Little Time Machines: Pieces that transport you home

It's been so lovely to have our loved ones together at home and to celebrate key occasions with them once more.  It got us thinking about the family home and its importance in our life.

As a noun the word ‘home’ is defined as, “A place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household,” and as a verb, in reference to an animal, it’s defined as a “return by instinct to its territory after leaving it.” At holidays like Christmas there’s often a return to the ‘home’ - you might be visiting your parents, or your children might be returning home to you, and so the definition of returning by instinct seems somewhat more accurate.

So what it is that actually makes a home? Certainly it’s the physical building, and most of us can visualise our childhood home in our memory, but home is much more than bricks and mortar. Many of our parents have moved on from the family house and so it can’t just be the place itself that makes us feel at home. For us, and perhaps surprisingly, what makes somewhere a home has more to do with the pieces in it.

Think back to when you last moved and faced the enormity of packing everything up. Naturally, there are some pieces that are thrown into the rubbish/donation pile, but there are many that are automatically packed without thought because of the meaning they hold. Things like paintings, pieces of furniture, vases and crockery that serve as instant reminders of moments in time. 

Visiting your parents as an adult you’re transported back to your childhood when you see the family dining table, the painting that was at the top of the stairs for 15 years, or the same china bowl that you remember eating ice cream and jelly from as a ten year old. Some of these pieces may not still be ‘on trend’ and might even be the butt of a joke or two, but they have meaning. They can evoke emotions, memories; they might have the power to instantly comfort.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away or how far you’ve travelled, those special pieces make you feel like you’re home; they can make you feel safe and they remind us of people.  

At Cream Cornwall our goal is to make unique, quality pieces that last. We want you to be surrounded by beautiful things that make you happy.

We want to create pieces that create connections and become moments in time in the future.