in 16 different places, some of them just rooming houses or apartments. Every time I've moved I've had all the boxes unpacked and found a place for everything before I've slept, usually about 24 hours. Then there's more work getting things just right and trips to the hardware store, but once it's all in it's place it starts to feel like home. Usually there's been some unpleasant discoveries while moving in, a roach in one apartment caused some hysteria, no outlets in the bathrooms in England had me befuddled for awhile.
When these places become "home," is usually after just a few weeks of being there, be it ever so ugly an apartment or that charming English cottage.
So I thought home was pretty literally where I hung my hat and where my husband was, until our next to last move here in Ohio. It was by far the most expensive, best quality house we have ever lived in, at first glance much like the beautiful house Hedgehog describes. Two story cape cod with hardwood floors, hickory cabinets in the large kitchen, all sitting pleasantly on what we called the only hill in southern Ohio and an acre of beautifully landscaped yard. The neighbors had horses!
We lived there five years and it never felt like home. It had some of that creepiness Ariel describes, at night it was completely dark and silent. The back view went out over farmland to the horizon, like a vast ocean. It was awesome after a snow.
Since I was a little girl I've loved houses and seen them in their bones as well as their dressed state. I used to make floorplans with dominoes or build them with shoe boxes, and later I took drafting courses so I could draw real plans.
This house didn't look right from above. I know because I would lie in bed at night and mentally fly over it. The stairwell took up too much space, the living room was too small and the rise from the top of the first floor windows to the bottom of the dormers was too high.
There were unfinished areas. The stairs to the basement allowed a view into the space between the top floor and the basement ceiling. My husband and I are not DIY people and we weren't set to spend a lot of money on handy men. The few who came did more harm than good. The wood work was too dark, the bathrooms too small and we had useless, awkward extra rooms. Part of the basement was finished with carpeting and paneled walls but we couldn't manage to get any furniture down the stairs. The lovely wild flower garden along the front of the house was so vast and weed prone that by the time I got to one end the starting end was weedy again.
On one laundry day I noticed I climbed thirty flights of stairs going up and down to the basement. The basement! There was a water softener tank that took endless bags of salt. The worst was the well water that brought up water so full of iron it was orange and stained all the sinks and appliances that color.
Crouching ominously in the backyard was a propane tank just ready to explode.
One winter the power lines went out and we were snowed in with no heat or running water for a week. We couldn't flush the toilets. The house was now truly haunted and we put it up for sale the next spring.
So to answer Ariel's question. I'm not sure what makes a house a home but I know what makes it not a home for me and that's lack of control. That house was never for one minute under my rule, not even the weeds out front. We grew to hate each other.
We bought a new build, just going up on the edge of town in a flat, raw subdivision. My friend came to visit while we still had the country house up for sale. After looking at both I could tell she couldn't believe we were trading down in such a way. Ah, but...this one story house, no basement or attic, on a small lot simply landscaped by me, has a lovely flowing floor plan that I can fly over at night and see everything in it, just where I put it.
* Hooked on Houses
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Does that mean that people who have to live on their own can't have a home ?
I think everyone is different.
This. I was speaking only of myself when I said home was people. And some of those people are not relatives.
If we ever move to California, I'm going to find it hard to leave my best friend behind.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
My mother thinks my passport should be tucked away rather than sat on the corner of the table. But the corner of the table is its natural place. I don't know why it is, but it just is.
All during our stay in England my passport stayed safely tucked away in the bottom drawer of the Welsh dresser under the spare table linens, and there it still was when it came time to set off for Heathrow three years later. The trouble was that Welsh dresser was then in the middle of the Atlantic on some cargo ship. The USAF packs for us by taping everything up and hauling it as is. Many people receive their full garbage bin on the other end. I was able to get another passport but not before the British authorities made me feel the full weight of my American idiocy.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
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I think of home in two ways: where you have an inner "understanding" of a place and where you can be yourself. Sometimes one is a geographical place while the other may be a structure or a family of group of friends. I've lived in a few apartments where I couldn't really relax (noisy neighborhood, too small, etc) but I was in a region of the country or a city that made cultural send to me. I've also had nice digs in a geographic location I couldn't relate to. I found this situation a little more stressful.
sabine
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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I was fortunate to be brought up, and live in an old farmhouse for 22 years. It had a thatched roof and thick cob walls. A brother still lives in it and has now brought up his own family, I rarely go there now.
