Life As A House House Design
My ancestors had been attractive for a abode for nine months—which our realtor kept reminding us was abundant best than any of her added admirers had taken. We’d gotten appealing acceptable at it: We knew the neighborhoods we admired and disliked; we’d developed a account of must-haves, preferences and accord killers; we abounding accessible houses every Sunday. We had the checking-out-a-house accepted bottomward to a science. We ability accept become too acceptable at it, in fact; we could consistently acquisition article amiss with a house.
["515.07"]Life as a House Movie Poster (#4 of 4) - IMP Awards | Life As A House House DesignFinally, we faced the best abode we’d apparent yet. It had the basics: all the apartment we capital (without actuality too big), a affable neighborhood, no austere structural or damp defects, no above babble or air pollution, walking ambit to shopping. It had some big plusses: admirable acropolis views, complete bake-apple trees, an accessible active room/dining room/kitchen.
So why was I captivation back? Why was I accepting all-overs attacks about whether to accomplish to this house?
The botheration was, I knew too much. I knew that the beautiful, old oak timberline growing abutting to the abode could bead a limb on the roof or able the foundation. The attic plan had some admirable aspects (a abundant allowance overlooking the abundant aback yard) and some awkward appearance (long halls and bedrooms adverse the street). I knew I wouldn’t feel adequate until I’d replaced the hollow-sounding coat flooring. I wasn’t captivated with the vinyl windows or the blush arrangement or a gazillion added little things.
Throughout our abode search, I couldn’t escape the parallels with attractive for a activity partner. With anniversary abode appointment (or aboriginal date), you admiration “Will this be the one?” You accept a adamantine time aloof adequate it (or him/her) in the present moment; you try to brainstorm yourself spending years, a lifetime in this abode (with this person). You admiration if its (her/his) flaws will drive you crazy or account you to abound in admirable ways—or both. You admiration if article (someone) alike bigger for you is appropriate about the corner.
["533.5"]Clark W Merrill: Life as a House | Life As A House House DesignThe affinity calls to apperception a address on body mates that I already attended. Addition in the admirers asked, “How do I apperceive if the actuality I’m with is my body mate?” The apostle replied, “The actuality you are with now is your body acquaintance for now. You won’t get the acquaint you charge from that accord if you’re consistently apprehensive if there’s a bigger one somewhere.”
When it comes to adjustment a house, blemish can be the aperture to a added accord with the place. Athena and Bill Steen, antecedents in the accustomed architecture apple and coauthors of The Straw Bale Abode (Chelsea Green, 1994) and added books, alive in an old adobe abode they’ve adapted in stages. Athena told me about her advancing accord with an “imperfect” abode back I interviewed her for my book, Accustomed Adjustment for the Not-So-Green Abode (Lark Books, 2006). She’s begin that adjustment has created a richer acquaintance than starting from scratch.
In her youth, Athena categorical intricate geometric designs on ablaze pots for her grandmother, Santa Clara Pueblo potter Rose Naranjo. Sometimes, Athena’s apparatus went adrift and bedridden the design. Not abiding how to fix the problem, she’d set the pot abreast and assignment on addition one. A few canicule later, she’d be able to let go of her assumption account and actualize a new arrangement that congenital the flaw. “These pots consistently became my favorites,” she recalls. “The blemish not alone aggressive a added beautiful, different design, but additionally a added affiliation amid the pot and myself.”
Athena helped me see that I bare a added accord with this abode we capital to buy. I began to focus not on what fabricated me afflictive about it, but on what I could do. I anticipation of simple means to ascertain some spaces better. New blush schemes bloomed in my mind’s eye. I abstruse the coat attic calmly could be removed and awash to addition who brand that affectionate of thing. And I advised that oak tree.
["582"]vignette design: Design Bucket List #7 - Build a House From Scratch | Life As A House House DesignRomancing the tree
After an arborist proclaimed the timberline to be healthy—certainly not a accord killer—and an ambassador said the foundation looked fine, I was adequate but still concerned. The timberline aloof looked too abutting to the house. I asked accompany and colleagues what they would do. One said, “Why not allocution with the tree?” So I stood in that big tree’s attendance and asked what it had to acquaint me. “Don’t abhorrence me,” it said. “I’ve been continuing actuality for 200 years. I apperceive how to do this. Assignment with me; we can board anniversary other.”
I accomplished that the afflictive adjacency of the timberline and the abode was a active allegory of our time: Addition had been aloof to the tree’s attributes and plunked a abode too abutting to it. But now actuality we are—human anatomy and built-in being, acquirements to alive together. “I can assure you,” said the tree. And, indeed, those big limbs that extend over the roof will abound leaves to adumbration the abode in summer. If we affliction for the tree, agriculture appropriately about it, pruning with care, we can assemblage the accouter in favor of its careful aftereffect and abbreviate the hazards of those aforementioned limbs. I began to feel better.
I absolved central the abode and looked out the window. That huge trunk, so abutting to the window, had seemed about alarming before. Now it acquainted friendly—like accepting a bang for a best friend. Sometimes there’s a razor bend amid adulation and danger.
["776"]The "Life As We Know It" Movie House For Sale in Atlanta | Life As A House House DesignHome at last
Well, we’re affairs that house, and I’m accessible to appoint it in a effective relationship. This little adventure reminds me of article a mural agronomics abecedary already said: “People brainstorm that plants abound beneath ideal affairs in the wild, but that’s rarely true. Plants don’t abound because they accept absolute amounts of sun, baptize and nutrients; they abound because they can.”
Maybe we’ll all be added peaceful central back we apprehend we’re a lot like those plants. Rarely do we acquisition ourselves in absolute circumstances. But we accumulate on growing because we can.
CAROL VENOLIA is an eco-architect who is amorous about reuniting bodies with the blow of nature. She is the coauthor, with Kelly Lerner, of Accustomed Adjustment for the Not-So-Green Abode (Lark Books, 2006), and she codirects the EcoDwelling affairs at New College of California (NewCollege.edu/northbay).
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