Home Improvement

Today was spent choosing flooring for our new apartment, well, just two small rooms of it. What does this have to do with art, you might ask? Well, nothing except that is what I'll be doing the next few weeks, getting things ready for the big move. Next is buying paint and then, painting the walls. Not all of them, thank heavens. Just the orange bedroom and the two small rooms.

Hey, some people like orange. When I was about, um, ten I wanted my room to be painted orange, bright orange. I settled for some sort of plaid with orange in it, and lime green. Cheerful. Somehow though, later in life I got a little too much of orange and now I just can't deal. Maybe it was teaching art and having a room with orange shelving on Halloween when everything becomes orange, or maybe it's that orange is the National color in the Netherlands so I see a bit too much of it. This is a nice orange though, a kind of burnt orange. I could see it with some deep turquoise somehow, but perhaps not in the bedroom. One of the small rooms has giant daisy wallpaper. I could live with that maybe, but the office is going in there, so perhaps too much going on. Lovely for a kids room though, which is what it was.

So, what color does an artist paint her walls? Well...I think I'm going for an off-white, eggshell. Not so exciting, but you have to realize that paintings and other art is going up there, so it mustn't clash. Sigh...there goes all the books I've bought on faux painting and wall textures. Maybe I could do something creative to the water closet. Like you could walk in there and feel you had been transported to a different place...hmmm...I'll have to think about that.

My favorite bathroom was designed by my old roommate, Bill Stufflebeem. He made it kind of South American Catholic kitsch, including rosary. It was off of the kitchen, which was like the interior of a Chinese restaurant. Definitely one of my favorite places to live in. I moved in because, when I went for the interview, the place smelled like patchouli. I kinda have a thing for that smell. Like a moth to a flame. Then I saw the decor and knew it was for me. Not to mention that the garden was a wonderful Eden thanks to Bill's green thumb. The balcony was like being in a green cocoon. On more than one occasion, I awoke to find a new Ikibana arrangement he had made in the nite. And once, on a bad day I came back to my room to find a perfumed arrangement of Magnolia blossoms. Now that is one guy with a sense of beauty. He once told me that when he stayed in hotels he would rearrange the furniture and make a flower arrangement. If they were smart, the hotel people left it.

So, if you hear from me, and you just might, be indulgent as I go through the trials and tribulations of feathering my nest, or rather, building it so that when the feathers fly all will settle in a cozy configuration.