Room

Almost every room, every space in a home is loaded with meaning : the cellar filled with foreboding ; the kitchen that renews itself daily as the living, breathing hub of the household ; the parlour that presents an acceptable façade to disguise a home in turmoil ; the bathroom overflowing with associations from birth through sex and to death. As for the attic, the tower and the room with a view, they can be whatever you want them to be.

American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi believes that men and women prefer different areas of the house. Men often consider the basement is a retreat, a place for hobbies, a workshop, a bar, or a game room, but to a woman it means loading the washing machine or a problem with the boiler. In the bathroom, surrounded by the accoutrements that help her establish her identity, she feels safe. And while the kitchen is ussualy more important to women, it represents obligation as well as pleasure to them.



Identifying Your Favourite Room

Which room in a house is most important to you? When you come home, where do seek sanctuary? Do you feel drawn to ground level, or do you want to rise above everything, drawing up the ladder behind you? Perhaps you see yourself as a sentinel and like to be near the entrance. Or do you like the household to circulate around you, and gravitate to the main living area? What room does your home lack?

From these picture, choose the room in which you would feel most comfortable. Try to focus on the room and its uses and meaning rather than the style of the décor. Write down your choice and use up to three key words to describe it. Consider other rooms. Would you love a garden room? A turret room?

In which rooms do you spend as little time as possible? The bathroom, perhaps, because washing is a bore, or the bedroom, because you want to get on with living rather than living around. Which room could you do without, or merge with another? A library-cum-kitchen, for instance? Think, too, about what elmts in a room are important to you. Would a simple, structuarally unfussy box with as few angles and features as possible satisfy you?