House Call With Kate Arends

House Call With Kate Arends

The Myth of a Finished House

Maybe you’re not procrastinating.

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Kate Arends
Apr 24, 2025
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Most of us are living in homes we think we’ve failed. Half-finished projects, empty walls, awkward corners we apologize for. But what if those spaces aren’t signs of neglect?

“Illustration of Home Wrapped in a Bow” Created with Midjourney, April 23 2024

There are choices that hang in the air of a home like humidity. You live with them. Walk past them. Pretend not to notice. I have a shoebox full of them—paint swatches with handwritten notes, the corners curled slightly from years of being thumbed through and put away again. My handwriting is excitable, rushed. This one! Maybe. The thoughts of someone chasing a feeling, not just a finish.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what keeps us stuck. What happens when a decision lingers so long it becomes part of the architecture? What’s actually behind that stuckness, and what might happen if we stop framing it as failure to act, but the grace of admitting we don’t know the answer yet?

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