Decorating And Marriage...

I have been doing a lot of thinking this past week. Packing your life into 50 tea chests tends to make a person a little contemplative.

And what I've realised, in between the boxes, the bubble wrap and the puppies stealing my masking tape, is that it's not enough just to decorate a house. It's not enough just to paint walls in the latest palettes, hang prints like a Parisian gallerist, screw in whole lotta fancy New York hardware, toss some expensive cushions on a Danish sofa, and artfully arrange a pile of books on a low buttoned ottoman. (The latter skill still evades me: My coffee-table stack looks like the Returns Shute of the South Yarra Library. And I don't think I've managed any of the rest, either)

It's not even enough to slap on a marble splashback, hang some vintage lights from a flea market in the south of France, up-end a LV trunk for a bar, and throw together a salad with home-grown radicchio that looks like a dish Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall whipped up. (Heart chair image via Canadian House & Home)

No.

You also need to add some love.

{Image source of heart rug unknown.}

This has been my decorating epiphany this week.

{Image above of Daylesford Organics' kitchen garden. Image below of Prieure d'Orsan. Both by me.}

RR and I don't spend a lot of time lazing around the house together. In fact, when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg married his girlfriend, one of her conditions was that "they have at least 100 minutes of alone time together every week". When RR and I heard this on the TV in our hotel room in Boston, we looked at each other in alarm and said, "That's a lot of minutes!"

I always thought our separate studies (into which we retreat each night) had been the reason we'd stayed together for so long. But obviously we're doing things all wrong. Obviously we're not following The 100-Minute Rule.

So tonight I told him that our next house is going to be different. We're going to have Romance. Couple Time. Shared Moments in Front of Grand Designs. (He looked rather scared at this but courageously nodded.) Our home is going to be a portrait of passion. The floor plan's going to be so filled with joy, Kevin McCloud himself is going to ring and ask what's in our girders?


{Image of cushion in Umbrella Print fabric via Anna Spiro}

And then I wondered how I would achieve all this?

Decorating Epiphany #2 came when I tried to stop our Cavalier Spaniel Cooper from humping our Jack Russell Coco over the bubble wrap. ("Very disturbing," as my niece Shae would say.)

I realised that if our new home (which we move into on Monday) was going to be a picture of marital contentment, we were going to have to get the decor right. So that means far less black and white. (Too cold.) Far less bold stripes. (Too much like an Alabama correctional facility.) And no more vintage prints of guns and shooting parties. (Even if they are from the lovely Knightsbridge Map & Antique Prints Store.)

I just need to work out what to put in their place?



(More in next post...)