Loose Ends
Cowardly colors
Susan Nienow

It has been a long, hot summer, and for relief I have been catching up on my reading. Not only have I reduced my pile of old magazines and very important papers by at least 12 inches, I discovered that decorators would be underwhelmed at my decorating attempts.

The language the decorators use in home magazines is not based in my reality. A room should have an "emotional pull," one decorator said. I do feel a negative energy when I can write my name in the dust on the coffee table, and when I watch a "makeover" show on decorating a laundry room.

The ceramic beast on the shelf upstairs has a questionable provenance - the initials on the bottom are a little hard to read and may not belong to one of my offspring, since boys that age aren't fussy about whose stuff they pick up when the final bell rings. The dresser scarf was hand-loomed by the artist when she was just 8 years old. One end is wider than the other, giving it that "handcrafted" look.

My other half felt that since our offspring are now well into adulthood, we should box up those treasures and save them until our kids have room for them at their own homes. So we compromised. They are upstairs so I can visit them when I have a fit of nostalgia.

The downstairs is all ours. Now that we have managed to paint half of it in a palette of earth tones, I read that lavender is the new beige. What? Last year, I read that pink is the new black. I hope not too many people fell for that one.

Now I can turn the floors into cranberry or tangerine. Maybe not with the lavender walls. Maybe not at all.

The only "jolt of excitement" I have felt about my home is when I found my missing earring in the vacuum cleaner bag. And, even though it was just the "jolt" part, there was the time I found several piles of chewed up berries and pits on the deck and knew there was a fairly good-sized critter out there with a bad case of indigestion. So I guess we do have some of that "cranberry" stain on a floor.

I have a collection of paint chips that we are working with for the great room. Usually I forget them at home when I look for new pillows for the couch. So I bring the pillows home for a trial run. Do you know how many shades of green there are? The rug under the couch has a light sage green in it. The pillows I brought home were distinctly not that color. I'll try again next week.

This decorating stuff is full of decisions - tiebacks or valances, key dangles or beads, serene or dramatic? I rejected the pink room with the pink ceiling. But I gasped out loud when I read that the colors in my bedroom and bathroom are "cowardly." Oh, wait. That is a May 2005 magazine. Whew!