I wanted to use this blog post to go into more detail about the materialistic environment of my house, being that this is one of Miller’s main focus points. As I had mentioned in class earlier today, my family structure, as well as the structure of my house, began to change tremendously since my dad remarried in my junior year of high school. The shift of objects and spaces in my house is quite fascinating, and it is something that I have always been rather mindful of, even before taking this class. Originally, my house was a mish-mash of 90s pastels and Russian eccentricity. My father was born and raised in Brooklyn, whereas my mother was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and traveled to the United States when she was sixteen.

Structurally, my house is build exactly the same as every other suburban, Long Island  house on my block. But growing up, the inside was quite different. The first thing you would see when you opened the door to my house was a wooden and glass, vertical display case, filled with matryoshka dolls, ceramic plates that I had made in art school, and a photograph or two. A plastic Czarina doll from Russia stood on the very top of the display case, with a large headdress and fixed blue eyes, which gazed directly at the front door (A little creepy, yes. But Russians are generally very spiritual/holistic people, and my mom liked the idea of having a “guard,” so to speak, watching over our house.). To me, this image really sets the scene for what my house was like. A unique cabinet, facing a not-so-unique, white, suburban door.

My house, at the time, had bright green oriental rugs, pictures of the family, paintings of forests, and lots of mirrors. I liked how my mother’s Russian accents brought color to diluted 90s atmosphere. The balance made it homey. It made it lived in, and different from whatever I could imagine my neighbor’s houses to look like, as Miller mentions, most “families never actually see their neighbours’ homes” ( 97).

When my dad remarried, he and my stepmom slowly began to renovate the house.  “Homes are the elephants of stuff” (81), Miller notes, and this is a phrase I like very much because it perfectly highlights just how big of a process “accommodating” (96) a home to your needs can be. The renovation began with the kitchen, being that my stepmom is an orthodox Jew, which entails many different kitchen alterations in order to keep up with the proper kosher rules. The following shifts in design began  in the living and dining room, in order to better accommodate guests for Shabbat dinners on Friday nights, and then the bathrooms, their bedroom etc. My house now serves an entirely different functionality from how it used to, and it is interesting to see the how the small changes accumulate to reflect the new dynamic of my home. The walls are now painted silver for a sleek look. The carpets are white, the couches are gray. We now have a new display case with little tchotchkes and little glass figurines that originally belonged to my stepmother’s family. The case has been moved to the dining room. There are less mirrors, but no paintings to replace them, other than a variety of Jewish pieces. My parents are still in the deciding process in terms of paintings–one that has been in motion for nearly two years. It seems the decisions they make in this “new” old house are so crucial, that they can almost not be made at all.

On the outside, our home is being reworked for functionality and for show. It looks stylish and tasteful to our guests, but I find is not as comfortable to live in. Yet, these spaces are important to my parents in more ways than simply meeting the peering eyes of our neighbors. This is most evident in the fact that my stepmom has painted all her closets in loud, obnoxious colors. Her clothing closet is hot pink, her linen closet bright blue. Her small office downstairs is purple. But these are all hidden from the outside. I find this to be quite funny. These colors make my stepmom happy, and even though our house now also belongs to her, it seems there is an image she wants to portray to our neighbors that I believe stops her from actually decorating the house in the way maybe Kondo would recommend. In this sense, our house can often feel like a museum. Everything is strategically placed to create a specific effect. But in my room, I have bright orange walls that are not hidden, decorations catered to me, and objects which I have accumulated over time that are staying exactly where they are. My room belongs to me, and in it I have power over my objects in a way that I do not anywhere else in my house. It is, as a result, my favorite place to be in.