Creating, Home.

house/hous/noun
* a building for human habitation, especially one that is lived in by a family or small group of people.

home/hōm/noun
* the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

aes·thet·ics/esˈTHediks/noun
* a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.
* the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste.

Be that this is blog post #3, and things are getting real between us, I thought we’d get deeper with some definitions. Take a quick study of the above.

My first observation based on the definitions – a house is pretty much the same as a home except apparently a home is somewhere you’re supposed to live permanently and forever. That seems kinda fascist, but anyways, I digress. I also read the definitions to differ in that a house is a building that happens to be fit for habitation by humans. Whereas home is a place where one lives – it conveys a sense of choice (although apparently there’s no choice except.. FOREVER).

For a special place where one chooses to live and lets just say, where one is ready to commit a very long period of time to, it’s nice to embed one’s own aesthetics. A personal principle of beauty that allows you and those who live with you to maximally enjoy this place called Home.

So what will be the chosen aesthetics for our home? I’d say it leans to Modern. Think clean lines, neutral color palettes. We are focused on a modern Northern European and less say, Italian, French, or Mid-century American modern (all very nice as well). We think of the Northern European style of modern as family friendly and comfortable. It presents as a canvas for personal items like furniture, art, family photos, travel memorabilia. It’s also rather utilitarian and practical which is important for life with kids, and space is rarely wasted or misused.

Some of the major features we focused on architecturally were enlarging windows, moving the entry to create more of a landing space, shifting some walls to allow for a more practical use of space, updating kitchen and bathrooms, and changing the overall trim and color palette of the house inside and out to fit this style preference. Our house gets a lovely amount of sun on the second level, and as it overlooks conservation land in the back, we want to maximize light and views with big picture windows. Check out some of our aesthetic inspirations:

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  Photo by Janet Scagel Design. See more scandinavian staircase designs
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  Photo by Coats Homes. See more contemporary family room designs
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  Photo by Charlie & Co. Design, Ltd. See more modern staircase designs
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  Photo by DECOR ROPEMA S.L.. See more contemporary bathroom designs
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  Photo by HONEYandSPICE innenarchitektur + design. See more contemporary kitchen designs
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  Photo by dcf design group. See more contemporary home office designs
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  Photo by Wentworth. See more contemporary exterior designs