Home with Lisa Pryzstup

Writer Lisa Pryzstup is known for her poetic lens on daily life, her thoughtful approach to interiors, and her deep connection to the rhythms of nature. Her reflections on home are both grounded and expansive, shifting with the seasons and layered with meaning. “Nostalgia plays a huge role in the space we’ve created. I’d even go so far as to say that it is the cornerstone of our home,” she reflects.

Photographed on location at Bovina Farm and Fermentory.

For Lisa, beauty and memory are inseparable—woven through objects imbued with story and sentiment: a rock found on the beach, her husband’s childhood bedframe, a bird’s nest made from horsehair. These small, storied details transform her space into one of texture, warmth, and comfort.

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How do you approach the idea of beauty in the home?

People often think that the way to incorporate beauty into a home is by throwing money at it. I find that those interiors, for all their aesthetic value, tend to lack warmth and approachability. Beauty for me means surrounding myself with things that are imbued with meaning: a rock we found on a beach somewhere, a wasp’s nest from my husband’s uncle, a dried palm frond my husband brought back for me from a run of shows he played in the south, my husband’s childhood bedframe (and before that, his father’s), thrifted pieces from yards sales/craigslist/ebay/vintage shops. Feathers and shed snakeskin found in our front flowerbed, a bird’s nest made from horsehair—things like that make me happy.

As I look around our home, I find my eye resting on these moments of reassuring beauty and comfort, and that makes me feel held and safe. Beauty comforts us, it brings us joy, it takes us out of our bodies and at the same time places us even more firmly in them. Beauty feeds. Beauty holds. Or as Shelia Heti puts it, “I can get some of the same things, and I’m not even beautiful, but I can put my hand on beauty.”

How has your day-to-day life shifted since moving upstate?

In the city, most of my time was spent out of our apartment—I was in an office M-F, 9-5, then out meeting friends at dinner—home was where we went to sleep. Here, I’m tethered to our house in a way I never was in Brooklyn. My husband and I both work from home. Where we live, there are only about three restaurants, and none of them are open seven days a week, so our home is everything: our office, our restaurant, where we sleep. This in turn, shapes my daily life in a completely different way. Instead of leaving to head to the office, I wake up, have breakfast and coffee, then sit down at the dining room table to do work. Instead of going out to eat dinner, we cook dinner inor host (or are hosted by friends). We have a dog now (Gus!), which we didn’t have when we lived in the city, and that also shapes our lives, bookending our days with morning and evening walks. We are closer to nature, and as such, nature shapes our lives in a much bigger way.

Are there any daily or seasonal rituals that anchor your home life?

Daily

I light incense after cleaning the house or to mark the end of the work day—it helps shift me into the next chapter of the day and ease me into the evening. I like to burn sweetgrass in the summer and palo santo as a reset.

Seasonal

In the fall: picking apples and making apple dumplings/apple cake/apple pie, prepping the garden for the winter, the first fire of the season. In the winter: snowy walks, lighting candles, making the first fire of the day, and tending to it till we go to bed. In the spring: starting the garden, listening to the peepers, tick checks. In the summer: opening the windows, cooking and eating outside, watching the lightning bugs and moths, listening to the crickets.

What role does memory—or nostalgia—play in how you shape your space?

At the risk of being redundant, memory and nostalgia play a huge role in the space we've created. I’d even go so far as to say that it is the cornerstone of our home.

Is there a corner, object, or moment in your home that feels particularly meaningful to you right now?

The desk that I worked on my second book at. It’s in our small guest bedroom that I painted a warm yellow over the winter, and it looks out at the apple tree and garden on the hill behind our house. It’s still stacked with reference materials.