Of course when it’s your own home and your own money, then the constraints feel more immediate, but you also find yourself making decisions that could only be made after having lived in a place for a long time.

There’s a tendency to think that the solution will always end up being architecture, but sometimes all you need to activate a space is a few layers of paint. Put another way, those pieces that we often think of as accessory to the real architecture (decks, paving, and turf; a mural, fence, bookshelf, or porch) may all add up to being the thing itself.