Ever since I can remember, I’ve been infatuated with personal living spaces – the home environment. Whether it was my room as a child or our house as a whole – I’ve always been aware of the space I live in.
My mother is amazed how I can give her an exact layout of my childhood home in Queens, NY; I can picture the floor plan exactly. And even though I was only four years old when my father renovated the attic of our Cape Cod into two bedrooms for my siblings and me, I remember all the details vividly. We moved from that house before I turned five, but the transformation of that space into something functional, rather than just a scary storage place, left a lasting impression on me.
This early awareness of space and the ability to envision change is obviously a huge factor in my career as an interior designer. But I think the love of the old adage “a place for everything, and everything in its place” resonates in all of us. We all have the innate desire for order, it’s just that some people carry that into our homes and workplaces while others are so overwhelmed with the magnitude of material things that the need for order falls to the wayside.
I am always looking for ways to work through the clutter for my clients, as well. Through the years I have found that our society’s housing habits are cyclical. We have gone from small houses to McMansions and back again. And the locations of our homes have gone from urban living to suburbia, then back to city living a as preference for many – including myself.
It’s these factors and more that lead us to the love of the new “Tiny Home” craze that is sweeping the nation and the HGTV channel. We are fascinated with the desire for order and simplicity while we subconsciously revert back to the safety and comfort of our “Mother’s womb” – small spaces that make us feel secure. How society chooses to live seems to change with the tides… more
About Carrie,
