Interior Decoration

Since we can’t actually talk about progress on the house, let’s discuss what we plan to do with the house once we have it. The back bedroom, the largest and farthest from the street, will be the master bedroom. That is the one that has a bathroom opening off of it. We hope it will be less cluttered than our current bedroom, since there will be room elsewhere for some of the stuff currently in our bedroom. For instance: the copier, the sewing machine, four book cases, four milk crates full of papers, six large floor/throw pillows, and out of season clothes. Hmmm, there might not be much left to put in the bedroom. We hope to buy a headboard for our bed after we move. We don’t have one now, partially because it would take up too many precious inches in the bedroom and partially because we were too poor to buy one when we first moved in to our apartment. The wall next to our bed is definitely worn where the bedding and pillows rub up against it, though, and we don’t want that to happen when it is OUR wall, not our landlord’s. We looked at a few headboards, but we are far too picky. Derek doesn’t want a footboard, just a headboard, since he likes to stick his feet off the end of the bed. Emilie wants a headboard that will be nice and comfy to lean against when reading in bed. A lot of headboards have a little carved ridge or bump right where your head would lean back. Doesn’t any body read in bed any more (or at least lean back and watch television?) We also want a full sized headboard. Apparently, the full sized bed is not cool any more. It is actually hard to find headboards that are not king or queen sized. Once again, we are old-fashioned and uncool!

We don’t have a color scheme for the bedroom. I guess it will be sort of pastel and floral, since our curtains and quilts are also pastel and floral. We do have a color planned for the bathrooms, based largely on the towels and shower curtain we already have. The master bathroom will be pink and the guest bathroom will be light blue. Too cute, huh? It is kind of surprising how many pink things we have in our house, now that I look around. Fortunately, Derek seems to be secure in his masculinity and not mind pink too much. As he said when I asked him if he minded sleeping under a pink flowered quilt: “I sleep with my eyes closed.” Such a tolerant fellow!

The front bedroom, of medium size, will be the office. It has a window looking out to the front of the house, so it might be a bit noisy for sleeping. Hopefully, it will be big enough to hold office and computer stuff AND craft stuff. It will certainly be bigger than our current “office,” which is the closet where the washer and dryer are supposed to go. Actually, this office is so small that it is mostly full of papers and we take the laptop into another room to do any actual work. We are very excited that we will have a washer and dryer of our own when we move. The way it is now, Derek has to lug all of our laundry across the parking lot to the apartment-wide laundry room. Then he has to put quarters into the machines, and run the dryers at least twice, because they don’t actually dry the clothes. Did I mention cleaning out other people’s lint and dirt before using the machines? Ick! So, like I said, we are both looking forward to having our very own washer and dryer.

We are also pretty excited about having a pantry. Emilie has some sort of squirrel gene that makes her stock up on food whenever there is A. a sale, B. a rain or snow storm, C. a new recipe, D. an article about a storm or earthquake anywhere in the world, or E. nothing better to do. So we have an extensive array of canned goods and other non-perishable food items. The stockpile has spread out from the cabinet by the stove onto the counter. It is so large that the Red Cross should probably be notified, so it can access the Johnson Emergency National Food Reserve in case of natural disasters. Soon, we will have a cute little pantry (about as wide and deep as a door) with wire shelves to store our food reserves. Then the Red Cross can rest easy. I thought about posting a picture of the cabinet of canned foods, but it is actually kind of embarrassing. Let’s just say that both of us refer to it as “The Scary Cabinet.” Anybody need any green beans?

Speaking of messy cabinets, the kitchen is one of those trendy “open kitchens.” Like you see in magazines, where everyone gathers around the kitchen at a party drinking martinis and watching the convection oven toast the Pizza Bites. Yeah, right. Whenever we have people over there is a mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen, because I just cooked for them. Why would I want people to come to a party and visit my dirty dishes? They had these “Great Rooms” in colonial America: sort of a combination living, dining, cooking, working area, where everyone gathered around the huge fireplace for light and warmth. But they only did that because they were too poor to build and heat more than one room! They also kept their cows and pigs indoors on especially cold winter nights, but you don’t see that in any home design magazines, do you? No, as a historian I can tell you that going back to the way they did it in the past is not necessarily a good idea. I am all in favor of modern inventions like privacy, electric lights, dishwashers, and blogs. I do not want to live in the good old days, when people only had one room. Anyway, I hope to close off the kitchen as much as possible. And I can always shove all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when the doorbell rings. Or in the pantry…

One issue with a combined kitchen/breakfast nook/dining room/living room is the color scheme. All the stuff in all those little sub rooms is supposed to match. Yeah, right. The color scheme in the living room is “whatever kind of matches the couch.” The other rooms don’t have a color scheme. And I don’t even like the couch fabric all that much. I’m sure Martha Stewart would do something grand, like having the whole area is shades evoking the ocean, shading from a soothing green in the dining area to a deep turquoise in the breakfast nook, where she would keep her priceless collection of 500 pieces of majolica on 500 tiny custom made shelves. Did you know she has multiple houses? I bet she has one where she hangs around in her PJs and stashes all her junk, so the other four houses look pretty in pictures. She keeps her old stuffed animals and college dorm posters in that house, too. Next to her lava lamp and all the clothes she is hoping to fit back into someday. If I had four or five houses, I bet at least one of them could look pretty good…