I've been thinking about how we make our homes today, as I celebrate Sarah Drake Design's 11 years in business. When I truly think about what I love about my work, what I love about my life, is the home I'm able to make, and have a small part of helping my clients make.
It started really when I was four. My parents made me a beautiful dollhouse for Christmas that year, and I spent the next 11 years immersed in that miniature world, endlessly setting scenes, making sure the bed, made with linens my grandmother made, was authentically rumpled, to show the parents had just gotten up, and the table set with mini food.
Our homes are the places that hold our memories, contain the moments, the daily comings and goings that make up our lives. The patterns and rituals. It's a container for the things too: the coffee cup you drink from every morning, the painting that was your mother's first purchase. The wedding linen with your monogram embroidered into it.
Loving your home is cleaning the kitchen, helping your kids with their homework at the kitchen table, painting a wall, or weeding a garden. Making an ugly hand me down dining table a bit nicer by covering it with the linen you received as a wedding gift.
Inviting a few friends or family over for dinner and drinking too much wine on your back porch. Getting scary news from the doctor, tolerating your family's quirks and your dog barking too loud.
It doesn't have to be a home you buy, a fancy home, a big home. It's simply the place you share the small moments that make up your life. And that can happen anywhere. Your home is the place that holds everything, from the dirty laundry to the new couch you saved for. Making the special holiday toffee your grandmother taught you make every December, and the every night meals and clean up.
As we marry, we create a new kind of shelter- giving and receiving as a couple. Managing, navigating and learning. Making decisions. Honestly, the first year of marriage is hard - You figure out how to share so many things, from family responsibilities, to money, taking care of everything together, from your pet, to your children. Maybe you're a new stepparent, or have inherited a challenging family situation.
I'm grateful I have a small part in helping people create these heirlooms, these memory holders, from their wedding invitations, to their family china, to the first anniversary gift. Thank you for letting me.
So, it's all of this, the home. The holder of people, emotions, things, and moments. I love it all.
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