After Hazelmade moved studio spaces last summer, I did not expect to deal with cardboard boxes and packing tape anytime soon. But in November of last year, my husband and I decided we wanted to start the process of moving from the energetic downtown of Kent to a slightly quieter area just outside of downtown.
We'd expected this process to take a year or more, but within only a day or two of starting our search, a house came on the market, and we knew we had to go for it.
As with any moving experience, we ran into roadblocks and unexpected detours. What was supposed to be a 6-week timeline for renovations and restoration turned into a 6-month slog. By the end of the season, all I wanted to do was move out of our old house and into our new home. The whole process was a tremendous amount of stress and pressure, constantly facing new delays, new things to pack and clean, new problems to solve.
A friend of mine put it best when she said: “As a person whose entire work is centered around the idea that objects hold stories, this makes complete sense that you would be sad.”
Then, at the end of May we finally made it to the finish line. The moving truck had come and gone, we'd found a buyer for the old house, wrapped up several rounds of inspections, and the “sold” sign was finally placed outside the house. We paid the old house one last visit, expecting to grab a few last things, maybe take a photo together, and say one final goodbye. We never expected to be greeted by sadness.
A friend of mine put it best when she said: “As a person whose entire work is centered around the idea that objects hold stories, this makes complete sense that you would be sad.”
There at the finish line, I stopped thinking about this house as the burden it had become and remembered all of the stories it held. There was always room in this house. Friends and family stayed short term and long term. We hosted dinners and holidays for people with no where else to go, friends with distant families, and even our own nontraditional family. These meals were eclectic, and welcoming.
It was a warm house. It was old and historic. It wasn't perfect, wasn't always put together, but it was full of memories, and we were sad to let it go.
I stopped thinking about this house as the burden it had become and remembered all of the stories it held.
The old house was built in the early 1900s. Hundreds of people had walked on those hardwood floors, the floors that creaked loudly whenever we walked on them, worn down from decades of living and moving. A reminder in each step of the history the house carried. Even though the house's true lineage was too old to trace, we could feel it in the walls, the floors, the creaks and crevices.
Our new house, on the other hand, was built in 1969. It has more space. We can walk around quietly on the still concrete. We have room for a larger dinner table to invite more guests. And we can clearly see its lineage, not just in the details, but in the carefully kept records and the stories our friends and neighbors have shared.
Some of our neighbors grew up with the people who built the house: A husband and wife and their kids. She was a painter, and you can see the details they chose to make the house their home. One bedroom doesn't have a closet: that was her studio. Another room is separated not with a solid wood door, but a glass door, so the parents could watch their kids play while still giving them some distance.
One of my favorite college professors reached out to tell me that her father was an assistant at the architectural firm that designed the house. Her dad drew the plans and created the models for the house. She played such an impactful role in my development as a designer and in my career. It's a wonderful surprise to know that her dad had a hand in the creation of our home.
These connections and anecdotes bring the house to life. Even though we could feel and intuit the lives and stories filling our old house, we couldn't exactly name them. But this house is an open book. The people who lived in and created this house inscribed their chapters, leaving space for us to write our own.
The physical evidence of everyone who walked there before me. A lasting piece of artwork created by the people who made this house their home before us.
When we walked the new house we noticed the floors. Concrete and steel, with a strange pattern like a relief sculpture etched into the concrete. Contractors kept telling us we could have it refinished, polished smooth.
The pattern, a woven, braided-looking texture, was from the pressure of the old carpet that used to lay on top of it. Over time, the footsteps of the homeowners, their family, their children, their guests, started to wear and weigh the carpet down. To think that something as tough and unyielding as concrete could be shaped by the movement of people above it—that pattern is what sold me on the house. It's beautiful. It's also the physical evidence of everyone who walked there before me. A lasting piece of artwork created by the people who made this house their home before us.
Even our old house, with all the aches and pains of the last several months, has left its lasting impression on me. Both the memories we created there, and the traces of life lived before us will always be woven into my personal understanding of home. Of course I will miss it, and of course it will always be a part of me. A story we take with us and infuse into our new house, our new home.
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