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Make yourself at Home

Welcome to my virtual home. This is the place where I share everything that excites me around home and heritage. Continue reading if you want to learn more about me and why I am writing this blog:

Why I love writing about English heritage and English country homes

It is March 2023 and I am 40 years old. I spent my life figuring out what to do. When I was 20 I wanted to make the world a better place, studied to become a diplomat and ended up as a humanitarian worker in the Middle East. Once immersed in the world of humanitarian crisis I felt a need for healing, myself and others. I ended up becoming a life- and mindset coach and ultimately coach to humanitarian workers. Now I’m 40 and feel an urge to change MY world.

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I have always had a passion for styling, beautifying my environment, creating spaces, or making places ‘my own’, whatever you want to call it. Maybe that’s because I’ve never had a real home.

From childhood my family moved a lot, and then I went to boarding school. After uni I left my home country, Germany, altogether and went from one furnished place to another with all my belongings fitting into a giant suitcase.

 

Creating a space that felt like ‘me’ in whatever country or tiny capsule I was living was probably essential to stay sane. However, I have a recollection of moving things around my parents’ and other people’s houses when I was younger. I wanted to make things look and feel better.

 

A couple of decades or so on, I find myself sitting at the London Design Week, seated in the front row of a panel discussion between Rita Konig and the Colefax & Fowler team. The topic is Authenticity in Design. It hits the nail on the head for me.

 

Life has changed. I am married now. I live in the English countryside with my English husband and a cat called Harry. I own my own things and have a grand piano which is my greatest pride and joy. I have lived here for 5 years, which for me is a long time to be in one place, but I don’t want it any other way.

 

Rita Konig. There is always a temptation to write her name as Rita Koenig, or in fully fledged German Rita König, because it is just such a German name. I greatly admire her work, but more than that she sparked something in me about 3 years ago.

 

When Create Academy first started with Rita Konig’s interior design course as probably the only course on the platform at the time, I was hooked. It was the way she spoke about living in a place, growing with it, or it growing with you over the course of your life. An idea that has always fascinated me because it reminds me of places from my childhood where families had occupied a place for generations and heritage was a natural part of its fabric.

 

As a result these places felt like they’d always been there. Time seemed to stand still in them yet evolving with each generation that passed through. You could rely on them. They were comfort. They were home, or what I identified as home, because they would always be there. To me they told a story of the people who had lived there. Not with words, but with contents: faded wallpapers, worn furniture, well-used fabrics and china, they all told a story of lives lived in that place.

 

Maybe 40 is good age to finally follow my urge for creating a space that feels home. It means stability and a safe haven in an ever-changing world. HomeMinded is meant to be this place for me. A place where I share my thoughts and ideas as I go along making a home that feels wholesome and lived-in as if it’s always been there and continues to be so.

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Authenticity is a big word, but it is also quite fitting because our home reflects our inner world, memories lived, pieces accumulated during different stages of life, patterns and styles that have left an imprint on our soul. It tells of our life’s journey and sense of place, arranged in a way that gives comfort, to yourself and those who come to stay. That, to me, is the essence of home.

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If you enjoy following my journey, feel free to get in touch and tell me about yours. I’d love to hear from you.

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x Helene

Ask me anything

If you have any questions, would like to share your story, or simply want to leave some feedback or tell me what you would like to read more of, please get in touch here: 

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