Culture Shock and Home Design

Other than the honeymoon period, what I (and we) am currently experiencing in the new home more is actually a culture shock. I thought that should be something I would experience from moving back to this city after spent some years abroad.

I was (alhamdulillah) wrong. That moving was actually quite smooth and seamless. Later I knew, we moved to pretty similar, or even better environment than what we had in London. London is nice and great, but, Casa Grande is much nicer and better (a fact).

The real culture shock is actually moving down from the sky back to the earth. Moving from where it was mostly peaceful and quiet to a louder place where you can hear everything during the day. Moving from where everything is at your doorstep to somewhere less easier. Moving from places with no house bugs to a place where you can see them daily. It might sound silly but it’s true.

It feels like moving from Singapore where everything is well-organized, clean; fast, and easy, to somewhere more chaotic and the opposite of all those adjectives.

Despite the shock experienced, we design the home according to our life culture that we have lived along these years and it works well, Alhamdulillah.

For me, a house should not be built based on the inspiration we see on the internet but, based on how a family works. A home is where family habits take place. A home is one’s family way of life. A beautiful home decor is useless when it’s not functional. Building a home should start from knowing yourself and the people who live there.

All homes we have lived for the past 7 years have similarities : everything inside the house is near, which is a translation of small. Basically it’s just one floor house with a huge common room which becomes the centre of our activities. We rarely spend time in the bedroom. I forbid the little girl to ‘play’ in bed or hang out in her bedroom most of the time. Thus, what we have is a big common room with small bedrooms and nearby bathrooms.

An idea to have a camouflage door came when I saw the design offered by the architect and thought a camouflage door displayed as a bookshelf is more useful than a mere sliding door. Again, function first. Glad it turned out beautiful too.

One of the reasons to put a study/library in the public area instead of the private one because she has few online sessions and I want to be able to hear what she has while doing some other things either in the kitchen or living room.

For the prayer room, we always pray in a space where we gather, but in a specific spot. I learned this by observing my childhood home. We have a specific prayer area on the second floor. At first, everyone went there during prayer time. But, as time went by, it wasn’t really convenient to climb up the stairs every prayer time and all of us started praying in our own room. Most of the time, prayer room is only operated when guests were coming.

I don’t want that. I want where we pray is an easily accessible dedicated spot on the center of the house. Praying together is a family thing so it should be in a place where we do most of our family thing. I want everytime I pray, it has to have the best view, near water station, and Quran shelf is reached easily. Our praying space has our vertical garden view which is really nice and it indirectly makes me want to stay longer in the praying mat because of such enjoyable view.

When most homes place their piano in the living room, we place the piano in one secluded room with sound proof so it wouldn’t bother the neighbors outside and any other activities that we want to do inside. Piano is not a centre of our life, but praying is.

Well, I hope the honeymoon period last longer and the culture shock won’t. Amin.-