By Tom Ashbrook.
“Home,” said Robert Frost, “is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” But if that home is a house, how will it make you feel once you’re there?
Psychology editor Winifred Gallagher has written a psychological tour of the American home, room by room. She calls it “House Thinking” but it’s really about how houses make us feel – and why. About how we shape houses, and then they shape us — for years, maybe for life. The alcove that enfolds. The shaft of morning sun. The intimate and the public faces. From Edith Wharton’s bedroom to McMansion-land.
Hear about how our houses make us think and act and feel.
Quotes from the Show:
“We have, in the American tradition and also evolutionary tradition, developed certain spaces to serve certain behavioral needs, and sometimes that get lost in the shuffle of trying to have homes that look super.” – Winifred Gallagher
“What really impressed me about Monticello [Thomas Jefferson's house in Virginia] is that Jefferson lived in a private apartment that was completely separate from the house. He was arguable one of America’s first apartment dwellers.” – Winifred Gallagher
“The living room is expression central. It’s the place where you show you yourself and your family and your friends who you are and what’s important to you so don’t make that room about the television unless that is the most important thing to you.” – Winifred Gallagher
“A lot of people don’t think through how they want to live in their rooms or why they want to use a certain color, why they want to use a certain piece of furniture and I think the argument for being very mindful about how you’re decorating is an important argument.” – Dominique Browning
“Of course the people who want you to buy their things [for the home] want you to feel good about them so there’s not really a conflict there. I think that what we’re really talking about is people not getting to the bottom of why they feel about a certain thing and it has nothing to do with whether somebody is trying to sell you something.” – Dominique Browning
Guests:
Winifred Gallagher, author, “House Thinking: A Room-by-Room Look at How We Live”
Dominique Browning, Editor-in-Chief of “House & Garden.”
