Feeling at Home: Defining Who You Are and How You Want to Live

Feeling at Home, Defining Who You are And How You want to Live, Morrow, 1999. Tags: Conduct of Life, Identify (Psychology), Home-Psychological Aspects Something has happened to the magazine racks at US drug stores and grocery stores, and even bookstores, such as Walden and Barnes and Nobel. Public affairs magazines are missing. Life Magazine is gone, even Playboy is relegated to the highest shelf in a plastic wrapper. I have been remodeling my home and discovered that I could find several dozen magazines devoted to decorating and remodeling. There were specialized issues that focused only on baths, kitchens, "country" homes, apartments and even magazines that offered a focused on "outdoor" living. However, with all of these selections when I examined the floor plans closely there were few choices. Bathrooms may now include bidets, unusual for an American home, if not urinals, but in the end there is a simple choice: toilet, tub and shower, sink and medicine cabinet. Kitchens only offer stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, possibly a disposal and microwave. When I think of my grandmother's Thor, purchased early in the century, appliances that enabled the user to swap out parts and use as either a dishwasher or clothes washer, I wonder to what extent we have changed. Amid all of these choices I have recently found one book that speaks to my own needs Feeling at Home, Defining Who You are and How You Want to Live by Alexandra Stoddard, published by William Morrow, 1999. Chapter 2 is a delightful dialogue called "Shaping Your Home" in which a husband and wife are interviewed by a decorator the questions deal with how the couple actually lives. The decorator commands the couple "Site on your side of the bed. Now sit on John's side. How does it feel?" The discussion is almost like couples therapy. The author emphasizes the role of light on the house. She explains that reflection, that can mean more light, can come from many places, including mirrors and shiny surfaces. She also frees the reader to embrace color, the colors that the person occupying the house really likes. If you like purple, red, and bright yellow use them. She includes items not usually thought have as part of the decorating task as essential: telephones, the multiple roles of the kitchen table, windows in relationship to the views they display. The ultimate goal of the book is to make the individual or the family looks at their own needs, which may be unconventional and design living spaces according to these needs, not some preconceived plan. So, back to the home I am renovating. It is a house I have owned for 47 years sand lived in with a husband and two children, with a teenager and adult daughter with ideas of her own, a strange period when I shared it with a brother, ex-husband, daughter and a daughter who returned home after a divorce. I have rented the house to strangers while helping a daughter with grandchildren, while I was in the Peace Corps, while living in a downto

This book has wonderful organizing ideas, beautiful quotes and decorating tips, and gorgeous color photos of Alexandra's famous New York apartment. I loved it!

A must for those of us who want to love our homes more. More than a collection of decorating ideas and tips, you embark on a journey of what meaningful living is to you. Alexandra asks her readers to keep a journal as they turn the pages of a book that provokes thoughts and insights into one's own preferences. Remarkably, you feel as if Alexandra is guiding you in person instead of through words on pages. Included is an in depth interview with one of Alexandra's clients, narrative on 15 essential elements of emotional comfort, helpful recommendations for balancing time and ideas on cultivating creativity. These concepts are interwoven with revealing personal and profeesional experiences as well as pictures of Alexandra's New York apartment. This book is great alone or as follow up to "Decoration Of Houses" and "Open Your Eyes". Enjoy!