Houses That Shaped Us

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,”

said Sir Winston Churchill on October 28 1943 in the House of Lords, requesting that the House of Commons, bombed out in May 1941, be rebuilt exactly as before.

In 1997 an extremely young, newly wed me moved into this house with my newborn daughter and her father. It was designed and built by my brother in law, Juan Fadul. I loved this house and always wanted live in it. Moving in was a dream come true. What I didn’t know then was that this house was going to be the bedrock of my career as an Interior Designer. This house not only shaped me it taught me how to take risks and how to innovate.

• It taught me resourcefulness. See, in the 90’s there was nothing in Paraguay. I was enamoured with oversized arm chairs and couches in white slip covers but there wasn’t a place I could walk in and buy a set. I couldn’t even go into a fabric store and buy white cotton to make them up. I was forced to buy rock hard unbleached bull denim. Jam it into my washing machine for various cycles of hot washes and drying until it was pliable enough to be used as upholstery.
• It taught me to not be precious. This house had barely any walls and the walls it had were covered in paint effects by a prominent fine art painter in Asuncion, Felix Toranzos. Who was I to even dare paint over the oranges and blues with a plain white? But I did it anyway.

What has a house taught you?