Home – as a place and a concept – has always been thing for me, a design writer. A therapist once agreed that I was obsessed with it. But as I turned 40 last year, after seven years renting the same tiny flat with my long-term boyfriend, I remember feeling like a failure. For someone happy to spout opinions about homes and interiors, I’d reached another milestone age without ever owning a place of my own. Middle-aged people have mortgages and buy their own fridge-freezers. I’d never renovated anything, tended a garden or had a spare room so my mum didn’t have to sleep on the sofa. As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about arguing over white goods in John Lewis, because my life was about to implode.
Pre-implosion, what I did have was a small rental at an address heavy on fascination. Living in brutalist icon the Barbican Estate – and posting photos of it on Instagram – wasn’t a premeditated career move, but that’s what it became. I shared everything from the way I styled my shelves to the funny idiosyncrasies of life in the estate that was billed as a utopian urban sanctuary when the first residents arrived in 1969.
Over the course of a few years, these posts enabled me to sidestep from editing for e-commerce to a freelance career as an interiors journalist and consultant. My address became completely intertwined with my identity. Friends would introduce me to people saying, “This is Eleanor, she lives in the Barbican!” I worried that it was the only interesting thing about me, but I was grateful that I got to breeze around an iconic building that so many people loved. If it’s possible for a 650-square-foot rectangle with a decrepit carpet to be a status symbol, then it was.
We’d wanted to move to a bigger flat in better condition for five years but, as an aesthete working from home with an exacting view about the way things looked, I ruled out almost everything. Either the natural light wasn’t good, or it might be noisy, or the kitchen worktop was plastic. There was always something to find fault with. I’ll know it when I see, I reasoned. But I didn’t see it, so I kept on searching.
Then, in the end, when I did move – irony of ironies – I had no say in the matter whatsoever. Schadenfreude fans gather round because, on a gloomy January day, my boyfriend of more than a decade ended our relationship. There was no warning, just a very brief admission that his feelings had changed. And with that, the rug was pulled on the life I was comfortable with. I couldn’t afford to rent in the Barbican on my own – I couldn’t afford to rent any London flat – so I had to move into the spare bedroom at my dad’s house in suburban South Yorkshire. Miss Oh-So-Picky, until I didn’t have a choice.
Eleanor’s utopian urban sanctuary in the Barbican.
Living with my dad and stepmum (as totally wonderful as they’ve been) wasn’t on the big 4-0 vision board, and the build-up to moving out was horrendous. It was two months of crying on sofas and crying on trains, utterly overwhelmed by the prospect of untangling my and my ex’s lives, and dividing or selling the possessions I thought we’d take with us when we moved to our next place together. There were memories attached to every object. The task of condensing a life’s worth of furniture, art, lamps and books that I’d painstakingly curated down to one corner of the loft in my dad’s house felt insurmountable, not least because it was getting dark by 4pm, it rained relentlessly for weeks and I caught every godforsaken winter virus doing the rounds. I’ll never forget the friends (and strangers) who propped me up with coffees, voicenotes and offers of help.
As I packed up my London life and prepared to leave the flat that I’d subconsciously treated as a security blanket, a clarity began to descend. I could see that I’d created something between an aesthetically pleasing sanctuary and a tiny prison. My self-imposed constraints about how my home should look and feel – and a stubborn avoidance of compromise – kept me stuck in the same place for far too long. Control-freak decorating aside, I had an overstuffed storage unit that I’d barely looked at in years, except to unearth my vast collection of Christmas decorations every December (fine, November). As I slowly emptied it out, selling enough old baskets to stock a Provençal market stall, and giving away vases, cushions and curios to my neighbours, I realised it felt liberating.
I moved onto the kitchen and then the contents of my tableware and styling props cupboard. When you see your stuff laid out en masse on the living room floor, it doesn’t feel special anymore – it feels like clutter. Why did I ever need 16 different sets of matching napkins? I never throw dinner parties, but I’d shopped as if I were a regular Martha Stewart. I started to find it easy to part with almost everything I’d ever bought. Poorly made furniture got the chop, as did anything flouncy, floral or ornate. I prioritised keeping textiles, paintings, obscenely heavy boxes of coffee-table books, vintage lighting and design classics that I could never afford to buy again.
Downsizing forced me to question how I live and what I treasure and use most. I also noted what the design signatures are that I’ve loved for years, so I can refocus on those when something that isn’t true to my style briefly distracts me. It took weeks to get through everything, but looking back, I’m thankful that circumstances forced me to part with so many things that I didn’t need to keep and won’t miss.
Why did I ever need 16 sets of napkins? I never threw dinner parties, but I’d shopped as if I were a regular Martha Stewart.
Nine months on, I’m zipping between friends’ places in London and Yorkshire. One week I might be house-sitting in one of my favourite corners of the capital, another I’m waking up to a cup of tea and a banana on a tray, left outside my door when staying with sweet friends across town. Or I might be up north, taking a reformer class with my stepmum and nagging my dad about not wearing sun cream. Most weeks involve sitting on trains for hours, and quite honestly, it’s been freeing and invigorating.
My mental health has improved in a way that six months of therapy didn’t touch. I’m more easygoing, more optimistic, and I have a stronger bond with friends as a result of losing my coveted address. At my dad’s place, my bedroom is grey, with a purple chaise longue and questionable chandelier, and I truly don’t care. I no longer obsess about buying a home, and for now, I’m content to have a cosy daybed in a friend’s storage room when I need it. Last Christmas, when I planned the big improvements I was going to make this year, I couldn’t have imagined that leaving my old life behind would be the most helpful one of all.