Decorating For Real People
I spent a recent weekend curled up with a stack of decorating
magazines. I read them cover to cover - usually back to front,
but that's the way I read most magazines and newspapers. I
studied each photograph and tried to determine the particular
design concept that was being presented. I looked at the number
and placement of accessories, how and where arrangements of
items were hung on the walls, choices of color and texture, and
flooring selections. Each photo was scrutinized in the minutest
detail. At some point I started to wonder for whom these
absolutely gorgeous rooms were designed.
Bedside tables held no alarm clocks or clock radios. While there
was usually an abundance of decorative items, there were no
tissue boxes or eyeglass cases. Dressers displayed beautifully
arranged floral creations and perhaps a cut glass perfume bottle
or two, with ornamental stoppers. No jewelry boxes, no lotion
bottles, none of the everyday stuff of life. I don't know about
you but I want a telephone at the side of my bed. And someplace
handy for the TV remote.
And the bathrooms! Don't even get me started on the bathrooms!
Do the users of these bathrooms ever need to replace the toilet
paper or the hand soap? Do they have their hair done weekly
(maybe daily?) at beauty- or barber-shops and thus have no need
of shampoo and conditioner bottles? Toothbrushes, toothpaste and
floss? The men don't have to shave and the women have no need of
makeup? Streamlining and organization can only take you so far.
Sooner or later you need a place for feminine supplies, room
deodorizers, and the extra cotton balls and swabs that don't fit
into the pretty little designer containers. And I can't be the
only person who thinks that a plunger should be stored someplace
handy to the location of possible need.
No cords for the lamps, no tangle of wires for the home office
computer system. One photograph featured an elegant "work space"
with a large bouquet of flowers drooping fetchingly over the
printer. I could imagine spent blossoms dropping into the works,
and I couldn't imagine how to open the paper tray without
knocking the vase over. I suppose the person who would work at
such a desk would have no need of a mouse pad, paper clips, or a
pile of sticky notes. I wish I could work like that.
I want to know what the rooms in the photographs look like a
week later. Are the same three Granny Smith apples still in
perfect position on the glass-topped table? Is the fringe on the
cashmere afghan still draped just so over the arm of the rocking
chair in the baby's room? Does the kitchen counter look bare
without the tureen of soup and the matching soup bowls? I mean,
the soup was eaten, wasn't it? Am I losing my perspective here?
Show me a playroom after the children have been forced to put
away the toys. I'll bet there are no cunning arrangements of
stuffed animals having tea, and the blocks aren't stacked into
just-right pyramids with one block placed in front and a little
to the side. The pillows are all over the room and the bedspread
is trailing onto the floor. That's real.
I realize that the decorating magazines present rooms and
arrangements that are idealized and stylized. They are intended
to give our imaginations a jumping-off point; we are meant to
adapt their ideas to our own needs. They do a wonderful job and
I will continue to peruse the glossy pages of each publication.
Occasionally, however, I'd appreciate a view of a real room,
spiffed up for company, perhaps, but real. I want to be able to
imagine waking up to the clock radio, to see myself sitting at
the computer and actually getting some work done, to know where
I would store the supply of makeup without which I cannot face
the world. I want to think that I could actually live in the
room. Isn't that the point of the whole exercise? Don't we all
want comfortable homes that suit our life styles, organized and
better looking, maybe, but still us?
Go take a look at the pictures in a decorating magazine. See if
you agree with me. I think I'm going to go clean out a couple of
drawers and straighten a bookcase shelf or two. It won't end up
picture perfect, but it will be real.