Conquering the belongings that formerly overwhelmed me
Are you moving or thinking it’s time to reduce some of the crap you own? Homie Matilda’s struggle with getting rid of all of her belongings for her impending move might help inspire you to reduce the amount of crap you own. Or it might also make you realize WHY it is you keep holding on to so many THINGS.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the domestic arts
I am a shit housekeeper. My culinary background is in microwave dinners and take-out. I didn’t think anything of it until it came time to move in with my now husband. We moved into a lovely house (check), I bought some lovely lipstick (check), I found a strand of pearls at a garage sale (check). So why the hell is the laundry always in a pile, the dishes never done, the floor all dirty and most of the things I cook are gross, mushy approximations of food?
But I don’t cook meth: overcoming my own “trailer trash” misconceptions
We were scrambling to get out of the nest, but didn’t know where to start. So we developed three requirements for our future home, and somehow a trailer fit them all. Now I just needed to get over my “trailer trash” stigma to be able to enjoy my new home.
Cities in crisis: Rehousing the American Dream
I live in a Canadian border city. It is not urban; it’s a collection of suburbs with giant malls as focal points. It’s an inefficient arrangement, and it’s exactly the type of town that’s been torn down by the foreclosure crisis. It’s the type of town that a group of architects and designers at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC would like to change. Running now until August 13th is the exhibit “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.”
My door is open: why I’m pretty public online about my home
Rockethaus is pretty public. I run two blogs dealing specifically with homes, I tweet pretty much all the time, and I am also a normal Young Professional living in America. A LOT of my life happens online, publicly, where other people have access to it, even people I don't know terribly well. We talk about parties, problems, events, and projects, and we do a lot of it completely in the open. My mom would argue that it's dangerous for people to know where I live and what my habits are, but I prefer to think it's part of community building.
Kill your darlings: what being a writer taught me about homemaking
Kill your darlings is one of the writing terms which has become a mantra to me over the last year of homemaking.
You’ll hear in writing courses and author’s workshops across the nation: Kill your darlings. Supposedly advice from Faulkner, “kill your darlings” means letting go of your work — even when it is beautiful, hard-won work — in order to make progress in a piece of writing. That beautiful landscape description your readers will simply skip? That character you spent months developing but turns out to be unimportant to the plot? Off with their heads. On with your work.
Why does everyone’s house look the same?
Fuck your frame cluster. Fuck your decorative typewriter. Fuck your Eames rocker, your vintage map, your rotary phone and your card catalog. Fuck every inch of your sterile, homogeneous,”curated” apartment. Also, where did you get that throw pillow? It’s gorgeous!
Don’t use January to beat yourself up
January always seems to be about making new starts. Quitting things, cutting down on things, doing more of other things… I, of course, thought I was above falling for the hype. I’m an Offbeat Homie, I don’t need to buy your exercise video just because it’s January! Obviously.