My Autobiography: Home Interiors

 

Berber or Shag? 

I have come to believe that our greatest strengths, out of balance, can become our greatest area of weakness. Sometimes our loves, which arise out of our natural talents, become the things we lust for. I am a highly visual person. At heart, I am an artist. My eyes are the first way I experience the world. I take in the colors, the movement, and the forms of life first. Then I feel the textures of things and the emotion. Lastly I hear sounds. My mother once said that as an infant, I kept my body very still in my carriage. But my eyes were always quite active, swiveling side-to-side like the ceramic eyes on a ventriloquist’s puppet.  

Learning style theorists say there are three modalities or sensory input channels: sight, sound, and feelings. People usually favor one over the others. For example, let’s say a little boy is taken to the beach for the first time. He has never explored the ocean before. A visual boy will watch the rolling surf and the other children playing in the water; an auditory child will listen intently to the crashing of the breaking waves; and a kinesthetic/feeling person will dive head first into the sea. 

You can tell a person’s main way of perceiving the world by listening to their choice of words. For example, I might say: I see what you mean. I get the picture. An auditory person would say: I hear you. That rings true to me. A kinesthetic/feeling person would say: I am touched by what you have said. That feels right to me. Psychologists say that by mirroring or repeating the types of words and phrases someone uses, you can win their trust. Successful salespeople do this. And so do courtroom lawyers. In conversation, if you shift to the modality a person is using, they will immediately relax and feel understood and accepted. You’ll have an inside track to their heart.  

For years I was a shelter magazine junkie. I scoured every Architectural Digest or House and Garden magazine I could get my hands on. As a professional designer, I often read Interior Design magazine while munching my tuna sandwich at my desk over lunch. And sometimes Karl would come home with magazines from France like Maison et Jardin or Cote Sud, because I love all things French, including Provencal interiors. I could get lost for hours between the pages of those publications. But in a way, for me, those magazines were a kind of pornography. 

Until we bought our first house, I lusted after houses of every kind. I collected all sorts of miniature buildings. They lined the shelves of my kitchen cupboards. There was a Delft blue and white vinegar jar shaped like a stepped-gable Dutch house, a china windmill, and a replica of a Greek whitewashed building. I owned an octagonal silver plate piggy bank shaped like Georgian-style mansion, and a collection of folding cardboard Tudor buildings. At Christmas, I bought a German wooden toy city. There was a steepled church and lots of little red roof houses. I arranged them on top of our fireplace mantle. When I wasn’t at work designing the interiors of stores, offices, banks or hospitals, I spent my time dreaming about how I wanted my own home to look someday.

When the loan finally closed on our first house I was ecstatic. I was pregnant with my second baby, and we definitely couldn’t squeeze one more person in our cramped two-bedroom apartment. I tucked our three-year old daughter in to the back seat of our brown Honda Civic, and drove around the city looking at neighborhoods and houses for four months. We finally settled on a 1909 fixer-upper in one of our city’s nicest but most expensive neighborhoods. The house was in bad shape, but it had good bones: nine foot ceilings, hardwood floors, and interesting woodwork. There was lots of potential. There was even a white picket fence all the way around the back yard.  

It took about five years to transform the place into livable space. We did most of the work ourselves. While Karl and his brothers pounded their hammers, I painted, wallpapered and stitched just about everything. The result was a charming French country look, complete with terra cotta tiles laid on the diagonal in the kitchen. My standards were high. After all, my mother had been able to hire a professional decorator. There was just one problem—we couldn’t afford to buy new furniture, so the house never felt finished. To compensate, I ceaselessly rotated the botanical prints on the walls in the living room (their seasonal migration my family called it), shopped by mail for accessories like lamps and throw pillows, and I stripped and painted garage-sale finds and family hand-me downs. I was finally able to say “O.K. it’s done” when we were asked if we would like to be included on a neighborhood charity Tour of Homes. To me, the compliment was enough and we declined. 

There are many creative ways to beautify an environment, some as inexpensive as the cost of a single gallon of paint, or placing new fabric napkins on a table. Whatever the interior furnishings, it is not difficult to keep a room clean, arrange fresh cut flowers in a vase, or light candles on a dark day. But the best way of all, is to add one’s own cheerful presence. There are no people in those gorgeous magazine spreads. A room comes alive with people. People are the subject. The rest is just a picture frame to set a mood.  

Sometimes our legitimate need for material security and a beautiful environment can get way out of balance. Most of the time, we want what we can’t afford. And everyone’s taste is different. Our sense of style and design naturally has a lot to do with what we were raised with. Unless we take the time to train our eye and elevate our level of exposure, we tend to emulate the interior furnishings of our parent’s home. I have set foot in homes decorated like palaces, and I have been in slums. Both kinds of environments are a reflection of the inhabitants’ experience in life and lifestyle. But I have learned that often, what is an unattractive interior to my eye, does not necessarily reflect the quality of relationships of the people living there.  

So I no longer judge the picture by its frame. Sometimes the ugliest environments shelter the closest, most affectionate families. In a home, it is the quality of love that makes the difference, not the stuff. Even if we don’t have the experience, money or the energy to decorate a room—or even a whole house the way we would like—we can still be kind to one another. And caring, and thoughtful. We can still laugh!

Note: If you’re new here, please visit me at my main weblog, Chrysalis. This post is an adjunct to my piece there entitled, “How to Write Your Autobiography.” I’ll see you when you get there!

Blessings, e-Mom

Photo Credit: Robem (Flickr)