The Perfect Fit Home
April 16, 2018
The hapless term “downsizing” became popular in the last three decades. First, the automotive industry used it. Then, corporations adopted it to rationalize terminations. Perhaps a reaction in part to the pre-recession patterns of large, anonymous homes, the cry to downsize private homes was especially loud over the last decade. This was especially sonorous with empty nesters, who were told they need less and should shed more. Most recently there have been bestsellers on how exactly to shed all our “stuff.”
How many of you remember George Carlin’s hilarious soliloquy on the purpose of having a house: “A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.”
Henry David Thoreau was on the same track in 1854 one hundred sixty years ago. I was a great fan of Thoreau and his quiet, cleansing and presumably isolated, two-year sojourn at Walden Pond until I realized he relied regularly on his neighbors (the Emersons, the Hawthornes as well as his mother) for dinner and conversation. Yet, in my college days, his words resonated: “As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”
Virginia Woolf added her brilliant combination of pragmatism and cynicism in a Room of One’s Own of the prerequisites for creating art: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
Well, I do not write fiction. Instead, I design buildings. This includes designing rooms of one’s own and houses of one’s own that are perfect fit places to live.
First, for those who can, it is wonderful to donate and give away” surplus” to those who will essentials. But this is not what is really happening with my generation of Baby Boomers. It is time to be forthcoming.
How many declared downsizers embark on such a course only to shed inherited antique, generations of furniture and “stuff.” Suddenly, some start acquiring new and differently in a world of white and gray, contemporary modernism. George Carlin was right.
I would like to make the case for the Perfect Fit Home. It can be a small or large house, a loft or condo or apartment or cottage. It may have a little land if this is what it takes for you to thrive, or no land at all. We are all different in our economic background, our families and our patterns. One type surely does not fit all. Surely, age alone does not define our patterns either.
This is different from another published term “rightsizing.” Again, there are several published books on rightsizing your home, your life and your lifestyle. Right implies a moral imperative. I offer no moral imperative. If there is a perfect rightsizing protocol, inevitably, there will be books on wrong sizing soon thereafter.
What your own house ought to be is a direct and optimal fit for your own patterns of working, dining, family time, sleeping time, friendship time and quiet time. It should be safe and full of natural light, with the handful of important comforts that make your daily life worth living for your family and friends.
Sometimes the perfect fit is about one’s need for simple things like a natural light. I often hearken back to Vitruvius with his simple suggestions for your private home that a bedroom should have morning light for us morning persons. I suggest afternoon light for all my night owl friends. Sometimes the perfect fit is about seeing everything at a glance and open planning. Sometimes, it is instead about hierarchy, rooms, closets and hiding objects. It goes to the essence of how you like to live and what and whom you want to surround you, simply that.
This will be offered as a Design Service to all of us who are considering moving (www.geddisarchitects.com). This is not just about baby boomers, although they are our obvious first audience. The Wall Street Journal uses the nicknames for age demographics and cites Centennials, Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. Every generation is seeking a common goal: creating a congenial place to call home.
To all age cohorts, I offer The Perfect Fit House Design Evaluation. It will focus on observing and documenting your ideal day of how you spend time and what indoor and outdoor spaces you require to flourish safely and with contentment. Like health, wellness and fitness regimens, there will be “metrics” to assess what you and each of us really does need.
Drawing a parallel to the Goldilocks economy, the ultimate metric is the perfect fit home for each of us, not too small, not too large, just right and the perfect fit.