It not as though every moment there was wildly happy, it wasn't, but the feel and whole effect of that place will always make home in my mind.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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I agree with the people aspect. I have been attached to places mostly because who is there. This includes neighbours; we've been the sort that introduces ourselves to everyone who moves in, and discusses and labels for the newcomers who's who. We've viewed this as basic part of community and community building.
There is another general comment I'd like to make. Have been going into the bush since I was little. Which means going to some northern forested area where there's a lake, and far enough away by canoe or walk that there is no-one else around, no possibility of communication with the outside world, just spruce trees, sounds of water and wildlife and a fire. This also feels like home. Where we have always felt, what's the word, authentically human? I don't think I could like where there's no wilderness available.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I still find myself thinking "I'm going home to visit mum" even 30 years after moving out of the house I grew up in. That house will always be home, though I don't expect to ever live there for more than a few days visit again.
Yes - we moved to the house my parents still live in when I was six years old. It is still "home" in some sense, and Mrs C and I usually sleep in "my" bedroom when we visit. Last time we were there, the kids slept in "my" room and Mrs C and I slept in my brother's room, which felt really weird, and not at all like home - the window was in completely the wrong place.
I get a homey feeling whenever I enter an area with the same style of houses - same colours of brick and tile, same shapes to bay windows and so on. I've been in places a couple of hundred miles away that felt like home for this reason.
Now, my home in the US also feels like "home" - although it took a while. None of the places we rented when we first moved here ever felt anything other than temporary. Thinking about it, nowhere I've ever lived on an intentionally short-term basis has ever felt like "home".
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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It's an odd thing, this sense of home. If I was asked to describe a domestic place of peace it would be a little parlour with a real fire, cosy chairs and a ticking clock. However, that comes straight from someone else's house from when I was a child, and the adult women used to go off into the kitchen for a long chat, and leave me there with a book. I was perfectly content: decades later it still evokes that feeling of warmth, peace and security that I look for in a place, yet I never lived there.
Tangential perhaps but for me a home is not really a true home without a hearth or a fireplace (even if not used) and ideally a fire. I always feel it lacks a heart, a focal point. It's impossible to get the same feeling from looking at a radiator under a window.
Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Tangential perhaps but for me a home is not really a true home without a hearth or a fireplace (even if not used) and ideally a fire.
Home is where the hearth is! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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We have natural gas fireplaces in both our home and our cabin. Very efficient heating with them, 98% apparently, passive no fan.
It is wonderful to be outside in cold weather and then come in, dry toques, tubes, mitts and scarves by the fire. The Danes call it hygge, and I know what they are talking about. Home is where the hygge is.
Posted by Hilda of Whitby (# 7341) on
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I have moved a lot in my life. Home is wherever I happen to be living, from a studio apartment to a house. I have enjoyed living in some places more than others, but that might well be connected to my interior landscape at the time. I've always made every place I've lived feel homey (books, Persian rugs, Arts and Crafts style furniture).
I must say, though, that the house DH and I are living in now screamed "Home!" to both of us the second we saw it. We put an offer on it immediately and are very grateful that we were able to buy it. It's Tudor style, built in 1938, with a round front door, lovely wood floors and woodwork around the windows, a stone fireplace, and original ceramic tile. No previous owner did a thing to this house to change it; they just took care of it. We will be doing the same.
Posted by Teekeey Misha (# 18604) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hilda of Whitby:
...with a round front door...
I'm intrigued. What does a "round front door" look like? (And don't say "It's round"!)
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I trust and hope it looks like the doors here. You'll have to slide down a bit to see the images.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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The real answer to this, for those who are old enough, is "Cantors"*.
