I recently came across a piece by Patti Davis, actress, author, and daughter of Ronald Reagan, reflecting on her years growing up in the White House. She describes the experience of history brushing past her, the walls alive with the echoes of those who had lived there before, while she, caught in her own youthful world, was too distracted to see it.

It made me think about the walls we live within and how much they hold.

My husband has just finished renovating our home. It’s a house built in the 1950s, one that still carried the sensibilities of its time. Small rooms tucked close together, designed to hold warmth in during the damp, English winters. In the 1990s, the house was extended by the architect who lived there with his family. The additions spoke of a different season. A growing household needing more space, and expansion.

When we bought it in 2008, we did what we could. A coat of paint. New floors. The kind of quick changes that make a house feel a little more yours. But I always dreamed of opening it up and of creating a space that invited connection and laughter. One that spoke of the moments shared around a wide table. Two years ago, we finally began.

What started as a small renovation quickly became a complete refurbishment.
 Arnaud approached it with care. Not just in design, but in intention. He thought about how we live, how we gather, how sound and warmth move through a home. What has emerged is a space that feels open, alive, made for connection.


But the original walls still stand. They’ve witnessed everything: the day we brought our daughter home,
 the day we lost my mother,
 the countless days in between seemingly ordinary, unrecorded, yet full of life.

As I’ve watched our home take shape again, I’ve been thinking about how spaces and people can be both old and new at once. In a conversation with Simon Sinek, writer Alexandra Hudson spoke about restoring her home in Indianapolis. A project she described as a metaphor for her life’s work: reviving the wisdom and beauty of the past and melding it with the needs of the present.

I suppose we could have torn our house down and started over. It would perhaps have been easier.
 But Arnaud understood something I didn’t at first: that renewal is more satisfying than replacement. Because renewal doesn't erase what was; it re-imagines how what endures can still serve us. Our walls hold the echoes of the past, but they also offer the framework for what comes next. They build on meaning. (1)

This week

Reach in and revisit your own foundations. What spaces, habits, or relationships have quietly held you through change? Notice what still supports you, even as everything else evolves.

Reset and restore, don’t erase. Where in your life have you been tempted to start over entirely? What might happen if you worked with what already exists. Think about it refining rather than rebuilding?

Reach out and honour the structure that holds you. Say thank you to a person, a place, or a practice that forms part of your foundation. Meaning grows stronger when it’s acknowledged.

Closing thought

Sometimes renewal isn’t about beginning again.
 It’s about beginning from what already stands. Perhaps we should offer the walls, the stories, the love that have held us so far the same grace.

(1) Hudson, A. (2024, February 13). Community starts at home [Audio podcast episode]. In S. Sinek (Host), A Bit of Optimism. Optimism Press. https://simonsinek.com/podcast/episodes/community-starts-at-home-with-author-alexandra-hudson/