If buildings could speak, what stories would they tell?

I have always been interested in architecture. If I had been better at maths, and believe me I'd love to have been, I would have pursued a career into it without hesitation, apart from maybe interior design. However, my path led me elsewhere - into journalism - and it recently occurred to me, why not incorporate the two?

The granny in me loves nothing more than a night in with cups of tea and Grand Designs. It is my guilty pleasure, and upon reflection I don't feel that guilty about it. Buildings fascinate me. I understand that to a lot of people, a mere construction of wood and concrete isn't anything to fuss about, but to me, buildings are catalysts for conversation and the closest thing we have to a time machine.

This interest is embedded in my blood. My own home in Sweden was built in 1904, by a man named Oskar Svensson. My house was the first to be built on the street, and when my dad bought it in the 1980's, many of the tools and objects of the house were left in and around the garden. So as well as living in this wonderfully historic house, built during the First World War by a normal craftsman with a wife and two children, my family and I can share a part of their history.

To this day, the large vat in which the wife used to wash clothes with the local lake water sits beside the north facing balcony, which we now use as a plant pot. Both the workshed and the outhouse toilet were left up until a few years ago, until my father embarked on his own addition to this place.

For my fourteenth birthday, I was lucky enough to receive the best present I know of. My father renovated the work shed in my garden to be a bedroom for me. He did this almost single-handedly, with my brother and a few of his friends to help insulate and lay floorboards etc. The best part? The single glazed windows originally placed by Oskar remain. Single. Glazing. In Sweden. And due to my father's expertise in insulating well and skillfully, I rarely so much as shiver.

My bedroom was a combination of a workshed and outhouse, and I like to think romantically about how Oskar slaved away at building our dining table, liquor cupboard, even our staircase - when in reality along side that he and his family used one half of my bedroom - for other purposes.

But most interesting of all is how Oskar himself planned to heat the main house. Situated in the corner of my kitchen, is an original 1901 stove which has the ability to heat the entire house. Oskar's wife must have cooked several thousand meals every day, every season. But how did they keep the food cold? Simply put, the staircase in wintertime ranges anywhere from 0 degrees to -10. This was Oskar's family fridge freezer, where they kept food all wintertime to keep it from going off.

Everything about my home is so carefully planned out, so cleverly done it amazes me that architects today make mistakes that Oskar had already thought out the answers to - in the early 1900's. I am incredibly lucky to have such an abyss of history literally right on my doorstep. Buildings are of such high value with such incredible stories to hear about, if only you lend an ear or two to the stories they can tell.