A PLACE TO BE
In what room do you spend most of your waking hours at home? Growing up, our family of six lived primarily in the den. Down the hall was a formal living room that was rarely used, except for receiving guests we didn’t know well, practicing the piano, and decorating the Christmas tree. Its gilded 1970s version of Louis XV furniture—a couch and two chairs— were barely sat in and remained from the early ’70s until we sold the house this year. The furniture in the den was the opposite—wellworn and replaced every few years because my entire family spent evenings and weekends lounging on the couch and easy chairs, with Chester the dog trying to squeeze in wherever possible. In those days, we shared mainly the same activities: watching television…
