The Music In the House
June 8, 2026
One of the things I love most about our home is that the main rooms are not centered around a television. They are centered around light, music, plants, books, conversation, and the view outside the windows. Where a TV might normally go in front of the couch, we have a 1960s era mid-century modern record player console. It is a real furniture piece, with the record player built in and cabinets underneath. Beside it is a 1960s hope chest filled with records.
I love that these pieces ask something different of the room.
They ask people to listen. They ask people to stay present. They make the room feel less like a place to consume something and more like a place to be together. Music changes a home. Some days it is the Grateful Dead. Some days it is Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, The Lucky Strokes, the Allman Brothers, Van Morrison, Fleetwood Mac, or Chris Stapleton when I want the house to slow down.
It is not background noise exactly. It becomes part of the atmosphere. The kitchen, living room, and screen porch are really one connected space in our house. Life tends to happen there. Someone is cooking. Someone is reading. Someone is walking through with a water bottle or a notebook or a garden plan. Dogs are asleep on the floor. Plants are near the windows. Light is moving through the room.
The music gives all of that a rhythm. I think we underestimate how much the things we put in a room shape the way people behave inside it. Books invite curiosity. Plants invite attention. Comfortable chairs invite conversation. Records invite listening. Windows invite us to notice what is happening outside. That is the kind of home I want to keep building. Not a perfect home. Not a staged home. A home with a little personality and a lot of intention.
A home where the room itself encourages people to slow down.
With love and intention,
Jennifer
