Home is where you hang your heart

Home. The word means different things to different people. Everyone has a home, whether you own your own house, rent an apartment, sleep in your parents' basement or live in a van down by the river. Home is where you hang your hat, and your heart.
When Dorothy said, "There's no place like home," she wasn't kidding. Home is where most of us feel safest and most comfortable. It's not just the physical place, but also the people we live with that we call home.
For many of us, making our homes reflect our personalities – our interest in aviation, our love of monkeys, our political persuasion, our preference for bright colors – is a high priority. We decorate, we paint, we build, we mend, we clean.
Walk into a person's home and you can immediately tell a lot about them. What does it smell like? Are there fresh flowers on the table, or a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray? What kind of art, if any, do they have on the walls? What dominates their shelves: books? photos of friends and family? knick-knacks? Does a dog bound up to greet you or is there a cat slinking around by the kitchen door?
Making your home your own is a very exciting and rewarding experience, but it can sometimes be a frustrating one. Any homeowner can tell you that owning your own home is satisfying, but expensive. There is no end to the number of improvements and, often, repairs and maintenance that need to be done. Homeowners learn to do many of these things themselves, whether it's repairing a hole in a plaster wall or putting in a new electrical outlet. Some things, however, are beyond our capabilities. Thankfully there are experienced professionals we can call on when we need a hand. You can find many of them in the Resource Directory on p. 38.
For those enterprising do-it-yourselfers, we have a review of Todd Oldham's new book "Handmade Modern" on p. 30. Whether you're into making your own furniture or you just want some hip decorating ideas, Oldham is making retro new again.
Decorating is essential to putting your personal touch on your home. Finding the perfect artifact is easy at the Penniman Gallery in Plymouth. Take a tour on page 34.
Of course, having a home away from home makes the time we spend at home that much sweeter. It's nice to get away and let someone else worry about vacuuming for awhile. For those seeking the perfect vacation destination we present the Bellaire B&B, a beautiful and well decorated inn to the north.
According to Joyce Maynard, "A good home must be made, not bought." No matter how much – or how little – money a person has, no matter how big or small a house, a good home has no price. Love makes a family, and love, ultimately, makes a home. May yours be sweet.