26 January 2010

quick share...

did i even tell you the topic for my panel at alt summit? how to find the best design sites. or sights, as all of them turned out to be...

pictory was on my list at some point, but somehow didn't make it to utah. it's currently a one-woman operation, which makes me smile and clap, but also inspires the heck out of me. and her concept is also something to which i've always been drawn.

a picture plus a story equals a pictory. cool.

her current series just about punched me in the stomach. coming home.




The side door to my parents’ house was the only door I ever used to enter the house. I’d walk in slowly, stalling before telling them about a car window I broke, or walk in late, feeling invincible after spending time with my first love. The side door was the place where I reflected on all the monumental moments in my life, before leaving one world behind and entering another.


the house where i grew up is long gone, destroyed in a flood. it was tiny and half-finished at all times and crowded with the seven of us who all complained about the lack of privacy except me because it's so much fun to pop in on your older sister and ask why are you shaving there? are you going swimming? and listen to my older brothers' conversations with girls on the telephone extension until i finally had to know why he was talking in that deep voice. was he sick or something?




i honestly don't think it mattered a bit if our house was small or big. i would've been smack next to them anyway. just as my girlies three are today. it's the sign of a good house, i think.

exactly enough room for what you need.

you've got to check out pictory if you haven't already. i've talked about it before, but i'm totally digging it this morning. and how was the house where you first grew? do you miss it? most of my friends don't, which i never understand. must be my youngest child syndrome acting up...

26 comments:

jules @ The Diversion Project said...

v. cool site, love the imagery - thanks for the link karey!

jules

PourPorter said...

I'm the middle child and I miss my childhood home! My parents knew how to decorate and it's definitely influenced the way I put our house together. :)

Anonymous said...

growing up i lived in a grand house. we had a staircase just for "show'. my mom has a "drawing room"- a room where she could "draw" the drapes so tight and dark it would allow her sleep for days. i hated this house. this was a sad house. this was a house where parents used its size to hide from each other.
give me a studio apartment, with futons, a plate warmer and laughter any day of the week.
love,
katie

karey m. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
karey m. said...

jules, you cute thing.

POUR PORTER! celebrity sighting! everyone at alt loved seeing your sight. and i can't wait for your shop to open. drooling already.

and katie...i KNEW this. i just did. this beginning, this house, made you the writer and probably friend you are today. i just knew this...

mrs. darling said...

ugh, this whole post was a punch in the gut. a good punch in the gut. i adore my childhood home, miss it all the time.

my bedroom was on the 2nd story and had a window seat overlooking the big pond in the backyard. on the pond lived ducks, geese and two beautiful swans. (sounds like a fairytale, right?) and to this day whenever i hear geese honking, i am suddenly back in my childhood room, sleeping with the window open on an early summer's night and watching the moon reflect off the water...the ripples reflecting on my walls.

i miss that.

Brandi said...

You know, Pictory has been on my list of favorite for some time, but I think it got lost in my giant bookmarks list and I haven't visited in awhile. I'm glad you brought me back.
And I do miss my childhood homes. I had two: the first we lived in with my grandmother, the second it was just my immediate family. My parents still own both houses, and we drove by my grandmothers when I was home over Christmas break. I saw that the people there had ripped out my lilac bushes...I haven't been that sad in awhile. I miss my grandmother's gardening: the lilies of the valley I used to make into tiny fairy bouquets, those lilac bushes that a pet turtle disappeared under during a storm, the marigolds my grandmother always saved in envelopes after they had died and turned into seeds. My name was written in cement there. And I don't like going back because the people who live there now changed everything so much, and it breaks my heart. My parents haven't done that much to our home. My room has changed colors as I've grown, and we had one more bathroom now than we did when I was in high school (why couldn't we have had that when I was actually in high school). Some things change a lot and some things don't, it seems.

Kelly said...

i know my childhood home like the back of my hand. i spent the first 18 1/2 years of my life in a small townhouse, half of it with my parents and the other half with just my mom. it shows up in my dreams at least once a week. after i graduated high school we moved away, i balled my eyes out on my bedroom floor after the movers had come. it will always be Home to me.

xo
Kelly

krista said...

my parents separated when i was three and i went to live with my mom. she and i moved houses a lot. my dad, however, has been in the same house for over 50 years. i know every nook and cranny of that place. weekends spent there my whole life.
and i have a little box of memories in my throat. snippets of houses, here and there. the first apartment with my mom. the house where we were robbed and i was forced to eat avocado against my will. the condo where i devised a fire escape plan, drawn out for the whole family. the big house with the pool, the "good" life before the fall. the smaller condo again with bad memories. the bigger condo with puberty all over the walls.
*sigh*
i just got lost in my throat.

Natalie said...

