Paper short abstract:

Nowadays many homes are decorated with a mix of retro stuff, antiquities and newer things. Are owners of old houses also interested in narrations about cultural heritage related to their homes? Or do they mainly renovate their houses and create cosy homes to express their decoration skills?

Paper long abstract:

Nowadays many people appreciate to buy and live in old small houses. The aim is to discuss if their interests are related to imaginations of material or intangible cultural heritage of their homes? Or is it a question of making cosy homes with a mix of retro stuff, antiquities and newer items to express their decoration skills. Attention will be paid to how owners narrate about their homes in urban neighbourhoods or second homes in the countryside. The informants are belonging to different generations and had been interviewed or written life stories about homes. The purpose is to analyse the interplay between the ideal of interiors and contemporary imaginations of cultural heritage. One issue is how they narrate about preservation of material items and if they include their life stories in the biographies of their old houses. Do the buyers see themselves as inheritors or renewers? And why do house owners in a small neighbourhood arrange flea markets for themselves? Which kinds of expectations did different generations had as new settled and how do they nowadays evaluated living in houses with reminiscences?