Grumps need not apply
Laura Fenton, of Living Small, of answers the Shelter Questionnaire.
A new installment of the Shelter Questionnaire is here!
I’ve been a fan of Laura Fenton ever since subscribing to her excellent newsletter, Living Small. (It’s one of Substack's top 15 design outlets!)
Based in Queens, Laura has been writing about home design and sustainability for more than 20 years and is the author of two books:
After a couple of decades living in New York City apartments, she knows living small first-hand and has shared this expertise in the pages of The Washington Post, Better Homes & Gardens, Real Simple, and many more.
What impresses me most about Laura is that, despite being a full-time freelance journalist, she still finds the time to produce original reporting for her own newsletter each week as she explores topics from gardening to renovating to “making do and mending instead of buying something new.”
Shelter runs on the high-low theory (of, say, enjoying fine wine and cheap beer equally), and Laura is a scholar in this department: When asked about her most memorable meals abroad, she pointed to both a fancy dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant in France and a paper sack of pupusas eaten in the back of a van full of Habitat for Humanity volunteers in El Salvador.
She’s also an accomplished baker (proof of that below), so if you subscribe to her newsletter she might just be willing to share her birthday cake secrets with you — but you didn’t hear that from me.
Some quick backstory on the Shelter Questionnaire: As a parlor game, Victorian teens used to fill out a personality quiz with questions like:
"If not yourself, who would you be?"
"What is your idea of misery?"
"What is the most overrated virtue?"
The philosopher Marcel Proust took it at 19, and his answers were so good they named the whole damn thing after him. These days, Vanity Fair gives it to celebrities.
This is my spin on that idea, focused on home + travel. The questions are designed to provoke a range of answers: short or long, light-hearted or poignant, serious or funny. Let’s dive in.
Laura Fenton answers the Shelter Questionnaire
What is your earliest memory of your space being important to you?
Space has always been important to me. My family moved out of my first apartment when I was 4, but much to my parents’ astonishment, I can draw an accurate floor plan of that home including where furniture was positioned. I’ve always been acutely aware of interiors, which probably led me to writing about them.
What is your favorite thing about your childhood home?
I grew up in a Queen Anne Victorian. My favorite part was the attic or as we called it “the third floor.” It was half finished, half raw attic with sloping ceilings and dormers with casement windows. On the unfinished side there was a secret passage, which was a space beneath the eaves that had been walled off with gypsum board that you could crawl into — super spooky as a kid. As a teenager, my parents let me have my bedroom in the finished half. I had a view straight out into the canopy of two copper beech trees and at one point set up a darkroom in the claw footed bathtub: absolutely heaven.
What was your first adult home like?
My first “adult” apartment was a sixth floor walk-up in Little Italy that I shared with a friend during college. We found it through a classified ad in the printed newspaper. It couldn’t have been more than 400-square feet: We had two tiny bedrooms with a kitchen connecting them. My room was 6’ by 8’ and had a loft bed and some shelves and a small wardrobe beneath.
What do you most value in a houseguest?
Independence.
Is there a signature meal or drink you wish to be known for?
I put a lot of love into making birthday cakes. I hope that they are memorable.
What is the next home project you’re excited about? One you’re dreading?
We’ve lived in our small apartment for 10 years, so we are due for a refresh (floors need refinishing, walls need painting). I am looking forward to the results, but dreading coordinating the work.
What is your perfect day at home?
I actually kind of hate spending a day at home! I’d almost always rather be out in the world doing something.
What is your favorite imperfection about your home?
Overstuffed bookcases. Aesthetically, I’d prefer them less full, but their unruly abundance is a direct result of my family’s love for reading.
Where is a place you never want to return to?
Las Vegas. Once in my early 20s was enough.
What is the quality you most admire in a travel companion?
Good cheer.
What frustrates you most in a travel companion?
Grump.
What is your favorite road-trip game?
My family rotates picking songs on Spotify, one by one, and adding them to our queue for a very eclectic mix.
Seth Putnam is an editor and writer in Chicago. He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in a 1920s home that is the epitome of a work in progress.
"Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." — Mary Oliver