House Lessons
Renovating a Life
A Memoir
Finalist, Washington State Book Award — Community Reads programs
“A choice of a home is not just about where we’ve been or what we remember; it’s also about who we want to be.”
In this mesmerizing memoir-in-essays, Erica Bauermeister renovates a trash-filled house in eccentric Port Townsend, Washington, and in the process takes readers on a journey to discover the ways our spaces subliminally affect us. A personal, accessible, and literary exploration of the psychology of architecture, as well as a loving tribute to the connections we forge with the homes we care for and live in, this book is designed for anyone who’s ever fallen head over heels for a house. It is also a story of a marriage, of family, and of the kind of roots that settle deep into your heart. Discover what happens when a house has its own lessons to teach in this moving and insightful memoir that ultimately shows us how to make our own homes (and lives) better.
Praise
“This beautifully written memoir is for anyone who has wondered where home is and how to find it, fix it, love it, and leave it for later as well. We are lucky to be along for the ride.”
— Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is
“One part investigation of architecture and design, one part exploration of identity, House Lessons is a meditation on space and home.”
—Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game
“Intimate and gracefully told, here is the irresistible story of a house and a family in transmutation.”
—Rikki Ducornet, author of The Deep Zoo
“Bauermeister’s tale of architectural renovation is a window into the nuanced connection between our human lives and our physical dwellings—a relationship that is poetic, visceral, familial, sometimes irrational, and always grounded in love.”
—Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Mozart’s Starling and Crow Planet
“Generous and artful, this is a hard-won story of the work that goes into building a life.”
—Molly Wizenberg, bestselling author of A Homemade Life
“Bauermeister seamlessly blends a novelist’s command of narrative tension with a scholar’s curiosity to understand the world around her. Read this and you’ll be entertained, moved, informed, and endlessly surprised.”
—William Kenower, author of Fearless Writing
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