And actually a whole range of other companies offer to turn your house into a home. I think this reflects a) the perceived importance of a "home", and b) that it is seem as being having everything "your way" - adding your own touches to a place.
I am not sure I agree with the latter part of this. I think home - for me - is a place where I feel safe. Where I can walk around naked should I want to. Where I can sit in a chair that I find comfortable, watch the TV I want to watch, put things where I want them.
It is more a state of mind than a connection to a physical place for me. It is about being accepted (to take it to a more spiritual level) - so in response to Alans point about churches - I feel accepted where I am now, so it does feel like home. I miss it when I can't get there. It is the first time for many years I have felt truly at home in a church.
I think this is actually a critical question for the churches - lots of people do feel at home in their churches, and resist any changes. But this means that newcomers are less likely to feel at home when they arrive. Which is a problem.
*Their advertising jingle was "Cantors turn your house into a home".
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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Neither Mrs Sioni nor I had lived anywhere for more than seven years before we moved here. we have been here 19 years now and have no great desire to move although we will downsize as locally as possible in the next few years.
So this is definitely Home. The Great Christmas gathering, with the children and a growing number of spouses, partners and grandchildren (now 13, with another GC on the way) defines it but the vast collection of books, Mrs Sioni's cross stiches and painting by various members of the extended family make it more ours than any title deeds can do.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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I'd quite like to avoid this turning into a discussion on churches, if possible, as that could furnish material for a separate thread (and one that I wouldn't be able to participate in).
I felt for a while that my current flat was "home" inasmuch as anywhere was but that feeling has gone. Partly due to one of the neighbours across the way deciding to stare into my flat to the extent that I've had to put up privacy screens and block out the view.
I think one of the contributing factors to a sense of "home" is the feeling that you have freedom and another is that this is your space.
Other people's music intruding through shared walls can also certainly diminish that factor: the continued reminders of other people that you don't know, maybe waking you up at unsuitable hours, can sometimes give the feeling that they control your space, and your use of it (you might need to put in earplugs, or go into another room, or get net curtains, or whatever). That sort of thing.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
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That would most certainly finish any idea of 'home' for me......
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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Those sorts of issues are a huge problem for me, too (especially noise) ... yet they will be commonplace for a vast number of this world's residents, especially in the cities of the developing world.
Posted by Hilda of Whitby (# 7341) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
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Originally posted by Hilda of Whitby:
...with a round front door...
I'm intrigued. What does a "round front door" look like? (And don't say "It's round"!)
Sorry. The top of the door is rounded, like this.
Our house is not as grand as the one in the photo, but it's the same style--Tudor Revival. We love it very much. ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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Pity. I'd hoped for one like this, or like this.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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Originally posted by Hilda of Whitby:
It's Tudor style, built in 1938.
I'm glad you put the word "style" in there. A letter-writer to "The Times" some years ago mentioned a house which was advertised by an Estate Agent as "Jacobean, with Tudor additions". ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Those sorts of issues are a huge problem for me, too (especially noise) ... yet they will be commonplace for a vast number of this world's residents, especially in the cities of the developing world.
Yes, anyone living in a flat/apartment will probably recognize that.
I'm curious to know: does the sense of "home" diminish at all, or change in any way, when you have external people staying? I'm thinking of people who rent out a room. You then have strangers living in your house, and I'd think you'd have to be fairly resilient to handle that.
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
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That depends on the stranger. I have quite a few passing through at times, and some fit in at once, while others never do.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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For me, it is a place where I'm able to relax. I can think back to places I've lived where it was not possible, for various reasons, to be able to relax - consequently I didn't stay there very long.
After days out, holidays, time at work, etc. if I can come back, open the front door and sigh 'Ahh, home again!' then I know I have arrived, and I belong.
Being able to relax somewhere can happen whether you live alone or whether you live with family, or good friends. It would be much harder with total strangers.
Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on
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I've just hosted a two day work training event at our new house. 10 people, six meals, one day of superlative weather, one day of endless rain.
As I was cleaning up this afternoon, I discovered that another part of "home" for me is a place where other people feel at home and comfortable to relax. Henri Nouwen talks about this, in a piece that I used to have on my wall, but can't find yet in the new house.
