When I removed my mother’s pin-striped valance and replaced it with an ornate Victorian curtain my heart skipped a beat. I knew my replacement was too elaborate, but it was my first attempt at getting a foothold into my mother’s Sensible Beige House.
My mother had been in assisted living for six months. I had moved back home and was getting to know the house that I had grown up in all over again. As I felt my way through each room, my mind flashed back to what the house had looked like during my childhood. In those days it was a farm, with kids and dogs taking a toll on the linoleum floors while our mother warned us not to damage the woodwork. Since then, Mom had made some important improvements that included replacement windows and a cathedral ceiling with skylights in the kitchen, but her taste in furnishings and colors was very conservative. Every wall was painted beige. All the curtains were earth tones. Chairs, carpets, and even kitchen towels were shades of adobe. Everything was pristine, tidy, tucked in and perfect – like a modern museum. I feared that disturbing any part of it would bring down the unspeakable wrath of the Goddess of Cleanliness and Order.
I had to sleep somewhere, so I started with my old bedroom, which had become her office. As I donated her beautiful wooden cabinets to charity I felt certain that she would somehow sense my mischief, take a taxi from the assisted living facility, and show up in the driveway with a disapproving look on her face. This of course did not happen, but I was insecure and making these decisions on my own. I realized I had to choose between living inside a shrine to my mother, or turning the house I grew up in into a home that would suit my needs.
As I watched the tassels wiggle on my new Victorian curtain, it occurred to me that I now had the opportunity to redecorate my childhood home. The guilt disappeared and a thrill came over me. I started making plans.
Recently I had lived in a basement apartment with little light, but after a few months of squinting at the sun I discovered a love of houseplants. I put up wrought-iron hangers over the floor-length windows in my mother’s master bedroom and turned it into a solarium. Framed artwork, my father’s patent, and a gorgeous clock from India graced the freshly painted lavender walls. Beaded plant hangers, a soft couch, oriental carpets and embroidered pillows made it a comfy place to lounge. I was finally done when the twinkle lights and lava lamps were installed.
As an artist, my décor had always tended to be bohemian. Finding the right place to create had always been a challenge. A surface large enough for whatever you are making is mandatory, and every artistic type can tell you the hardest part is finding containers to hold materials. So where was I going to put my art supplies? I had grown so used to shoving boxes away in closets and under my bed in my tiny apartment. Now there was a real chance to get it right. I looked toward the living room for an answer.
I positioned a small desk beneath an overhead light and surrounded it with low bookshelves, imitating a credenza. The rest of the large living room remained furnished with the traditional upholstered couch and recliners. This seemed to work for a while, but eventually I inched my desk toward the middle of the room and ran out of space on my shelves. I considered rearranging the room but the corner woodstove made certain combinations impossible. Why did I need all those upholstered chairs? I was a single person, living alone in the house. Was it really necessary to leave all that space just in case company should drop by? I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, but decided to entertain a new idea – a living room that could double as an art studio. Now that was an exciting idea!
While sorting things out, I remembered my father’s workshop which had taken up one third of our cellar. Men are entitled to garages and workshops. They need their creative spaces and come by them legitimately. After my stepmother died, my unsupervised father had turned his living room into a tiny nest surrounded by piles of books, boxes of papers, and models of machines he had created. As an inventor, all he had needed was a place to sit and enjoy some television with the rest of the room dedicated to his beloved machinery. While I thought this was bachelor-living-run-amok (when I visited him he literally had to clear off a spot on the couch) perhaps there was a happy medium between his cluttered creative space and a pristine living room full of upholstered furniture with no one to sit there.
I began by picking up an old eight-cube style shelf for $20 and covered the top with a fun pattern. Coordinated fabric drawers worked so well to hold my supplies that this led to a visit to an actual IKEA store, and the acquisition of a few more modular pieces. I found a home for the sofa, but hung onto the two recliners. The television was wall mounted, leaving more room for everything else. Area carpets made the tiled room cozy. I hung a large stained-glass piece my sister had made in the picture window and invested in a small drafting table. When finding myself stubbornly holding on to an old table that had been under the front window for the past 45 years, I imagined a beautiful functional shelf for supplies instead – and then made the change. More twinkle lights were installed on the cross-beam and connected through a smart-plug so I could say, “Alexa, turn on the ATMOSPHERE!”
Now my supplies are within arm’s reach in my beautiful living area. I have enough space, the proper lighting, and plenty of room for the cats to watch me write, draw, paint, and make any number of wild creations. There is room for me and at least one guest to recline and watch television – and if more chairs are needed, I can bring one in from the solarium or the kitchen. It is not my mother’s living room or my father’s workshop, but my very own Studio. My new creative space was created with different aspects of my parents’ influence, but most importantly it’s a room that entirely suits me and my bohemian needs.
Karen Brockelbank
October 25, 2023
