22.6.11

There’s No Place Like Home: Part I

 

In one of my first posts, A Style to Call My Own, I talked a little about the role that “home” plays in our lives. Understanding the vast importance of home is one of the things that drives me to help people turn their house shell into a place of beauty, function, comfort, and meaning. Just stop for a moment and think about what “home” is to you and your family. Think about all the experiences you’ve shared and the memories you’ve created. What would life be like without home? How would things be if you didn’t have that refuge to come back to at the end of the day? If you hadn’t had it growing up? The significance of the home has really been on my mind lately and I just wanted to share with you how that comes into play with why I love doing what I do and why I feel so strongly about it…why it’s so important and so valuable.

hiwthi  (home is where the heart is sterling silver necklace from etsy shop JDavis Studio)

As you all know, I just moved from Birmingham, AL to Tampa, FL. Like I mentioned in my last post, my husband left a week ahead of me. Well, the morning he left was the day the tornadoes started that wrecked so many lives. It was a terrifying experience, to say the least. Crunched in a downstairs bathroom with my parents and one of my brothers, we watched the radar on our phones, listened to the weatherman, and texted and called friends and family back and forth, making sure everyone was still ok as we watched this mile-wide monster tear through our cities. For the next week or so we spoke with people we knew and watched the local news, hearing stories of loved ones who were injured or dead and homes that were completely gone. Thankfully, my family and their homes made it through safely, but it is really overwhelming and heart-wrenching to see what so many others are going through.

chrlstnsqr (Here’s a photo of my old apartment in Tuscaloosa- I lived on the second floor. You can see the actual apartment space I lived in, with only a floor and a couple of walls left standing. In the center is the pool and what used to be where I did laundry.)

It’s times like these where it really hits you just how much our lives revolve around home. Home is everything. It’s where we live, love, and learn, where we share the good and bad, the ups and downs. Home sees our blood, sweat, laughter, and tears. It’s where we learn to cook or teach others how, where we have big family meals or intimate dinners for two. It’s where we go through pregnancies and bring home brand new little ones, where we raise them and watch them grow into adults, all creating memories together. It’s where children will remember finding comfort after their first day of school, having their heart broken, and getting the chicken pox, it’s where they will remember sharing their joy after making straight A’s, being asked to prom, and getting their driver’s license. Home is where we want to be after a bad day or after receiving bad news, where we want to be when we’re sick, it’s where we feel safest and happiest, where we create memories with friends and family, memories that shape our lives…

home

Home is where our lives are centered. It’s where we recharge, where we want to be, where we experience true, unconditional love, support, and comfort. Think about it- When you’ve been on a long trip, what’s the first thing you think on the way back? I can’t wait to be home. When you’re stuck in 5 o’clock traffic? I can’t wait to be home. When you’ve had a long, hard day at work? I can’t wait to be home. When you’re recuperating from surgery in the hospital? I can’t wait to be home. When you’re fighting a war overseas? I can’t wait to be home. Hell, with most soldiers, home is the only thing that keeps them going. It’s what they live for, what they fight for, and what some die for…

military

 

These are the reasons I do what I do. It’s so important to me to help people create beautiful, functional, comfortable homes so that everyone who is there will always want to be there and always want to come back. I enjoy helping people create a place where cherished memories can be made. What a wonderful thing to be able to do for someone! I want people to feel wrapped in joy and warmth from the moment they step inside, and I want that to be a feeling they attach to home and carry with them always. Home is the foundation for living and it should be a haven for you. It’s vital that it work for you and with you, that it be all that it can. It should cradle you like a mother does a baby when you desperately need comfort, it should support you when you’re busy and stressed, uplift you when you feel run down, and be a place of joy and happiness that you can always count on.

I have my own fond memories of home, as does the rest of my family; my husband has his fond memories, as does the rest of his family. I’ve seen people’s homes wiped from existence and seen the devastation, the pain, and the hopelessness that it causes. I’ve seen the anxiety followed by delight in people who just finished having a brand new home built. I’ve experienced the sadness of leaving one home, and the joy of creating a new one. I believe in the power of the home. It’s a place that is truly precious and sacred. That’s what makes what I do so fulfilling and so valuable. You see, for me, designing homes is about so much more than just making things look pretty. It’s about working with you, understanding you and your family’s lives, your wants, your needs, your goals and your dreams. It’s about helping you create that place that will forever be near and dear to your heart and the hearts of your loved ones, helping you mold and shape a house into a wonderful place, a place that is and will become a very important part of your life, a place you call home.

*After you read this, say a little prayer/keep in your thoughts the people who have lost their homes in the recent natural disasters and then take a moment to really appreciate your own home and what it means to you and your family.*

2 comments:

  1. Bonjour!
    What a nice post, thank you for inspiring us today. Prayers said!
    -Jessica & Holly
    Etsy.com/shop/chezjolly

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks gals! Love to have you back this week for part deux. I LOVE your etsy shop, btw- especially loved Paris Rooftops Cotton Horizon and Paris Mint Seafoam Secret (reminds me of jadeite).

    Alicia

    ReplyDelete