It Dawned on Me

I suffer from an apparent incurable affliction known as “failure-to-decorate” syndrome. Fortunately this is not contagious, although
I wish it were. If others would get a touch of it, then I would not feel so badly about my inability to color-coordinate our couch cushions with the drapes. Maybe having drapes would also be a good place to start.

It’s not that our home isn’t a welcoming, happy place to be—just the opposite, really. A lot of living goes on between these well-loved walls.

But I have a bad habit of looking at decorating magazines and trying to emulate the tips to, for example, “Spruce Up Your Home In Three Easy Steps.”

“Sweep away clutter” is easier said then done.

Head to the nearest paint store and “splash on some happy color” is nearly impossible because I can’t make a commitment to dinner let alone something as serious as a wall color.

By the time it comes to Step 3, I’ve already misplaced the magazine.

I truly want to decorate well, but I have a mental block when it comes to paint. When choosing interior colors for my home, I got so caught up in the names of the paint colors that I couldn’t concentrate on the actual hue. By the end of the day, I had brought home samples of Strawberry Cream, Lemon Tart, Vanilla Milkshake and Mocha Swirl.

Sadly, the true color of our kitchen should now be called “Lasagna Fiasco 2010” and the laundry room is a mixture of “Downy- container-fell-off-the-washer-during-the-spin-cycle” and “Big-dog- didn’t-feel-well-one-day.”

A visitor once asked me in what style our home was decorated. I almost said Colonial because since we homeschool, there are a fair amount of books and pictures of George Washington around here, but I thought that wasn’t the right answer.

I took a mental inventory of the toys, tiny shoes, sippy cups and  burp cloths strewn around plus the load of maternity clothes in the washer and I calmly answered, “Early Childhood.” Apparently this “style” never makes it into the trendy decorating magazines, but I assure you it is alive, well and extremely popular.

I enjoy going to other people’s homes where there is a flow to the decor. Where wall colors and furniture patterns seamlessly blend with the floor and there is theme throughout. A nice piece of artwork catches your eye. A glass vase glistens because there is no dust on it...or someone hasn’t used it to display Star Wars Legos.

But, then again, I do know how to decorate. I have matching handprints up and down the frames of just about every door of the house. Right and left hands. Trimmed in pink marker by the way.

There is a continuity of a theme in every room. We are consistent with soccer balls, Legos, pink nail polish, beach equipment, No. 2 pencils, Bibles and books. At any given time at least one, if not all of these items, are in the same room at once. Maybe that doesn’t constitute decorating, but it certainly does make our house feel a lot like a home.

Dawn Mast lives with her family in Broadway.