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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Desperate measures


I like to walk around the house with my favorite tool: a steel tape measure. I go from room to room and measure the furniture, the distance from sill to floor, the ceiling height, the space between sink and wall, the depth of shelves v. dressers. I just measure stuff and think (and think) about making changes.

I am redecorating the master bedroom. So many things are wrong with that sentence. Redecorating implies that it was ever decorated to begin with. We've lived here eight years and it's always been an afterthought. "Decorating" is a hideous word anyway. Sounds fakety.

The Room has been painted for a month now. Last week I bought lamps. Today I measured every angle of The Room, then drove to Ikea where I walked a lot and ate Swedish meatballs. Tomorrow, I might plug in the lamps. Eight years on and I'm not really getting anywhere.

I've thrown up my hands and asked that Jesus Take The Wheel. Rather, I asked my tasteful friend, Not Thelma, to help. She was sputtering mad when I told her I don't like Euro pillows and nearly walked out on me. She did approve the new lamps, though, so maybe we're getting somewhere. (She doesn't know I went to Ikea. Sshhhh.)

3 comments:

Shutt2u said...

And I know it took you the full 8 years to decide on the paint color...which is what, by the way??

Clare Bundy Haygood said...

I have, in my possession, a piece of paper with all of the dimensions of just about every closet in the house, because I feel they lack proper shelving. So I'm feeling you there. I went out one day to acquire such shelving/shoe storage/misc. and came back empty-handed. What usually works for me, though (on a good day), is buying one thing I really like, and basing everything on that. But with our bedroom, which was also neglected for years, we just had to bite the bullet and buy a bedroom set. Piecemeal was NOT working for us -- we just ended up with every leftover, unloved piece of furniture in the house. I am much happier now.

Signed,
The Consumer

Not Stacy said...

Our room has also collected all the cast-offs from other rooms. Why is that? Because the master is the least public place, so we hide our shame there? Oh, Freud.