The cold reality of that romantic stately home
A warm welcome is more important than good carpets and curtains any day, writes
I’M traumatised thinking about home interiors and how mine might be inferior. This was possibly triggered by RTE’s Home of the Year contest. As often happens when I hear mention of a contest, I found myself wondering if I might be in with a chance. But I suspect I would have a better chance of winning an Iron Man contest. And naturally I had to ask myself if I am missing out on something.
All over the world, people are obsessed with what their houses look like and with what other people’s houses look like, and how their interiors measure up to everyone else’s. If you Google ‘Chinese home interior competitions’ the images are bounteous and breathtaking, and you get similarly lavish results whether you search India, Japan or the US of A.
It seems to be perfectly normal to think a lot about your carpets and curtains, and to do so with a view to continually improving them.
My partner and I have never actually owned a house of our own. When the sensible people were getting proper jobs and mortgages, we were concentrating on other, much less practical things, while always renting. So we have never bought carpets or curtains, much less kitchens. We have never ‘remodelled’. I couldn’t tell you the difference between magnolia and cream and the sofas tend to have been thrown out by other people. The flat we live in is so small that when Bono came to tea he had to sit on the bed. He didn’t seem bothered, but what this means is that we are not normal, and perhaps we should be worried.
Clearly it is a human need to have a shelter, a place to call home, just as much as it is a human need to have food and clothing and wifi. But just because you have what you need for survival does not mean you don’t want a better version, a bigger house, a faster car, a newer phone. We are programmed to want more than we need, and that is what feeds the global economy. I am not a minimalist, I am constantly buying new clothes and shoes and accessories and messing around with makeup and I love to try out different kinds of foods and drinks, and supplements. But for some reason I have never thought about wet rooms or work tops and once the place looks pleasant and has a fireplace, I am perfectly happy to never change anything.
Of course we have friends with very flash houses, many of them have lots of different houses full of unbelievably glamorous things, and one of them even has an elevator. I would be lying if I told you that I don’t turn emerald with envy, and that I don’t fantasise about swapping places with these people. But more because it would mean never having to think about such things than because I would want people to see my houses and be impressed by them.
And clearly if I was that bothered, I would make more of an effort to have lots of houses.
When the A-listers visit us, it is tempting to wonder if they are unimpressed with the surroundings, and if they are possibly too polite to mention it. But from my experience of hanging out with people, it is actually the warmth and entertainment of their conversation rather than their carpets that makes you have a good time with them, and want to go back, so hopefully they feel the same about our place.
Last Thursday, I launched a book called The Inheritance by a friend of mine called Ally Bunbury who lives in a Home of the Year-worthy Georgian rectory. Her book is about a woman who falls in love with a man who is more in love with his stately home than he is with her, and so he has to dump her for a Hollywood movie star, so that he can save his house which has been in his family for generations.
The book is a romantic novel, but it is not unrealistic. We have many friends who live in stately homes.
These were originally built to demonstrate the family’s prosperity and status to the world, and they can be spectacular to look at. I used to think that I would die happy if I lived in a Georgian mansion.
But the reality is that for the older families, their ancestors spent all the money and the current inhabitants spend their every waking moments trying to figure out ways to pay for the crumbling walls and leaky roof, and they can never afford heating. So they are generally freezing and when I visit them I sleep with all my clothes on and come home with a chest infection. I understand that the houses are lovely but I often wonder if they would be happier in a nice bungalow with central heating.
The other night I met a woman called Audrey O Neill who spent 20 years as an interior designer and who is now a life and confidence coach.
‘‘You know something?’’ she said to me, when I mentioned my concerns about interiors. ‘‘My clients who redecorated the most, and spent the most money on their homes tended to be the ones who felt the most insecure.
“They kept changing the furniture in the hope that they would feel better, but it never worked. Because no matter what you do to your house, it is still you who is living in it.’’
I know that some people will get indignant, and say that interior decoration is not about insecurity, or showing off, it is about creative self-expression and flair and imagination, and they could be right.
I might be completely different if I had a home of my own. I might suddenly start commissioning chandeliers. But I suspect I would always have more important things to prioritise.
‘I used to think I would die happy if I lived in a Georgian mansion’