I want to preface this post with the following point: All through high school and college, my walls were always covered with a mish-mash of band posters, art work, postcards, and clippings… from… wherever. Moving around, though, put a damper on that type of lifestyle, and I realized that most of that stuff wasn’t relevant to my current life anyhow. So in recent times I have always either let roommates decorate, or when living alone, stuck to having bare walls.
So. The post. There is nothing that disturbs me more (ok, maybe less than the health care system) than the modern notion of a decorated living space. This is not because I think everyone should live in houses with bare white walls and no lamps or clocks. Rather, our culture has become consumed by the idea that every space needs to look a certain way, or in a certain spectrum of ways, in order to “be presentable”. It’s like HGTV has taken over all our brains and sucked them of any idea of what we actually want.
I know Mrs. J has similar problems, though probably for different reasons. But I do know that she also does not appreciate the pressure to have a well-decorated house.
I’m aware that I’m not explaining myself well. But personally, I have a difficult time thinking that I should go buy decorative things. Those things, in stores, do not add value to my life in any way, and would not help express the person that I am to someone who has just walked into my apartment. I find those things to be a waste of my time and money. I know that there are a lot of people who feel differently. Some people feel they are able to express something, maybe even something artistic, with the things they have gone out and bought. I’m really not one of those people. Even my recently purchased purple corduroy couch is more significant to me because of the corduroy (reminds me of my childhood) and the functionality (doubles as a sleeper) than because of it’s color or style. It could have been green or blue or orange, and it would have been pretty much the same. The only thing about the color is that it happens to be a color I like, and it’s not something neutral or overly muted. I’m not really into muted, but that’s fairly obvious to anyone who knows me. But I really do object to the “rooms-to-go” style of decorating, where some interior decorator tells the consumer what looks good, and the consumer goes out and buys all of it, even though it may not be any real expression of who that consumer is.
“Ok,” you’re saying, “What does this have to do with anything?” Well, two more quick points. One is that I did bring home quite a bit of artwork of mine from my mom’s house yesterday. Another is that I signed a lease for my apartment for another full year, which kicked in on Tuesday. The gears started to turn, and I began to think maybe I should work to turning my living space into something that does represent me a little bit more than blank white walls. So today, I did.
Before:


After:



I’ll be honest - I did buy the fabric panels around the windows a few months back, in the hopes of experimenting with them at some point. I got them for $4 at a garage sale. Obviously, I can’t paint anything in my apartment, so I had a thought about fabric panels to add color to my walls. I don’t even remember why I was thinking I wanted that, but I got them, and today I finally used them. The artwork on the walls is all mine, done during high school and college. There’s still some work to be done… I’d eventually like to get some photos matted to put up, and I need to paint the edges of two of the paintings (uh, whoops.) But overall, I think the room is a lot less generic and a lot more me. I think I feel more at home.
So, what do you think?
Oh, and something I forgot to mention yesterday in my post about things I did this week… Tim would be proud. I took care of my car… took it in to get the transmission fluid changed, cleaned it inside and out, and recharged the A/C. It’s like a totally different car. Ok, maybe not, but it’s a more comfortable same ol’ car.