Customer Reviews

Feeling at Home: Defining Who You Are and How You Want to Live

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

A must for those of us who want to love our homes more. More than a collection of decorating ideas and tips, you embark on a journey of what meaningful living is to you. Alexandra asks her readers to keep a journal as they turn the pages of a book that provokes thoughts and insights into one's own preferences. Remarkably, you feel as if Alexandra is guiding you in person instead of through words on pages. Included is an in depth interview with one of Alexandra's clients, narrative on 15 essential elements of emotional comfort, helpful recommendations for balancing time and ideas on cultivating creativity. These concepts are interwoven with revealing personal and profeesional experiences as well as pictures of Alexandra's New York apartment. This book is great alone or as follow up to "Decoration Of Houses" and "Open Your Eyes". Enjoy!

I think when most people read Alexandra Stoddard for the first time they either love her books and become a loyal reader or they really dislike her writing style. At least that is what I get from some of the other Stoddard book reviews. I fall into the category of "love her books." Whenever I need to be uplifted or just want a brief escape, I open one of Alexandra Stoddard's books. I always feel inspired. This book was no exception. What I enjoyed most about this book, was keeping the home journal that she suggested. It has been a great tool and made reading the book even more fun.

I always enjoy Alexandra Stoddard's books and this one is no exception. From the beautiful, juicy layout colors to the message, she is a writer filled with grace. Her ideas are wonderful, practical, easy to do, not necessarily expensive and even if you do absolutely nothing but recline on the sofa and read this book, you'll fill uplifted. However, I encourage you to answer the questions she raises because you will learn a lot about yourself and your needs and priorities. There is also a GREAT transcript of interviewing a client family--you get to see how she deals with truculent family members.

Feeling at Home, Defining Who You are And How You want to Live, Morrow, 1999.

Tags: Conduct of Life, Identify (Psychology), Home-Psychological Aspects

Something has happened to the magazine racks at US drug stores and grocery stores, and even bookstores, such as Walden and Barnes and Nobel. Public affairs magazines are missing. Life Magazine is gone, even Playboy is relegated to the highest shelf in a plastic wrapper. I have been remodeling my home and discovered that I could find several dozen magazines devoted to decorating and remodeling. There were specialized issues that focused only on baths, kitchens, "country" homes, apartments and even magazines that offered a focused on "outdoor" living.

However, with all of these selections when I examined the floor plans closely there were few choices. Bathrooms may now include bidets, unusual for an American home, if not urinals, but in the end there is a simple choice: toilet, tub and shower, sink and medicine cabinet. Kitchens only offer stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, possibly a disposal and microwave. When I think of my grandmother's Thor, purchased early in the century, appliances that enabled the user to swap out parts and use as either a dishwasher or clothes washer, I wonder to what extent we have changed.

Amid all of these choices I have recently found one book that speaks to my own needs

Feeling at Home, Defining Who You are and How You Want to Live by Alexandra Stoddard, published by William Morrow, 1999. Chapter 2 is a delightful dialogue called "Shaping Your Home" in which a husband and wife are interviewed by a decorator the questions deal with how the couple actually lives. The decorator commands the couple

"Site on your side of the bed. Now sit on John's side. How does it feel?" The discussion is almost like couples therapy.

The author emphasizes the role of light on the house. She explains that reflection, that can mean more light, can come from many places, including mirrors and shiny surfaces. She also frees the reader to embrace color, the colors that the person occupying the house really likes. If you like purple, red, and bright yellow use them. She includes items not usually thought have as part of the decorating task as essential: telephones, the multiple roles of the kitchen table, windows in relationship to the views they display.

The ultimate goal of the book is to make the individual or the family looks at their own needs, which may be unconventional and design living spaces according to these needs, not some preconceived plan.

So, back to the home I am renovating. It is a house I have owned for 47 years sand lived in with a husband and two children, with a teenager and adult daughter with ideas of her own, a strange period when I shared it with a brother, ex-husband, daughter and a daughter who returned home after a divorce. I have rented the house to strangers while helping a daughter with grandchildren, while I was in the Peace Corps, while living in a downtown condo. I will be returning home now, planning yet another use of space, sharing with short-term renters.

I plan to reread the Stoddard book with a notebook, examining as she suggests what "feeling at home" means to me, using the house as a focus for "designing my life". I look forward to purchasing my notebook, to including a history of my earlier lives at the home, including information about the street, the neighborhood, and hope that when I return to this subject in a year I will be living in my home happily, more happily than every before.

I really enjoy the way that the author writes & how she encourages you to be thoughtful about your surroundings. It's a book that you pick up periodically ( not read through like a novel.) I enjoyed it enough, that after reading it years ago, I replaced it on Amazon after the original book got water damage.

This book reminded me of a text book you would get for a home economics class. It had very little helpful advice and required way too much time to arrive at very simple observations that most people already have a sense of. I would not recommend it.

I was disappointed with this book as it didn't provide any real inspiration. After pushing myself through this book, I would have to say that the author could have summed it up in a couple of sentences or a paragraph, "Follow your own drummer when it comes to your own home and comfort and do what looks right to your eye, trust your instincts." See, I said it in only a couple of sentences.

Alexandra Stoddard is a unique contributor to American decorating. She spins a story well and creates intriguing food for thought in an overlooked area of our lives- the physical space we dwell in "at home". She is a blue blood Martha Stewart who has studied philosophy and is an intuitive natural psychologist who delves into our deepest secrets based on the way we live in and run our homes. My only complaint in this book, and it is a significant one, is that her privileged background will resonate with only a select number of people and creates distance between her and many readers. I don't believe she is aware of a pretentious tone in some of her exhortations, but it certainly exists. Her reference points to "the rest of us" sometimes seem small and out-of-touch at times. However, the pluses outweigh the minuses and this book deserves your attention in clarifying the importance of home, wherever and however you define it.

I always enjoy reading Alexandra Stoddard's books. When I need to calm my soul and nourish the feminine, there's nothing better than Alexandra Stoddard's writing style. Feeling at Home was no exception. Really enjoyed the tips, the dialog with clients, and the overall content.

This book has wonderful organizing ideas, beautiful quotes and decorating tips, and gorgeous color photos of Alexandra's famous New York apartment. I loved it!