Month: August 2016

I have no style and couple that with the attention span of a 3-year old, I run into situations like the the one I had today. I had the curtains in the living room re-done for the third time in 3 years and the bedroom curtains re-done for the second time.  My mistakes get pricey especially when I depend on the expertise of the so-called experts.  Details will not follow because, well, it’s just plain boring and who really cares.

But my sense of no-style when it comes to the places I live has been costly. I don’t know why I can’t buy furniture, place it in my home and then, a week or two later, when it turns out to be uncomfortable and not suitable for the space, return it. Even tho I buy inexpensive furniture, because I get bored easily, and I made poor choices, I’ve still spent a small fortune on furniture.

I really admire, tho don’t care to emulate, people who fill their homes with furniture and decor and don’t change any of it for decades. I cannot even imagine it. That said I do have 2 pieces (there used to be 3) of bedroom furniture that are 13 years old.  They still work tho I was never in love with them. I have a small, low table that was bought for some specific purpose 25 years ago and now has no reason to exist except that it is such a solid piece of really nice wood I can’t bear to get rid ot it.

There is also my grandmother’s china cabinet which is beat-up all to hell and yet I always find a use for it – right now it contains mostly junk.  So many people like that damn thing; some even say I should get it appraised because it is old, but folks just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s valuable. I don’t have any nostalgic attachment to it, it’s just been around since I was a baby. I wouldn’t miss it if I had another place to put junk that I need to access on a regular basis.

And then, of course, we don’t do accessories. I gotta love my husband for that; we both agree, if it doesn’t have a practical use then it doesn’t have a place in our home.  He hates throw pillows even more than I do – the whole idea of them makes him crazy.  And you know, tchotchkes  – we don’t do tchotchkes. We don’t have anything on any surface unless it absolutely has to be there. We don’t comprehend table lamps – you have a table because you need the flat surface for some practical purpose. You put a lamp on it and then the table is useless for whatever reason you got it in the first place. Unless of course you bought the table specifically to hold a lamp, which makes no sense to me. We DO have floor lamps and only because there are no overhead lights.

And nothing matches anything. When I need something I buy whatever fills the need in a pattern or color that makes me happy. And is cheap, because a year from now I’m gonna be bored with it.

I do, I really do admire folks whose homes have a theme, and things match. I don’t know how they do that. Or folks who change their home decor for the season. That absolutely floors me. My husband’s sister-in-law does that. Each season all the (useless ) tchotchke decor stuff gets switched out and the curtains get changed, even the flipping dish towels get switched out, to match the season.  She collects ducks too. So the Summer ducks get switched out for the Fall ducks, augmented by the Halloween ducks. The Winter ducks are filled in with the Christmas ducks – I swear to god – who does this? That’s a rhetorical question, lots of folks it seems. Not particularly with ducks, you understand but you get the idea.

The only art work on my walls are pictures, paintings, photos that have meaning for me.  I’ve seen people buy pictures of random things and hang them because they match their kitchen curtains or they fit the theme. The pictures have no personal meaning, they just match other stuff.  It all looks good – but means nothing. Or I suppose because it does mean something because it matches – I don’t know.  I don’t have a problem with blank wall space.

Don’t get me wrong, aside from the art on my walls none of my furniture or other ‘stuff’ means anything, it functions, that’s it. It also doesn’t match LOL And I am happy with that.

I have to make the grand assumption that folks with themes, tchotchkes, matching furniture and other miscellaneous collections and decor are also very happy with their surroundings. Or else why would they spend the considerable time and trouble to do it, right?

I am so missing the design/home decor gene. Just like I am missing the girly-girly gene; the domestic gene; the crafty gene; the maternal gene. On the plus side I do have the clean gene; the practical gene, the organized gene and a semi-functioning love gene.

or, as I say,  needs must. It is an archaic phrase and I do like archaic phrases. I think that comes from childhood reading, Shakespeare, Austin, Alcott and poets long dead. Yes, yes, I was a precocious reader but those were the kinds of books that were in the house.

I hated being relegated to the “Children’s Room” at the public library.  I got my first library card when I was 5 and I don’t know why it took so long. The only requirement was that you be able to write your name and I had that down by the time I was 3.

I wasn’t allowed to access the “Adult Library” ie: the entire place, until I was 12. 12! Can you imagine having to wait that long to get your hands on all the books.  ALL. OF. THE. BOOKS. Mine!

Do you know what I did? I started in the fiction section, beginning at the beginning, books by authors whose last name began with A, and started reading my way through the alphabet. I don’t remember how far I got because I’m sure there was a lot of deadwood (oh wait, that’s a funny, books are made of paper, paper is made from wood, dull books are deadwood! Ta Da!) and I’m sure my curiosity got the better of me and I wandered all over the place. But still, the intent was there – to read all of the books, in order.

I still do that, or would if I could physically access the library. So more properly, I used to do that, start browsing at A.

You realize of course this is not what I started out to write. I did start with ‘needs must’ in my head and now here we are.

Ah well, when did I ever think (or write) in a straight line?