I would rank my inability to decorate right up there with my weak cooking skills and my tragic sense of style. Thank God for darling roommates throughout the years who have hung cool pictures, fed me and said, “You can’t wear that out.”
But decorating has been the one area that really stings my ego… so the day we closed on our house I decided that as a young bride on Woodward Way I would not only face my fear of decorating but I would ultimately deliver it a smug shoulder shrug and sassy “in your face!” smirk -- with the most awesome, deceivingly affordable, superior-to-even-HGTV décor on all the street.
So here’s our first decoration: an accoutrement for the grand staircase. We made it before even officially moving in. It was June 15, one of the first evenings we had possession of the house. We ordered pasta to go and ate it sitting on folding lawn chairs in our den. We toured the empty house, toasting each other with Solo cups of wine. Then we created this masterpiece. It’s colorful! It’s unique. It cost nothing but our labor of love. It’s sentimental, too – a countdown to our wedding day. We tear off a link each day... err, when we remember. And even though it will soon disappear, I know Vern Yip is jealous.***
The first time my mother-in-law-to-be walked in our front door, she exclaimed, “How adorable! The children who used to live here left you a present.”
The irony of this post is that shortly after I published it, I went by my old apartment to visit the landlord, and he said, "You've got to see your old place. It's amazing." The darling little shoebox I lived for 8 years has been totally transformed by the charming couple who now live there. It has gone from dusty decorator-loserville to a display ad for House Beautiful. I am still AWESTRUCK when I think about what they did to it. And jealous. The fact that they, too, are newlyweds makes me feel defensive. If they can do it, why can't we? The better question: are they for hire?
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