Two rooms in my house have no occupancy. They have a bed, a built-in closet, a lamp and table. Spartan, practical, simple. The walls are bare. The clean bedding ready for a visitor while good quality is pretty nondescript. I close the door to them so that the dog won't nap on the beds and so that I don't have to be reminded of how drab and boring these rooms are. I see other homes with beautiful guest rooms decorated and coordinated and so inviting. I page through countless decorating books at the checkout each week drooling with their doing. I'd like to create my kind of beautiful in those rooms but lose confidence once I get to the store. I'll look admiringly at this painting or that rug or maybe a pillow. I wonder how it will all go together. I am so unskilled and unsure of myself. Certainly my budget can make it happen. And yet...and yet I leave the store second guessing myself and reminding myself that I really don't know what I am doing. A decorator - that's what I need a decorator. And certainly those rooms in my home where I have used a decorator are beautiful and inviting. But it is their kind of beautiful adapted to my furniture and taste. I am reminded of Delight in Doing where my son's meager drawings did not meet with his expectations. His imagination surpassed his skill. Can I allow myself the discomfort to try something I am not good at but would like to do? Can I trust that my baby steps will lead to full out running someday? I have allowed my fear of not being perfect and not measuring up to some unrealistic standard to leave a part of myself unexpressed and untried. Might not be perfect. Might be - heaven forbid - tacky and indicative of my rural roots. Crippling fear did not advance the world. If I let this fear of mine cripple me with something so insignificant as a decorated room, what else will it hinder? When I am 80 will I be be saying I Wish I Had?
6/6/09
My Kind of Beautiful
Two rooms in my house have no occupancy. They have a bed, a built-in closet, a lamp and table. Spartan, practical, simple. The walls are bare. The clean bedding ready for a visitor while good quality is pretty nondescript. I close the door to them so that the dog won't nap on the beds and so that I don't have to be reminded of how drab and boring these rooms are. I see other homes with beautiful guest rooms decorated and coordinated and so inviting. I page through countless decorating books at the checkout each week drooling with their doing. I'd like to create my kind of beautiful in those rooms but lose confidence once I get to the store. I'll look admiringly at this painting or that rug or maybe a pillow. I wonder how it will all go together. I am so unskilled and unsure of myself. Certainly my budget can make it happen. And yet...and yet I leave the store second guessing myself and reminding myself that I really don't know what I am doing. A decorator - that's what I need a decorator. And certainly those rooms in my home where I have used a decorator are beautiful and inviting. But it is their kind of beautiful adapted to my furniture and taste. I am reminded of Delight in Doing where my son's meager drawings did not meet with his expectations. His imagination surpassed his skill. Can I allow myself the discomfort to try something I am not good at but would like to do? Can I trust that my baby steps will lead to full out running someday? I have allowed my fear of not being perfect and not measuring up to some unrealistic standard to leave a part of myself unexpressed and untried. Might not be perfect. Might be - heaven forbid - tacky and indicative of my rural roots. Crippling fear did not advance the world. If I let this fear of mine cripple me with something so insignificant as a decorated room, what else will it hinder? When I am 80 will I be be saying I Wish I Had?
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6 comments:
Go ahead-decorate the room - it will be wonderful and all yours.
B
i agree with bunny! remember when you remodeled the kitchen in our old house and you had green cabinets put in?
i thought you were on crack when you announced your colour choice. i wanted to be like everyone else and have WHITE cabinets. the thing is those cabinents turned out SO beautifully. remember all the people we had coming through the house to look at them?
trust yourself mom. you don't have to put it all together.....just choose things you like and then the rooms will be all yours...not a decorators vision of who you are.
decorating is so fun though...have you scene design sponge? you should check it out if not.
Great post Bonnie!
yo mom.....i think you should paint your piano! i saw something about it on your friend's blog....it totally rocks!
Actually we are trying to sell that piano. After all these years of nobody using it, perhaps it is time to let someone else have it. But think about the money we would have saved when we refinished it if we had gone green.
AHHHH no don't sell it! what will nathan practice castle on a cloud to?
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