Sunday, August 16, 2009

Decorating Sense?

My husband and I own a 1920's bungalow style house we've been updating and renovating (inside and out) since we bought it almost eight years ago. We've taken one project at a time doing everything from gutting two bathrooms and the kitchen and completely re-doing them to tearing down ceiling tiles to repainting from top to bottom. It's truly been a labor of love and we've put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (literally) into it.

Most of the time we are on the same wave-length decorating wise. He is a painting contractor by trade, so he's usually in charge of choosing the colors for the rooms, then I add the finishing touches. Our house is by no means fancy-schmancy, but I like to think it's cozy and tastefully decorated. We use a lot of earthy, natural colors for the most part.

A recent foray into decorating resulted in the purchase of new bedding for our master bedroom. We'd had the old stuff since we'd been married, and it was time for a change. The walls in the room are a wonderful yellow-gold, so we went with a burgundy comforter with gold accents. Everything was fine until my husband realized that the new window coverings didn't have side panels, but consisted of a valance across the top. He complained that the sun came in too brightly in the morning (our bedroom does fast east, I'll give him that) and woke him up earlier than he wanted to be awake. (Poor baby.) So, since I was disinclined to add side panels, he threatened to put cardboard over the window to block the sun. I laughed, thinking, yeah right, whatever.

I should know better by now. I came home from my local RWA meeting the other night to a paint spattered drop cloth nailed (yes nailed) to the window frame. Lovely.



I was good. I didn't say a word...although that probably spoiled his fun a little bit. But I did retaliate. Since we were changing the decor, I thought it was only fair that I had my say, too. So I added a life-sized cardboard cutout of my favorite vampire. (Thanks, Barb, for letting Edward visit.)



So, we went from tasteful and understated to dorm room decor in the space of twenty-four hours. Oh well, what can you do?!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

5 comments:

Jennifer Ross said...

Fun blog post!

My advice? Rush out for the window side panels, this could get out of hand in a hurry!

Susan Macatee said...

Nailed? Yikes!

We had this problem with a long window in our dining room. I liked to leave the curtains, which are dark and thick, open during the day to let in the natural sunlight, but my husband said it shined on his computer screen, so would always be closing the curtain during the day, making the room dark and depressing.

What I did was purchase a solar curtain. It lets in light, but mutes it, so it's not so strong and it also keeps out the heat, but allows warmth into the room in winter.

Mary Ricksen said...

Curtain shopping is now on your list. Men...

Debra St. John said...

Hi Jennifer, Yes! This could definitely get out of hand. Susan, I like the idea of a solar curtain. And Mary, yep, curtain shopping it is!

L. Diane Wolfe said...

Too funny!

L. Diane Wolfe “Spunk On A Stick”
www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
www.spunkonastick.net
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