The House Before the House

When I first stepped into this early twentieth-century home, I had a clear, almost physical sensation: it was not asking to be changed, it was asking to be listened to.

There was silence, but not neglect.
The walls, the floors, the traces of time, each spoke in their own way, quietly yet insistently.

Some rooms had been mistreated by makeshift lofts built to “gain space”, but they had taken away the one thing I value most, the breath of high ceilings.
They felt like rooms that had lost their voice, waiting patiently to be seen again.

They did not cry out, they simply waited.