Here's my sob story: I didn't have a childhood home; my mom had ants in her pants and living somewhere for two years was a long time. It's part of the reason I'm so adamant about NOT moving again for a VERY LONG time. I want my son to have a place to grow up in and if I thought I could get my landlord to agree to it, I would sign a forever lease. The place we are currently living in is perfect for growing up.

Anonymous said...

My parents moved downtown to a condo last fall. And my little sister actually bought their old house. Which is the house we all grew up in. It's kind of strange going back there now and having it not be my parents house. But it's nice to have it in the family.

karey m. said...

i am LOVING these stories!

mrs. darling, i feel the same way when i sleep with open windows in the summer. straight back to my childhood. or birds in the morning. see?

and brandi. i wasn't sad when they tore down my uncle's farmhouse next door to us. it was a dump. but digging out the lilac bushes? it was like killing a person. ugh.

karey m. said...

kelly...you're just like my lillie. exactly. {i know you want to be esme!}

krista. do you know your comments are like poetry? they are. yo ushould start a blog with just the comments you leave.

natalie. i already knew this about you...and i already loved this about you.

and kelly. i think i'd feel territorial! you don't? you're so good...

Robin said...

My parents still live there! And I love it (I am a youngest, too!)
Now Micah plays with the toys and books my parents saves and it is so sweet.

Melissa de la Fuente said...

Oh., this is so beautiufl Karey....I can see it all so clearly. Sometimes I miss my childhood home very much. I spent so many hours in the 10 acre grove our house was in the middle of, daydreaming, playing, pretending to be Mary Tyler Moore or being a farmer or climbing trees( avocado and mango trees are the best climbing trees in the world) I miss sundays there, which somehow always seemed to be the most beautiful days of the week. I miss our dogs and being so close to my brothers all the time. I miss Christmas mornings there....but, then other times I don't miss it at all. Strange....
xo
Melis

karey m. said...

robin...you're so lucky. my husband's family is like that. a forever home.

and melissa...god, i could've pretended for entire summers without eating - or bathing - if my mom would've let me! i miss my past just as hard as i love my today. does that make sense?

Anonymous said...

It was rather interesting for me to read that post. Thanx for it. I like such topics and everything connected to them. BTW, try to add some images :).

kathleen said...

my parents are selling it. this weekend. i last saw it in june. it will be so weird to go back to dc and not be able to go in the door.

Shannon said...

My parents still live in the house I grew up in...I love hearing my niece and nephews have the same conversations my sisters and I had, like if who could actually make it down the laundry chute. I love going home, full house, full circle, full of love.

ZDub said...

That is a gorgeous website.

I grew up in Oklahoma on a farm with both sets of grandparents next door on either side.

Lately I have been thinking how I would like to live on a farm, to go back. The house was small and not much to look at, but we had each other. Maybe that's what I miss most of all.

la la Lovely said...

Here is something you should know about me... I still live in my childhood home. I haven't always, of course, but now I do again. My parents were going to sell and it was the saddest thought to all of my siblings. And at the time we were looking for a house and it just came to be. I guess that is how much I like the house I grew up in. Sometimes it is strange living here again and with my very own family but mostly it is magical. The house has had many facelifts since I grew up here and then there are a few secret parts that still look and feel the same. Names carved on doors, an old pic of kirk cameron hanging in the very back storage room, the same trees I climbed have grown taller and stronger for my kids to climb. In England families live in houses for generations. I like to think of it like that...I even named the house (not that it is a manner or anything) but it really is a part of our family. She has seen, heard and felt many things over the years and I thought she at least deserved a name.

xx sorry for the super long comments today... lots of words and baby sleeping ='s long comments ;)

Maria | Vintage Simple said...

I grew up in all sorts of apartments and houses, because we moved around a lot growing up. I always dreamed of staying in one place, ythe attic full to the brim of our stuff, and our parents' stuff, and our grandparents' stuff...

I think our current house is too big precisely for what you describe here - our son is just like you were. Never more than two steps away from us. Which I don't really mind. But it begs the question: why have a house this big?

Hmm.

-maria

nelya said...

There is not enought time in the day for so much goodness and yet this one is so good I'll have to find a moment to stop in and get lost. Laundry be damned. Thanks for the link, Karey.

Blues said...

I think you may have pointed me to a new addiction. Oh my is that site good.

Relyn Lawson said...

How did I now know about Pictory? Oh my gosh!! THANK YOU!!!!

Relyn Lawson said...

I love what you said to Krista. Her comments are like poetry. I just returned here from visiting her. How could I not? She can WRITE.

As to my childhood home, I don't have one. Never did. My Dad was in the Army for my early years so we moved a lot. For me, home has always been wherever my parents and my furniture is. You'd be surprised at how important furniture is when the home itself is not the same.