Small Home Gazette, Fall 2018
Letter From the Editor: adjusting your life to fit your home
Which would you rather do: adjust the way you live to fit your older house or alter your older house to fit the way you live? While the initial answer to such broad questions is “it depends,” most of us will have to admit that we gravitate toward the latter option. After all, this is America. Life, liberty and the pursuit of a master bedroom suite with Jacuzzi.
The fact is, all of us old house dwellers adjust our lives to accommodate our homes to some degree. Most, however, do so because we don’t have the finances to do what we really desire: turn our humble abode into a dazzling dream home. When I see what some owners who have too much money have inflicted on their houses, however, I’m glad for my relative paucity of funds.
Am I saying we should never alter our homes? Preserve them like a prehistoric insect locked in a nugget of amber? No. I’ve made alterations to my bungalow. For example, it was apparently built without a front or rear porch light.
I didn’t hesitate to add them, using sympathetic fixtures, of course. I’ve made other alterations I regret, though at the time I believed I was doing what was obviously, absolutely, necessary. But time passes, we wise up, fashions change, and one year’s must-have is soon oh-so-yesterday.
A good example is the unquestioned desirability of a kitchen that is open to the dining and/or living areas, with no wall in between. The wisdom of this arrangement speaks for itself. Entertaining is much more casual than before. We have no servants to prepare and serve our meals. And we want to visit with our guests during the final stages of meal preparation, don’t we? Is there really any question that we have to rip out that wall—along with the original built-in buffet—to create such an arrangement?
Consider a remark by Marian McEvoy, a former magazine editor-in-chief and reputed to be “famous for her sophisticated do-it-yourself aesthetic.” In a recent issue of Food and Wine magazine, an interviewer asked if she liked guests to help with cooking or cleaning up.
“No!” replied McEvoy. “I do not like an open kitchen… I don’t want people to watch me. Cooking is very private and cathartic. You’re not there to see me work hard, or freak out if the sauce doesn’t take. Let’s just keep you drinking wine and chatting at the table. I won’t be in the kitchen long. I prepare in advance and have everything in the oven before guests arrive…”
Well. What if her remarks herald the next big thing in kitchen design? Will future bungalow owners be frantically running from one salvage yard to another, hoping to find their long-lost buffet so they can create an enclosed kitchen just like everybody else has?
Yes, alter your home, but do so with caution, careful planning and a great deal of respect.
This commentary originally appeared in the Summer 2005 edition of this newsletter.
