House psychology

In one of the magazines my mom kept in store for me last year, an interesting article explained that depending on the room you prefer in your house your psychological profile will change. At first I thought "wow, another stupid quiz!" but then I had second thoughts: what we like and dislike does define who we are (or not), so our choice for our fav corner in our home also falls under the category of the defining choices, why not? Ok, it may be a bit limited to restrain your personality to the toilets - certainly your favorite hook in da house, hun? And come to think of it, a house is a bit like a shrine, the place where we are ourselves, we can focus, think, express everything, so there may well be a deeper link than meets the eye.

For example, the article stated that if the living room is your fabulous corner, it means that you like the forefront of the house, its stage if you like. In the end, in the very intimate space of your house, what you like most is...its public space! This room belongs to the family ties, to the official speeches, to the drama, drama, drama, to the international affairs if you want and also to the image you want to project of yourself. A tad narcissistic, are we?

Quite surprisingly, the journalist (Flavia Mazelin Salvi) did not include a quizz in the article and thank god for that; however, it is indeniable that after reading the various psychological profiles associated with a given space, you automatically start thinking about the corner that you like best to find your psychological category. It is only too natural, but not so easy in the end. I still do not know whether the living room or the kitchen captures my heart, reflects what I like... Since you know what the living room stands for in the intricate psychology world, I'll let you know what the kitchen hints: it is the heart of the home, the place where you build your forces both physical and psychological. It is the place where the pleasures come together and where abundance gives you the feeling of being taken care of, as if you were still a baby in your mother's arms. And here, straying from this bit of house psychology, I see the ever strong link between food and maternity, another vast subject! The negative side of being a kitchen lover - there is always a dark side to the Force - is that you find it difficult to be separated from your people, the habits and the places you are used to (is that me, reallyyyyyyy?). To put it briefly, the kitchen symbolizes the affective side of one's psyche. 

The bottom line of all this is that you should never underestimate the four precious walls that surround you and what you make of them. Many people do not seem to think about this though: just recently we visited four houses for sale and gosh, what a sad show that was. If the press clipping is anything to go by, their owners did not like themselves, did not like their family, did  not like their entourage, lacked sensitivity, passion, love etc. 

Wait, no, there may be a spark still for some of them as we noticed that very often the common areas - in other ways to ones you show off - were particularly well designed and taken care of with clever details, nice fabrics, original materials and whatnot. The rest of the house (often located on the upper stairs) was most of the time a dump that had nothing in common with the ground floor presented to the public eye. This does make the owners a bunch of narcissistic egos...but at least one area of the house was liveable. It was that bad.

On the other hand, other owners (hope ahead, hope!) seem to pay extra attention to their living spaces and sometimes their generosity does stretch that extra mile to the point that they build a house that will welcome their pets in the best way possible; Japanese architect Asahi Kasei designed a space that should make cat owners and their four legged fur balls share a life of serenity (and interesting design) together:

For dog owners who may be already growling at the pictures above, no stress: the resourceful architect did plan something special also for the canine gentry, only I think it is much less playful and more common.

I wonder what the cats think of all this... Do they prefer the hanging kitchen, the rafter over the living room or their custom made entrance door (a classic, undoubtedly)?