Up Against a Wall
I still have to finish my dining room table project. It's at a bit of a standstill right now, because I'm deciding if I want to spend the $72 to get a box of more than 240 tiles just so I can get the 140 I need to finish the table the way I want. The other option is to get a different size tile that does not require me to buy a whole case. John says to go ahead and buy the case of tile, because it's what I want. That doesn't seem prudent to me. Yes, I want that particular type of tile, but I don't know that having 100 extra tiles to store is what I want. I'm trying to get rid of clutter, not add to it. I'm still mulling this one over, so it might be a couple weeks before we no longer have an ugly end of our dining room table.
Rather than seriously consider what I'm going to do with the table, I'm fixated on the living room, in particular the entertainment center. In an angry fit from having to move so much while dusting about a year ago, I cleared off all the pictures, knickknacks and clutter, leaving only a few loved items. This also made for a pretty bare entertainment center, but it sure has been easy to dust. I then removed all pictures from the walls when I painted the living room and failed to hang anything back up but a wall sconce on one wall and a floral arrangement over the thermostat. So the bare theme was taken to an unhealthy extreme.
For a while I didn't care. I was so happy not to have to dust it all, and I really did like admiring my choice in paint color too. Lately, it's been getting to me though. In looking at recent pictures of the living room, I could see it was lacking. It doesn't look minimalist. It looks incomplete. My starting point would have to be the focal point of the whole room, which happens to be the entertainment center.
We have a nice entertainment center when it's not piled under stacks of video and audio tapes, CDs and miscellaneous. The things I like most about it are the doors over the TV. If I had my way, we would have no TV in the living room, because they are ugly. The doors serve as a more reasonable alternative to my aesthetic desire. I'd rather have a big fireplace in place of the whole thing (who wouldn't?), but since that's not an option, it does serve as a symbolic hearth.
Nothing seems to go together better than fireplaces and mirrors. So I'm unimaginative and common. I like it, and that's why I've had plans for a large mirror over the entertainment center for months. I never got one, because I couldn't decide, and because we never had enough money. In my effort to just get things done instead of stagnating in indecision, I went out and bought a mirror today. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it looks good. I can't stop looking at it. I was so excited about the change that I even put a few more things on the entertainment center. I have a long way to go with this, much less the living room in general, but it's a step in the right direction.
Last night I broached the subject of removing those atrocious speakers from the entertainment center. John thinks we need four speakers, and I know it sounds better, but they're ugly. They aren't even good speakers either. What I really want are the itty-bitty Bose speakers I could mount near the ceiling, but since we don't have a big wad of cash to plunk down on those, I'm going to have to come up with another option. John likes having four speakers, and I need to compromise some things. I have to put my creative skills to work and find a better alternative than sticking a floral arrangement in front of one (much to John's chagrin) and using the other as a lift. John suggested I put them on top of the other, larger speakers on each side of the unit, but that seems to defeat the purpose of having four speakers in the first place. What I wouldn't give to get rid of the whole lot.
Decorating is all about flexibility and creativity, so I have to adjust. I'll figure something out. Until then, I can be overwhelmed with my nice new mirror. I'm much happier with it than I thought I would be. Sometimes you just have to get things done with the resources you have available rather than waiting for perfection. Maybe I should apply that to my tile situation.
I still have to mount the mirror to the wall. Right now it's sitting on top of the entertainment center (Man, I'm sick of typing that.) and leaning against the wall. I can't imagine that's very safe for my porcelain dove that used to be my grandmother's. Tomorrow I have got to go out and get some hardware before I have a tragedy on my hands. But I sure like the angle of that mirror like that. I don't know if I can deal with looking at myself all the time if it's on the wall. I may have to be creative with that too.
---------------------------------------------
One Year Ago Today:
