Feeling at Home
Defining Who You Are and How You Want to Live
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Most decorating books omit the most important element of the home: you. Does your home reflect who you really are? Feeling at Home focuses on this most essential aspect of decorating: creating a home that is truly your emotional center. Every room and object should answer your needs and make you feel more human and whole. Alexandra Stoddard gently leads us through a process of self-attunement and self-expression in which we discover not only our practical needs, but also our yearnings--perhaps a sunny spot for reading; a colorful nook for ironing; an inviting place for paperwork. She urges us to question the rules and to never "pre-compromise" by talking ourselves out of our true desires. With imaginative and practical examples from her personal and professional life, she helps us discover countless ways to express ourselves at home and instantly feel comfort, pleasure, and ease.
Why settle for merely being "in" our homes when we can be "at home?" Feeling at Home puts us on the path to home as we've always dreamed it could be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stoddard (Open Your Eyes) is a well-known interior designer, but her books mine a territory that's closer to self-help than color schemes. Her latest volume urges readers to look at themselves and their homes with a new consciousness. Through a text liberally laced with both personal anecdote and queries (from "How well are you getting along with your spouse?" to "How much time do you spend eating?"), Stoddard guides readers through a process of self-exploration, then encourages them to reshape not only their houses but the way they spend time there. What she calls emotional comforts, such as order and color, are enhanced along the way, while unrewarding chores, spaces or possessions are pared down. The result, she convincingly affirms, is a more delightful, less demanding life. Stoddard has a genuine gift for thinking creatively about interior spaces; too often, though, she returns to themes well covered in past books--her own and others'--or collapses into vague silliness ("If in the past you found no satisfaction in emptying the garbage, transcend the garbage pail, rise above it"). However, the book bubbles with an infectious appreciation of even the smallest domestic pleasure and an inspiring awareness of the spiritual and emotional life of a house.
