How visitors affect your view of place

This is an essay for the Ecotone Wiki

I love being at home - it is a child friendly, pet friendly, and tree friendly kind of place. I liked the feel of it as soon as I walked in to it for the first time with the agent. We bought our house fifteen years ago. I guess it was a mistake in some ways considering that it needed lots of work and money spent on it. We initially did spend money on it - we underpinned the foundations in order to try to stop cracks appearing in the walls, we altered the kitchen and changed the back area so that the toilet could be inside and not located in an outhouse. Then we ran out of money, time, and energy and child number three came along. Twelve years later we still have a living room that is decorated in the 1930's style - the carpet is threadbare and the wall paper is faded. The paint is peeling on the ornate ceilings. To any discerning visitor it must appear drab and unkempt. Our bookcases are filled to overflowing, our desk is always untidy and our children seem to spread their belongings into every room. It is little wonder that we very rarely receive visitors - I tired many years ago of apologising for the state of the house - visitors just have to accept us for who we are. Despite this however I have come to realise that no matter how we fight the concept, what people think is important. I do love our house, it is lived in and has a warmth of atmosphere about it - it is certainly not a Vogue masterpiece. Having visitors however does highlight its inadequacies and I guess, my inadequacies as a housekeeper and homemaker.

Similarly, our weblog is a special place - a place of self, in a way. It is an attempt to describe the place we live in, our lifestyle, our opinions, our wildlife, our scenery. I can look forward to having visitors to it as it makes no difference how I look or what state of disorganisation the house is in. I can escape for a while. I don't pretend to be a literary genius, I know my grammar and my expression is often unimaginative. I read other blogs with a feeling of inadequacy - I could never write like that. I know the bloggers who write wondefully and expressively, just like the people in their superbly renovated immaculate houses, would pay us a cursory visit and dismiss us quickly at first glance. We would not be worthy of their attention.

Now if visitors arriving in Newcastle don't mind an old house, sleeping in a fold down bed in the sunroom, sharing a bathroom with the family, a cat, a budgie, an axolotil, and meals cooked outside on the BBQ served on mismatched crockery I will show you in real life, the scenes you have visited on this blog. The beach, the birds, the animals are all here - things we often take for granted living in this place, but nevertheless things we see in a different light when we can show them off to visitors.

Comments

[Tvindy]

That's just the kind of home houseguests tend to like. I always feel very uneasy when I visit someone in a pristine home. I'm afraid I will mess something up or spill something or sit in the wrong place. It's impossible to feel at home in that kind of environment. As a houseguest, I know I am not responsible for maintenance or picking up after pets, so such things as peeling paint and vomiting cats probably cause me far less stress than the actual owner. The best rule of thumb for determining whether or not your house is suitable for houseguests is to ask yourself if you love it and feel at ease there. If so, most houseguests probably will as well.

[Jan Ferrell]

If I could afford to visit then my hubbie and I would love to stay at yours. There are folks out there who value people more than what they have in their houses. God, you should see mine, but still we have visitors. Although my family in Scotland have bigger and better and more modern homes.

It isn't what you have, but who you are and the welcome that you give that matters.

Jan, Kent, England

[beth]

Jenny and Geoff, I very much hope we will spend time in each other's homes someday! I agree with Jan, it isn't what you have but who you are that matters, and my guess is that your home reflects that in wonderful ways. We can trade stories of remodeling efforts - complete and incomplete - as well!