Domestic Building Repair as a Learning Process

Abstract

This article examines how domestic building repair is represented as a site of experiential learning in Finnish interior design magazines. Situated within heritage studies, the analysis explores how lifestyle media portray the relationships between people, material traces of the past, and the everyday practices of maintaining buildings. The research material consists of interviews with home renovators published in widely circulated home decoration magazines in 2022–2023. As mediated accounts rather than direct testimonies, these narratives reveal how learning through repair is constructed and communicated to the public. Thematic content analysis identifies three recurring representations of learning: learning from the building, learning through constraints and contingencies, and learning through hands‑on engagement and care. Across the material, repair is depicted as a transformative process that not only restores physical structures but also reshapes the repairers’ skills, attitudes, values and sense of home. Renovators describe acquiring technical knowledge, developing patience and flexibility, and cultivating dedication through embodied, hands‑on work. The magazines function as cultural texts that articulate aspirational lifestyles and ethical orientations toward older buildings. Their repair narratives promote appreciation of material heritage, highlight forms of domestic care, and frame repair as an everyday practice through which individuals negotiate identity, continuity and belonging.