Come Take a Tour of Woolf's Home!

Because we are interested in architecture's effect on the creative process because Woolf was interested in architecture's effect on the creative process, I thought this video, a tour a Woolf's home, was incredibly illuminating. Woolf took her own advice, to have a room of one's own, quite seriously. Not only did she have a room of her own, she had a special writing shed separate from the house, amidst the gardens to call her own. Not only was her designated creative space specific and personalized to her needs a writer (I'm sure we have all seen the garden she sat in view of many times in her works) as the extreme personalization extended through out the main house. Practically all the furniture and other decorative accessories are personalized with colorful paint artfully arranged by members of the Bloomsbury Group. The VW on the dining chair at 1:10 is way too cute. The narrator describes her house as avant-garde yet I disagree. Although the decoration is not conventional with its use of color rather than its embrace of the neutral (an embrace my dorm has attached itself quite tightly to), I don't believe the distant, stale air so characteristic of avant-garde permeates the household. I love how the dark wooden beams contrast the soft sea foam green of the walls. The contrast almost tightens the room so that it feels as though one moves snuggly throughout the space (well that and, considering how close the two men's heads appear to the ceiling beams, it is probably just a small house). It almost reminds me of a hobbit home. Living in a home like this, I cannot imagine one's creative mind ever resting. There are so many details to pay attention to, both artistic beauty (the lampshades are painted!) and natural beauty from the landscape. Even her writing shed, though not as intricately laced with design as her home, seems to allow for the expansion of the mind with its abundance of natural light and ample size. I especially like that her desk does not face a wall but that it is in the middle of the room, facing towards the door, so that the outside world, so that life is always visible at a moment's glance.

As for the narrator, it may be better to watch this video on mute. For two people so ecstatic to be in Woolf's home, I find it weird that they are so quick to dismiss her relationship with Vita Sackville-West as nothing more than a trendy experiment or a mistake made from confusion. At least their babbling does not detract from the beauty of Virginia Woolf's home.