This "How Your House Makes You Miserable" article shows why we need to adopt intentional living now more than ever

The "market-reflected gaze" leaves no room for intentional living spaces

I don’t think I’ve read an article in months that resonates so hard as Anne Helen Peterson’s “How Your House Makes you Miserable”.

She dropped this gem on her Substack Culture Study this week and it’s all I’ve been able to think about since.

I sincerely suggest you go and read it later in its entirety but for the purposes of today’s essay, I’ll summarize:

Anne uses an academic study called Dysplacement and the Professionalization of the Home to demonstrate how homeowners are conflicted between their home being an extension of the self and being an asset that becomes more valuable if we adopt a “market-reflected gaze.”

The idea of the market-reflected gaze is that we view our home through the lens of current trends in the real estate market. Even if we have no intention of selling it, we are susceptible to decorating it in a neutral, sale-friendly aesthetic because that is what the market dictates.

This is further bolstered by a society-wide obsession with home renovation shows and websites. We are encouraged to make our homes palatable by the “professionalization” of our home, for instance, chef-ready kitchens or spa-like bathrooms. Anyone who doesn’t do this is at the mercy of jibes by their friends, family and the biggest threat of all, difficulty in selling your biggest asset.

The market-reflected gaze teaches us to feel bad about our homes, that they should always be under improvement. And because our homes are an extension of our identity, that means we’re taught to feel bad about ourselves.

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It’s a dangerous thing, to monetize and capitalize on something that is so intrinsically linked to self and identity.

But that is exactly what we have done with our homes.

The market-reflected gaze leaves no room for intentional living spaces, ones that reflect who you are, not what the market says you should be.

Like the person who decides on the big professional-grade kitchen — and is prepared to pay through the nose for it — only to ever use it for plating up takeout.

Or on a smaller scale, like the time I bought a tiny little Victorian-era-style towel rail I’d seen on Pinterest only to have damp towels for the next five years because it didn’t work as well as a big, ugly one. Or when I put in solid wooden countertops in my kitchen even though I cooked for a living (as well as a lot for myself) which ruined them within a year.

The market-reflected gaze makes interesting work of the well-worn phrase “putting your stamp” on a place. Whose stamp? Yours or the market’s?

The study would suggest it’s the market’s. And that’s no good thing.

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It may be a tall order but I would love to see a world in which we devalue this market-reflected gaze.

As Anne says:

What would a housing market that values individualization look like? How does a more robust social safety net (and less emphasis or ability to accumulate wealth) affect norms of interior design? How might a de-emphasis on resale (and the premium on “luxury” spaces) create and bolster more demand for smaller homes, for more inventive co-housing, for more affordable and accessible homes?

Even better, what would happen if we loosened the grip home ownership has on our sense of self? What if we looked elsewhere for that?

Renters would be happy with this, I’m sure.

There is a massive opportunity here to change the way we see our homes. What if we saw homes for living, not for resale? What if we made more intentional choices in what we looked for when buying a home rather than being dictated by what makes a “good investment” or how professional the kitchen is?

I would pose that many simple living advocates are less susceptible to the market-reflected gaze. After all, you’ve already done some of the hard work to reject what is considered “normal” and I’m sure that includes careful consideration of your home.

The rebellious side of me thinks there is something deliciously appealing about owning something you know won’t accrue wealth in the way it’s “supposed” to. About owning a home that is fit for purpose, hang the resale value. About sticking two fingers up to what we’re taught is the normal and “right” way to do homeownership. To climb down the housing ladder.

To unlink the home from that sense of self.

My life being as it is, I’m writing this article in a rented chair, tea in a rented mug in hand, under the roof of a rented Airbnb. I am not susceptible to this market-reflected gaze because I no longer own a home. There is something wonderfully liberating in that. After a while, you don’t miss your own mugs. And you no longer link your identity with the roof over your head.

Anne’s assertions here are not so out there that they couldn’t happen. In some parts of the world, this is exactly how homeownership is perceived. There are places and communities where the emphasis is less on building wealth and more on aligning the home with the wants and needs of its inhabitants. Tiny homes are one way. Co-housing is another.

Like I say, it’s a tall order. But it doesn’t mean we can’t talk or think about it. In fact, we should. The more we talk about it, the more normalized alternative living arrangements become.

And the more we can unlink our identity from the market-reflected gaze, the more we can be intentional with how we choose to live.

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