I remember one day many years ago, when I was a young girl of 12 years old. I was sitting on the floor in the living room using the coffee table to design a floorplan for a dreamy house with a big garden. Trying to find a beautiful shape for the house, a nice way to organize the living room facing the garden, and feeling that inspiring sensation of gentle freedom that you feel when you are creating something as you like to. It was so funny and joyful, and there was no need for anything else to feel well, no overthinking about why, or how, or what I was doing.
It was the first seed of my choice to study architecture. What happened next?
Introduction
Do you ever feel like you’re losing your creativity and joy during most of your workdays? As if the role that work plays in your life is making it difficult to connect with your true voice and inner joy?
And to what extent do we have the right and duty to seek personal fulfillment in our job? Wouldn’t it be easier and more peaceful to focus solely on working well and supporting our financial needs, and then enjoy creative pursuits during our free time?
In the past few months, I have been trying to gain a better understanding of these topics and determine my path forward. Additionally, I have consulted the I Ching (or Yi Jing, usually translated Book of Changes) and found the experience to be quite interesting and inspiring (I will discuss this further in a separate post).
While I do not yet have a definitive answer to these questions, I believe that for the entire ecosystem to be healthy, each component must communicate with the others in a gentle and flexible manner from its own cared-for place.
Grapescottage is the place where I hope to reclaim what I have lost, and my prototype is the means by which I plan to do so.
A little fairy tale
When I started to write this post (I never had a blog before, so this is my first post ever) I simply tried to find every important note I made in the last six months. A list of all my thoughts and ideas. I was thinking about how I should do it in the right and complete way.
Then I asked myself: is this what I really want, and desire, my blog to be? A good homework to do well?
I remembered the meaning of Grapescottage: I would like it to be a magical and inspirational part of my journey, because in my need of balance, I am almost sure that the magical part of reality is the one which needs big help, at the moment.
So I am going to tell you about a place I dreamed of a few months ago.
I hope you can find a little bit of magic, too.
Imagine a calm, wide river: from where we are looking, it almost becomes a little lake with a stony beach, surrounded by green lawns, a forest, mountains. The valley is quite large, so there’s plenty of light. The trees are very high and in the morning, the temperature is quite cold, also in September.
Near the lake there is a little, old wood cabin: it is raised up so the moisture stays far away from the wood, and a deck is in front of it pointed toward the crystal clear water. A grassy short walkway brings you to the beach, from where you can enjoy the river in the morning and the sun set behind the cabin in the evening.
Imagine now a tired and creative woman: she is a busy woman living in the city 30 minutes away from the lake; she came here today to enjoy her off time alone, take pictures and walk in the forest. She already knows the lake, it was one of her favourite places to walk with her family when she was a little girl, and she decided to come here to breathe the same air and see the same view she did then.
Before today she had forgotten about the cabin… now that she is here, suddenly many memories come to her mind. Memories of peace and joyful time spent playing all around the house during summer.
It took only a few minutes to transform it: now it is not only an old building, it is a place which resonates inside her.
It is a home, a place she feels connected with.
As if she could see herself there, reading near the window, taking her time, exploring her inspiration and peace, living simply and walking in her life journey, as she has been dreaming for many years.
And so she comes back home, with new hopes and inspiring ideas in her mind.
What is this prototype about?
A few months ago, while reflecting on my job and how to develop and balance it, I found myself stuck and searching for answers in my thoughts, journals, and mind maps. This was a moment of deep self-awareness, but also a challenging time: how much of my plans and thoughts are real and how much are they only images and dreams?
I realized that finding balance and authenticity between my life and aspirations takes time, especially with the everyday busyness and issues of life and work. Overthinking, procrastination, and unrealistic expectations only made it harder and feel farther away.
So, with the gentle help of Companions in Creativity, a group I have been a part of since 2021, led by creative coach Elin Loow, I came up with the idea of the prototype.
The purpose is to start a simple and joyful renovation project to experiment with my ideas and talk about what I genuinely desire.
I imagine Grapescottage and the prototype as a calm and creative place in my life, where home design can be free and enjoyable. While I am uncertain of their role in my future work, at the moment I feel that protecting them as a little natural reserve is what I desire and need to stay well and allow everything to grow in a wild and safe way.
I studied three different inspiring situations I would have liked to work with: a refuge, a new life nest, a place to discover the world. You can read more about them in the following images. In the end, I decided on the first one: the refuge, our little cabin. It might have been because of the grey oxidized wood, the trees, the simple and natural context, the little dimension but the magic landscape … everything seemed well balanced between challenge and inspiration.
A simple little renovation for a family which believes deeply in it: this can be an inspiring story for me and for those who are searching for authentic and balanced homes and life.
What can you expect from my journal?
I asked myself why I was feeling this need to share my journey. It could be a simple project to do by myself, probably in an easier and faster way than starting a blog.
First of all, sharing puts you in the position to accept mistakes, comparison, criticisms, and build confidence in your voice and ideas. I think this is a crucial topic when you are exploring something that can have such an impact on people’s lives.
Sharing can also help whoever is reading. Maybe you are on a personal life journey, and it could be helpful to have some tips about how gentle and joyful home design can help you.
Finally, I would like to connect with people who are doing (or planning to do) a home change. It could be very interesting to hear your ideas and dreams and have contact with people who share my values and ideas in home design and life.
I would like this prototype to not be a design project, a theoretical renovation study made by drawings, floorplans, elevations, etc.. I would like to share with you in an open and creative way what I love in home design and how can be a design process. And I’d like to gently focus on the funny and joyful part of it.
My wishes for 2023
This year we had a quite different winter. It was warm at the start and only properly began in January when we had the first snow. Now we are almost in spring, and at the moment it is still snowing in some parts of northern Italy. This reminds me of how important perspective is in everything we do.
The Grapescottage project and prototype have been with me for many months, and now it is time to make them a reality. I do not know what the future holds, but this is already something to celebrate, and I am grateful for it.
So, I thank you for reading until the end, and I wish us all a 2023 full of gratitude, courage, and a pinch of lightness
take care,
Laura
