Iam not a big fan of those good-natured aesthetes on television, the Designer Guys who create totally perfect rooms that, allegedly, enhance one's life and leisure. I am, however, the son of a mother who, in addition to her many good works in the community, presided over a house in which there was a place for everything and everything was expected to be in its place. And I agree with Socrates who said that the beauty and order around one, or its opposite, comes to be reflected in the soul.

Mum was a thrifty person, a former elementary teacher and, like any Depression era housewife a conservationist. Everything had to be handled with care. There were inevitable disasters in a house where there were two growing boys. There was the occasional sparring, both verbal and physical, between them. Some altercations ended by our being assigned to polish the small glass windows on opposite sides of the closed French doors that separated the living room from the dining room. At first the combatants even refused to look at one another but as the operation continued scowls turned to occasional eye contact and then from grins to laughter.

For as long as I can remember ours was a three-generational home. My maternal grandfather had died when I was two so Grandma Campbell lived with us. Although she had her own room, her predilection for Moorcroft pottery and other decorative arts was evident in other places. So, we grew up in a sort-of, but not overbearing, Canadian Homes and Gardens atmosphere. I assumed that everyone did.

There was more. One of our parents' friends was Ed Smiley who worked in the fifth floor Fine Furniture department at Eaton's-College Street. That space was surrounded by professionally designed model rooms in which good taste and quality reigned. En route from my university residence to the city centre I often wandered through the College Street store. In contrast with the haphazardness of the student dorms the fifth floor evoked an agreeable sense of repose. The wood (mahogany and distressed oak), the rich leather and textiles, seemed to belong to an eschatological time when human slovenliness would be caught up in the perfection of a coming age.

For the foregoing reasons I am interested in domestic spaces, sensitive to the milieu in I live. Neither ostentation nor desire for bourgeois comfort nor feng shui considerations - and certainly not fussiness - have anything to do with it. It is the sense of quiet order, the lack of confusion that is important. Although I share some of the interests of television's Steven and Christopher, I find them too fussy. Do they ever relax?

Speaking of comfortable living spaces that provide a retreat from the madding crowd and that permit one to enjoy "a few of my favourite things", it is interesting to note the current demise of the living room in 'open concept' houses. The family and assembled guests can now see over their pre-dinner drinks both the vegetables being put into the steamer and the candles being lit on the table. More often than not, hospitality in an 'estate residence' centres on a kitchen island.

Plus ça change. Many centuries ago people gathered socially in a single ground floor room. The fire over which food was cooking was also the focal point of entertaining. A trestle table was set up at right angles to it and taken down after a meal. Any sleeping place was either curtained off or located in a loft.

As social sensibilities became more refined - and until the recent return to kitchen partying - a dining room and a parlour (talking room) were planned. Visitors were spared the clutter of food preparation. Indeed, the parlour, later to become the living room, was kept behind closed doors until those who merited a more polite reception were present. In Victorian times it became a place for potted palms, the best pictures, perhaps a Persian rug.

When the 20th Century got under way in 1919/20, the parlour was opened to daily, if still limited, use.

The mantelpiece had a fireplace either for wood or for cannel coal. If there were books other than cookbooks in the house they were shelved on either side of the mantel. Often small windows with a modest stained glass motif were set above the bookcases. For some years the plants disappeared. A 'Victrola' on which to play vinyl records appeared and a radio was soon in place.

When home television sets became common in the 1950s some were crowded at an angle into a corner of the living room. My parents never allowed it above the basement recreation room. In that far-off time multiple TVs were unknown. For some people the 'rec room' gave place to an upstairs 'family room' in which both table etiquette and family solidarity declined.

All sat there in silence, a tray or plate on everyone's knee, while the pioneers of home entertainment did all the talking from the noise screen.

And when the screen came to fill a whole wall and the wraparound strains of a rock concert drowned all other sounds in the house conversation and other kinds of family togetherness were came to an end.

This short history of a man's or a woman's home, once their castle but now their private theatre/ restaurant, is not exhaustive. And nothing in the above is meant to suggest that people so inclined should not watch Steven and Chris and their new television show, if only to learn the pleasure of moving things around occasionally and to be challenged to replace drabness with colour and pictures printed by a machine with those painted by human hands.

When I moved into my postfamilial town house with no doors on the two openings into the kitchen I installed French doors forthwith. Each of the four hinged sections has five bevelled glass panels that need periodic attention from someone who does windows. They remind me of those fraternal reconciliations - Jack and I now meet monthly for lunch - and that both I and my guests are happier when we are not jostling one another in my kitchen.