We have a lot of tui flying around at the moment, and a couple of the visitors hadn't seen them before. There was a half hour break in the rain, during which we all rushed outside and got some fresh air. A very fat tui came and sat on a kowhai tree, singing his lungs out. He performed for a full 7-8 minutes, staying in the same position, allowing our guests to take photos and videos. Magic. We also played Frisbee and helicopters on the patio (and my tallest colleague played rescuer of several helicopters that landed on the roof).
I like that we could be formal and informal, that catering was a matter of everyone pitching in and helping in the kitchen, and that there were spaces for people to go to be noisy or quiet as need be. We both had parents who were extremely hospitable people, and I realise that we seem to value opening up our house as well.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Those sorts of issues are a huge problem for me, too (especially noise) ... yet they will be commonplace for a vast number of this world's residents, especially in the cities of the developing world.
Yes, anyone living in a flat/apartment will probably recognize that.
I'm curious to know: does the sense of "home" diminish at all, or change in any way, when you have external people staying? I'm thinking of people who rent out a room. You then have strangers living in your house, and I'd think you'd have to be fairly resilient to handle that.
We always had foster kids, stray grad students, homeless, etc. with us before our littlest one came, and it didn't really make a difference. Like adding another flavor to the vegetable soup. It's still soup, and the new taste is noticeable but doesn't overpower the rest.
Posted by leftfieldlover (# 13467) on
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Definitely cats! But my books, music and pictures too. The first thing I do when I move house is arrange my books, then hang some pictures, all while listening to music.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
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Originally posted by leftfieldlover:
Definitely cats! But my books, music and pictures too. The first thing I do when I move house is arrange my books, then hang some pictures, all while listening to music.
Yes! I haven't put my pictures back up since the house was redecorated following the quakes, partly because I didn't want them falling down and breaking if we has another large aftershock. I was looking at them today and thinking that now the risk has lessened I need to have them back up.
I bought my house as a refuge after I was raped in the flat I was renting, and in a sense it was my first home since leaving my family. I had a house blessing when I moved in (there's a service in the New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book). My feelings of safety were challenged by the series of quakes and aftershocks that hit Christchurch, especially one that left the second of my two chimneys "teetering on the brink" in the words of an assessor. A friend and I had demolished the first, but the mortar irritated my asthma, so we couldn't do the second as well.
Since then I've reclaimed my home in a new way. Apart from the chimneys and driveway, all the cracks were cosmetic and have been fixed. My cat has stayed with me throughout - many disappeared, but Georgie-Porgy fat'n'fluffy is a cat who knows where her food bowl is ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I do have fewer books than before, and the bookcases are bolted to the walls, I have heat pumps rather than open fires and a green bathroom* with tiles depicting NZ marine life and birds around the bath. It's home.
* When I had to choose a colour after the cracks were fixed I chose the same green as the soap that had lifted my spirits during the difficult times. It was a reminder of survival.
Huia
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
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Huia, this is so inspiring! ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
sabine
Posted by Doone (# 18470) on
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Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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My home is most definitely the place where I feel most safe, secure and in control. It makes me feel very fortunate, grateful, all that good stuff, but it also makes me very possessive. Trying to imagine how awful it would feel to be driven from my home leads me to wonder just what I personally would do or sacrifice to keep my home. Of course, like so many in the "New World", my home exists because indigenous people were driven from their homes and slaughtered. It's easy for me to feel secure because other people already did the dirty work for me.
Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on
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Interesting topic. Like so many Irish people who lived in England down through the years, small-h home was where I lived and Large-H Home was my parents' house. Now, in my early fifties, that certainty about H-Home isn't there now. My beloved father, for whom I came back to look after in 2012, died earlier this year, and I find myself drifting into being a carer for my much more problematic mother. My partner is in Edinburgh and my only brother is in London.
In the meantime, where I am is Craggy Island as far as my heart feels. As I get older, sentimentality about Ireland feels as fake as a rhinestone two dollar bill and about as welcome in my change.
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