Attractive and well-appointed though they may be, many houses just don’t live up to their potential. They meet or even exceed basic physical requirements, but do precious little for fundamental emotional, psychological and spiritual needs.
For many, the American dream house has turned into the American disappointment. Our houses give us shelter; but not sanctuary. The contain us, but they don’t comfort us.
We have living rooms we don’t really live in and dining rooms we don’t really dine in. We have family rooms that are, despite the fireplace and entertainment center, vacant much of the time. We have bigger houses with more rooms than ever before, and where do we end up?
In a spare bedroom, often rechristened the TV room, furnished with cast-off, but divinely comfortable, furniture.
The most sought-after, status-conscious features have let us down.
The soaring cathedral ceilings that dazzled us when we were house hunting now dwarf us. Floor-to-ceiling window walls make us feel exposed and vulnerable. Relentlessly wide-open floor plans leave us lusting for just one cozy corner to retreat into.
The cautionary adage, “Be careful what you wish for because you may get it,” applies. Many of us got precisely the kind of house we wanted. Or thought we wanted.
What we didn’t get was a home. And the trophy houses, mini-mansions, junior embassies and faux chateaux sprawling across suburban America suggest we still aren’t thinking hard enough.
Then how do you get a house with heart and soul, a home that responds to the physical and emotional needs of your family, a home in which the emphasis is on the quality of life, not the quantity of space? “The key is to think about your personal values, how you live, how you want to live,” writer Jim Tolpin says. “You need to follow your instincts instead of fighting them and think long and hard about the kinds of spaces that are most comforting to you.”
Fortunately, there are signs that a few free thinkers are beginning to do just that. Tolpin tracked some of them down for his coffee-table book, “The New Family Home” (The Taunton Press, $34.95). Along the way he identified some significant trends that reflect new attitudes about family life and new approaches to home building:
– Spaces to be together. “While one-function rooms isolate members of a family, communal rooms bring them together and let them share their lives,” Tolpin says. For their home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Grace-Gordon Collins and Ernest Collins designed a great room that combines the functions of a kitchen, dining room and family room, in less space than three separate rooms would have required. They dispensed with a formal living room and dining room altogether. A grand piano and a fireplace attract and hold members of the household, encouraging them to spend time with each other. Furniture groupings, area rugs and adjustable lighting define intimate “rooms” within the larger space.
– Spaces to be apart. In-house sanctuaries acknowledge our need for occasional solitude. A small attic space, a snug library or den, even a window seat, off the beaten path can be a retreat. Near Boston, John and Kathy Cook appended a modest screened-in porch to the back of their house, in the process providing a literal catwalk for the family feline as well. Gracious but far from grand, it’s a place to gaze into the woods, watch wildlife, feel the caress of summer breezes and soothe jangled nerves. “The careful balance between communal and private spaces is always an important consideration for a family home,” Tolpin says. So is prioritizing. In emotional terms, what matters most, a cozy retreat or a status-seeking two-story entranceway?
– In-between spaces. Regardless of size, in well-designed homes, every inch counts. Even seemingly leftover or orphaned spaces can work to cosset and coddle a family. In a house in Maine, a generous stair landing serves as a mini-family room. “While the kids are washing up and getting in their pj’s,” Tolpin says, “Mom or Dad might be here folding laundry. Before lights-out, there’s always time to cuddle up on the love seat for a bedtime story.”
– Shared children’s bedrooms. Who says kids are entitled to–or even benefit by–their own bedrooms from birth? Sharing a room acknowledges the need for companionship and teaches “lessons in civility and consideration” at a young age, Tolpin says. He found some families are downsizing sleeping quarters to keep family members from retreating too often to their own bedrooms. In other cases, two children may have their own small bedrooms, but share an adjoining bath.
– Fitting in a home office. Single-purpose rooms are a waste of space and money. In Harriet and Russ De Wolfe’s home north of Seattle, a modest guest bedroom does double duty as a home office. The strategy maximizes the use of space without resorting to putting the office in a high-traffic area such as a family room or kitchen. “It’s an example of how our homes can work harder for us,” Tolpin says. “A room doesn’t always have to be what the label on the floor plan says. Flexibility and versatility can be built in: A first-floor guest room today may be a teenager’s bedroom tomorrow and then a master bedroom down the line.”
Putting emotional issues on par with–or even ahead of–physical requirements can make any house more family-friendly, even if a specific family consists of just one or two people.
To get a home with a heart, search your own heart first. Forget for the moment ripping pages out of decorating magazines, poring through home plan catalogs and touring with the real estate broker. Instead, lie down, close your eyes, get quiet and think.
Think in emotional terms. What kinds of spaces make you feel reassured and comforted? How do you live now and how would you like to live? What do you need? More privacy or more togetherness? A place in which to indulge a hobby you’re passionate about? What’s missing in your home life? How does your house conflict with how you want to live?
What’s better, a rarely used formal dining room or a friendly, hospitable kitchen with an eating area where you can cook, eat and entertain in a casual manner? Why have a full-time guest room if you only have guests once a year? Do you really need five bathrooms?
Getting a home that cossets and coddles you doesn’t require spending more money. It requires, instead, some deliberate, thoughtful consciousness-raising. Think about what your emotional needs are: stability, permanence, security, intimacy, quality time with those you love, a place to read or meditate?
“Forget all the amenities that are available and the status stuff,” Tolpin advises. “Think back. Where, over the course of your life, have you felt most comfortable? Ninety percent of the time people will recall small, protected spaces–a tree house, a mountain cabin, a lakeside cottage, even a bench in a garden or a window seat or huddled around a campfire telling ghost stories. Where does the human animal go to feel protected? Almost never to a large open area. In restaurants we’ll sit at a booth before a table. In a room, we’ll sit in a corner if we can.
“We need to stop choosing houses just because they’re spacious, because they’re convenient to the hairdresser or the shopping mall, or because they’re status symbols. We need to think about how we really want to live, acknowledge and respect the rightness of our own feelings and stop fighting our instincts.”
Perhaps most of all, making a current or future home conform to your life rather than letting it dictate the way you live means asserting yourself. You have to place a premium on spending time together by actually planning it. You have to demonstrate your determination to pry the kids away from the television by turning it off. If you declare and then live out your good intentions, practically any home can be made to respond to your emotional and psychological needs.
