Pond House

The look and feel

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It’s always been known as the hired hand’s house, this wonky house that sits on a pond down the road from the house my husband grew up in. However, it wasn’t long, after moving here last fall, before “the hired hand’s house” seemed a mouthful to say, so I’ve fallen to simply calling it Pond House, or even better, pond house. But, as you know, pond house has issues too big for the scope of our stay, so we narrowed our focus to only one room. A single-room dwelling is underway in the mudroom of the house (with a bathroom off the hall). A studio apartment, you could say. Loves, don’t ever fuss about doing what you have to do. (Okay, go ahead and fuss. Let it out. Then, brush yourself off and get to work.)

So, this little mudroom dwelling? What’ll it look like? How will it feel? In the end, what’ll it be? Let me show you.

In the process of making a house home, first, there’s the story of the place, it’s true history, or an imagined one, the narrative that broadly guides the house as it becomes itself. Then, there’s the look and feel. You could call it the soul of the home — the colors, the style, and the tangibles that translate and infuse your identity and story into it.

To find that soul, and what this back-of-house room would become, I began with words that describe us and this hoped-for place: relaxed, welcoming, warm, unexpected, crafted, worn, earthy, collected, simple. Then I found images that interpreted these words into a visual of how it will feel, how it will look, and, when finished, how it will be.

There will be chalky white, green-tinged brown, and the smallest dab of deep teal blue. There’ll be stone, plaster, and bare wood. There’ll be peg rails, jute rugs, and skirted sinks. There’ll be old brass and porcelain. There’ll be an antique table and slipcovered chairs. There’ll be a curtained bed nook, a tiny black stove in a recessed hearth, and Maggie’s Mae’s chair in the corner. On the biggest wall, a wreath may one day hang, made from whatever I’ve foraged, for whatever season we’re in.

In other words, if you were to walk through our front door, it’d look and feel very much like what you see up there.

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