Kim Meckler
It is time for me to move again as I have found a home!
Not just a place to stay and not just a roof over my head but a home where I can rest my heart.
I can’t tell you how exciting this is after the uprooting that has happened over the past few months and I am looking forward to finally having my own place again.
Where is home for you?
I don’t mean ‘where are you from’ but where is home; where do your thoughts and imaginations wander when you allow yourself time to dream?
I believe we all have that place in our hearts that we consider home.
For most of us it can be a childhood abode or our first place when we became independent young adults.
Wherever home is for you, that is where your imagination will return to again and again.
For me, home is of course the beautiful heritage home I grew up in Medicine Hat.
This house had all the charm, secret rooms and mystery that I have always loved in a house.
For me, there was no place I would rather live and until I found my first heritage home I would long to live there once again.
The first heritage home I owned made me want to quit my job and hand stencil the hardwood floors.
I didn’t quit, but I did manage to do some hand stencilling on those stunning wood floors. Every room told a story and whispered of a long forgotten history and I was entirely enchanted with the house – every drafty, crooked inch of it.
I also had the advantage of having a summer home on Gull Lake. Decades ago my grampa owned lakefront property where he parked a medium-sized mobile home.
Over the years he added frontage on the home and added a fireplace.
Every summer I had to contain my excitement about going ‘to the lake’; it was one of my favorite places on earth. Even as an adult, the excitement of driving down that lane to the cottage never diminished.
I encourage you to make a pilgrimage past your homes as you may have had the fortune of having several places to call home over the years.
The nostalgia and warm feelings that will poke into your head will be well worth the trip and it may inspire you to re-create some of those homey touches in your current abode.
For instance, I had always loved the brick covered alcove in our kitchen and to this day am always looking for a way to recreate that look – imagine my delight when thin brick came back into fashion!
It is important to remember where you are from, important to allow your mind to wander back and to remember home.
So much can be gleaned from our first memories and experiences of safety and love.
Our homes craft us into the people we are today and whether we are aware of it or not, help us shape our current lifestyles.
Allow your mind a bit of a wander as you trek down a mental path you may not have been down in years and allow yourself the joy of discovery and the memories of home.
Kim Meckler is an interior designer in Red Deer with Carpet Colour Centre.