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Imprints are strong emotional experiences in our lives that have “imprinted” themselves on our brain to become part of the tapestry of memories that shape our responses to ideas in our living environment such as: comfort, safety, social status, happiness, fun and connections with others. These “imprints” come into play when we think of the home, of our childhood neighborhood or when we first experience a space new to us, such as a renovated Loft in an urban setting or a new model home in suburbia. Our reactions, influenced by our imprints are gut level or instinctual rather than the reasoned analysis of: location, home size, and/or cost. Imprints can be either positive or negative.

If our imprints from the past were largely positive ones from an experience of rural living, we might have a difficult time seeing that contemporary downtown loft as an attractive place to live and the suburban neighborhood, full of tightly spaced homes, could be as unappealing to us as well. Changing our current imprints is difficult, so our reactions to experiences will not easily change, but new imprints are being formed every day as we learn and grow and these replace those old imprints over time.

You can see why people often choose lifestyles similar to their parents and are slow to turn to new ideas and forms of living, like lofts, or in the case of someone who grew up in a city apartment and couldn’t imagine living in a single family home much less a small town. It takes time to learn to accept change and imprints, or the lack of them. Imprints may cause us to design our homes ever so slowly, and new ideas are greeted more with suspicion than acceptance. That’s how it’s been with my neighbors and their suspicion of accessory dwellings. They say they are concerned about parking, the potential shading of a neighbor’s garden, or the design compatibility of the new additions to the neighborhood architectural fabric. That’s what they say, but they may be reacting instinctively to old imprints they still harbor within themselves. Part of our job is to give people a reason to develop new positive imprints with beautiful efficient non-intrusive backyard cottages that they can point to with pride.

Labels: Backyard Cottages, Imprints, Sidekick Homes