It's often said: "Start the way you mean to continue".
The way we start something is definitely important. And perhaps equally important is how we finish.
As a musician, we'd often talk about how important it was to get the introduction and ending of a song sounding fantastic. After all, that's all that anybody really remembers at the end.
And the drum solo. No-one forgets the dummer's thirty seconds of fame.
But this is in the context of live music. In live music, the audience is present to the moment of creation, and arguably participates in creating much of the experience themselves.
It's a different story with recorded music.
Recorded music allows us to listen again and again to a song on repeat. In listening over and over again, we can discover our favourite moment buried deep somewhere in the fourth chorus of the eleventh track on the third album. Once we've found our moment, the purpose of the recorded introduction is to be a trigger, a reminder, a promise of the good stuff we know is coming.
What about when we're building a house?
When we're making something that will last.
Making something that someone is going to spend time in. Time living in. Time living with.
Starting well is undoubtably important. And the finish, the way things are left, matters.
But the middle sections, the work that is done, the main body of work that remains with the owner long after the creators are gone, that matters too.
Good homes - well designed, well built, well finished homes - should leave the possibility open that the best bit is not just walking in on the first day, but something discovered in the midst of living in the home. Discovered as we are present in the home. As we participate in turning a house into a home by the act of living in it.
Good homes bring a blend of the live performance where we engage and contribute to the creation of space and goodness, and the permanance of the recorded track, where we can discover our own distinct key moments in which to linger.
Good homes, well designed, property thought out, and well lived in, can become like that favourite piece of music, that ideal album where the popular title track fades in significance over time, leaving us with those moments that mean the most to us.