Do you live in a house or a home?
I want to share the story of how I learned the difference between “house” and “home” and the tender age of eight and how it shaped my career today.
As a young girl, my imagination was wild! I created. I fixed. I invented. I even made a collar for my pet rabbit with fabric and a stapler because I wanted to dress her up (I know, digressing a bit). When I was eight I begged my parents for a dollhouse!
One Christmas, sure enough, I found one under the tree. I was so thrilled to get a very large cardboard-style dollhouse with infused pictures of each room on it. My excitement quickly faded when I saw that this dollhouse didn’t come with any furniture or accessories let alone any dolls. It was just a house.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved how big it was…but now what? I think we’ve all experienced that buyers remorse as a child (and of course as adults) when something we wanted wasn’t as we expected.
I vividly remember my brother had and two of his friends come over that Christmas and of course, I was excited to show off my dollhouse. Upon seeing my new toy, they started to make fun of me.
“Where is all your furniture? Your people? Your accessories?
I was humiliated and sad for a day or two but I quickly changed my perspective and started to create. I invented. I turned this dollhouse into a doll home. I filled it with all the things that would make a real home function and all the things I loved to see in it. It came to life at least in my mind, which is all that really mattered.
I never showed my brother’s friends the doll home again, but I was one proud homeowner. This drive to create a home from a house has transcended into my career: the world of Interior design.
So now I ask you: Do you live in a house or a home?
Look at your space and see if it reflects you and your personality. Fill it with all the things you want to see and you’ll start to turn those 4 walls of your house, into a home that you love!
To this day when I get a love note from my clients and it says “thank you for making our house into a home,” it melts my heart because not only have I been able to do my job successfully, I am reminded of eight-year-old Alicia and her doll home.
About Alicia
Alicia Deakin is a passionate & creative mom who started her interior design business to create a livelihood for her family, when her children were small. Alicia was born in the Czech republic and came to Canada when she was six months of age. She spent the first 19 years of your life in Kelowna, BC then launched off to live in Connecticut and studied interior design in California.
Alicia’s ability to create also allowed her to be hands on. The satisfaction of getting her hands dirty, so to speak, allowed her to do more for herself and clients. Alicia’s love for travel and living experiences have exposed her to different styles and cultures. Alicia is a big believer in intuition and uses it often for personal and business ventures. Her passions are “making things beautiful” with a playful fun attitude. Alicia’s caring and kind ability to reach all ages of people by sharing her experiences have allowed her to help others transition through the art of design.
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