The slide to school

Some time ago I gave workshops at primary schools. I asked the children to draw their own dream bedroom. Anything was allowed. What came out I will never forget. A bed in a treehouse. A room under water. A corner full of animals that stayed the night.

Nobody asked whether it was possible.

It made me think of myself, back then. I wanted a slide. From my bed, straight into school. It seemed entirely logical to me. Children’s rooms are still my favourite to design. Not because they are sweet. But because a child does not hold itself back yet. Anything goes. Bigger, madder, freer.

And honestly: I gave those workshops in order to bring something, and walked out richer myself. Their boundless wishes gave me more energy and ideas than many a large commission ever did. A child does not think in budget, in square metres, in what the neighbours will say. It wants a place to feel free and safe. Or to hide. A corner that is his alone. A colour that makes no sense at all, except to his own heart.

And us? Did we lose that somewhere along the way?

We call it growing up. We learned to choose what is appropriate instead of what is right. We began to furnish for the outside world. Slowly our space became a reflection of what is allowed, rather than of what we truly want.

I notice it in my work. How careful people have become with their own home. How often I hear: I wouldn’t dare, that’s too much, that’s not for me. As if longing were something to be ashamed of. But somewhere inside you that child is still there. The one who knew exactly where his own place was. Who built a hut out of blankets and chairs, or outside in the woods, and sat there happily for hours. Who had a secret place nobody else knew about.

Do you remember where yours was?

Under the stairs. Behind a curtain. High up in a tree. A place that had to do nothing and prove nothing, and yet was everything. For some, the only place where they truly felt safe. We never really outgrow that place. We only forget it. We take life seriously, and ourselves even more so. And somewhere along the way we forgot to ask what we actually wanted. I catch myself at it too.

And yet. When a space truly works, something childlike happens. People soften. They dare to long again. To choose something that is right for them alone. Perhaps that is the most beautiful thing a house can do. Not impress. But bring you back to the part of you that dared, before you learned to hold yourself back.

So before you go on, let me ask you something. Do you remember what your childhood bedroom looked like? And if you were allowed to draw again today, anything at all, just like then: what would you dare to build?

Mariska Jagt — interior designer and founder of The Home of Soul