At Home with Elizabeth Dole

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HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

“When your heart speaks, take good notes.”
--Unknown

Over the past few years, my husband and I have been growing together in many ways. Our spiritual life has been very rich; an outgrowth of this has been our growing environmental awareness and sense of social responsibility. The diagnosis of my wheat allergy helped us to understand the value of organic food and lesser known grains, the value of the farmers who brought these to us, and the value of the wonderful markets that made these available in our area. My work as an interior designer opened our eyes to the many chemicals that we are exposed to in our environments, which led us to learn about healthy, sustainable household materials and chemical-free, environmentally-friendly cleaning products.

Through our growth and our better understanding of our environment and how it needs to be cared for, we have become more aware of our “footprint” on the earth. I found that my footprint, in terms of consumption and waste production, was 22 acres—less than average, yet if everyone lived like me (which was not extravagant), we would need 4.9 planets.* So when the opportunity to decrease the size of our footprint presented itself, we jumped!

Our “experiment in living” began last November, when my husband and my mother were both laid off. It began as a joke. “What’s the worst that could happen? We could all move in together, share living expenses, and we’ll all be just fine. No-one will starve; we’ll all have a roof over our heads.”

The experiment itself didn’t actually take place, (my husband and mom both got new jobs) but the conversations began. We talked about the things we value most: family and the environment. Could we live the beliefs that we’d espoused? Did we value family enough to actually live with them? Did we value the environment enough to actually consume fewer resources and try to positively impact on the earth?

Earlier this year my husband and I decided to “walk the talk,” and we downsized. Really downsized. (From 1600 to 900 square feet!) Renters moved into our home and we moved into an apartment on my parent's property. We still have our own space there, yet we share many evening meals and weekend activities with them and with my grandmother, who lives with them—call us the Waltons!

It’s been an amazing blessing for this family to know one another as friends and to cherish the memories we are creating. And in making this move, we’ve also accomplished our goal of reducing our footprint on the earth. We now have five people living on one property, and my husband and I have been able to carpool most days, as well. My footprint is now only 14 acres, so if everyone lived like me, we’d only need 3.1 planets! (Okay, it’s still not enough…but it’s a start!)

For me, the hardest part of making this move was not living in such a small space; nor was it living with my parents. It was leaving the home my husband and I had created together. I loved my cork floors, and my “dreamsicle” paint, and my…well, you get the idea. Materialism ran rampant!! Funny, material objects hadn’t been on the list of things I valued most!

Let’s be honest. We all love “things.” But this move prompted me to think more about those “things,” and the reasons I loved them. I realized I was afraid that our new house wouldn’t reflect our personalities and our relationship. I wanted to live the values I talked about, but I wanted to continue to live in a place that reflected my life and my spirit!

It was evident that we needed to create a new home that would reflect our passions, and we wanted to do that without spending much money (keeping that footprint down!). To do this, we asked ourselves several questions (which you might also think about, if you’re planning to renovate or redecorate a space):

1. How do these rooms need to function for us? (Television? Home office? Puppy playhouse? Entertaining? Relaxing? Yoga? Twister?!)
2. How do we want these rooms to feel? (Energetic? Happy? Serene? Somber? Soothing?)
3. Is there a particular color that appeals to us at this time in our lives? Is there a reason for this?
4. What inspires us in life? (People? Art? Music? Words? Nature? Animals? Movies?)
5. What furniture and accessories do we own that we love and can use, and what can we get rid of? (Our goal was to reduce the amount of “stuff” we owned, and have less to take care of and more time to enjoy what remained!)
6. Are there things we want or need to purchase to make this space “ours?”

In answering these questions, I allowed my heart to speak—and I took good notes! Next month, I’ll tell you how I answered these questions, and show you before and after photographs of how I created a home where my heart is.

*See www.earthday.net/footprint to calculate your own footprint on the earth!