Dreamspaces the Newsletter #3: How much should you care if it's not really your apartment?
Renters, this one's for you
Right so when I originally came to write this month's newsletter, I had grand ideas of giving you guys a beautiful discourse on thatched roof houses as I have recently discovered they're still around (I'd never felt more American than when I posted about it on my stories and y'all were like....yah girl. They been around and never left). Anyway, the more I thought about a newsletter about thatched roof houses, the less I wanted to write it, much less read it. In short, thatched houses are still around, in almost every European countryside it seems, and they're pretty sick. Here's a photo of the one in question, in case you missed it. It is very nice, no?
The first three weeks of February I was up at my boyfriend's family's house in north England, and we, with his parents, settled into a routine of watching about three Grand Designs episodes a night. Naturally, I thought I'd also write this newsletter about the houses on Grand Designs, but really I was more interested in Kevin McCloud’s Scarpa shoes, jeans & blue blazer outfit he always wears when he visits the finished house, which made me wonder if he was trying to do a Steve Jobs with this signature look (he also has an Apple Watch, color me surprised). Has anyone else noticed he looks mildly uncomfortable whenever he's in North Face or Canada Goose? He's seems to be much more of a Patagonia guy. I do have a lot of thoughts about what makes Grand Designs so watchable, specifically around the type of people who try and build a house they never seem to be able to afford, but I'll leave that for another time. In any case, there's a list of some memorable episodes at the end of this email.
But this morning I finally settled on discussing the long, long time we've all collectively spent in our apartments/homes over this pandemic. It's nearly a year since we naively returned from the office, looking forward to the two weeks of pure bliss we thought we were in for, working from home in our comfy clothes, eating fabulous lunches, running to the park at 6pm on the dot to make the most of the longer days...Boy were we dumb.
My apartment is tiny. I share it with my boyfriend Andy, and it's just two rooms, maybe 450sq feet, cute and quaint when it used to be just evenings here. We picked it mostly for its location, choosing to overlook the crack in the kitchen sink, the windows that don't stay open without the help of a wooden plank, the chipping paint on the kitchen cabinets. And really, the enormous windows are fabulous, and we get the sunrise in the bedroom, the sunset in the living room. For normal life, it's perfect.
But about three months into quarantine, after the expeller in the bathroom went kaput, I decided it was a high time to start messaging our landlord about everything under the sun. We were very close to sealing the deal on a new washing machine, but his wife (I swear it was her) said no, and instead he dropped off some Calgon. The crack in the sink finally started leaking water, and after multiple text messages and about ten visits from the handyman, we got a new sink. That was a victory. Meanwhile, when the bathroom started to smell mouldy without the expeller, our bougie landlady wife came over with a candle. 'It's really nice,' she says, 'It's from Anthropologie'. We're still sorting this one out.
Then scaffolding went up in August – the council was finally sorting out the roof and the windows. By this time I was running out of steam, and I really couldn't help but wonder...how much should we care if the apartment isn't even ours? The windows in the living room are still beautiful sash windows, but the ones in the bedroom before had no muntins (the criss crossy things on windows), and now they do. But do I care? I've decided not really. If we can't get the landlords to care, why should we? All I really care about now is that the new double glazing is in and maybe, just maybe, the sirens won't be so piercing.
The hardest part of this whole past year has probably been the lack of control we're experiencing. Like the constant anticipation, the build-up and the inevitable rug being pulled out from under us has really taken its toll on me, and probably on you.
My favorite quote from my favorite TV show (House Hunters, obviously) is, 'I'm easy to please, but I like what I like,' and I like control. I love having it, I love being in it, I love exerting it. Take that away from me and I become an anxious blubbering mess.
Renting is just about the opposite of control. You could be asked to leave at any second. Your sink might leak and who do you call? Not the plumber, you call the landlord. Ew. What do they know about leaks? Nothing, probably. You call them about a moldy smell in the bathroom and they come by with a candle. What the hell is that? The windows get replaced and you have no control over what the end product will be, you just gotta live with it. I get it, these are not bad problems to have, but when we have no control over both the big world events as well as issues that directly influence your day-to-day 450sq ft working-living-resting environment, it can all become a bit overwhelming.
I think it's a safe generalisation to make that a lot of us are renters, and sometimes it gets hard. I guess one (privileged) thing I've learned over this pandemic year is that if you just come to terms with the fact that you don't have control, that's actually you having control?
ICYMI
Did y’all see Princess Anne’s house? I aspire to that clutter
This private island is on sale for a measly $9.9 mil and comes with TWO Frank Lloyd Wright homes. A bargain!
Just as a side note – these Grand Design recommendations are based mostly on how fun the episode was rather than the final design.
Cobb House – this guy built a MASSIVE house by hand, made in cobb. Cobb is basically water and soil. I’m no scientist but making a kind of water soluble house in England sounds a bit risky. As if.
Boat inspired house, East Sussex – probably the funniest episode ever. The guy building it hired his nephew to be the architect and the nephew is just over it & his uncle’s eccentricities. Amazing content.
Amphibious house – this one moves up and down with the water level of the river Thames. How good is that?
Disco House – the name is misleading and the photos in the article are generous. This house made me SICK. Sick, I tell you!
Catch you next month xoxo Isabelle