Philosophical reasons why decorating rooms is silly, and why I'm doing it anyway.
Decorating rooms is fundamentally a silly enterprise. Watching HGTV, DIY, and the rest of those shows is something I admit I enjoy occasionally, but again, it's silly. Why? Because it's just a way of distracting ourselves, convincing ourselves that we have control over our lives and surroundings, and giving ourselves something to do instead of facing the real complexities and difficulties and uncontrollable aspects of our lives.
I'm not saying it's this cut-and-dried, but we can use this as an example: What if you found out your mom had bone cancer, it was not realistically treatable, and she had only 12 months left to live? You'd feel crushed, of course (assuming you have a good relationship with your mom). You'd want to know what you could do. You'd visit your mom, plan a trip to Mexico with her or whatever, and then when you stopped to rest for a moment you'd feel frightened and sad. You might feel that creepy groundless feeling you get when you realize you can't control some things. You might then feel the overwhelming urge to paint your living room and buy all new furniture. That might cheer you up. Retail therapy, right?
In a smaller sense, I think we enjoy redecorating our homes, pimping our cars, planning a new garden scheme, or anything like that because it's so controllable. We can do that instead of thinking about how we dislike our jobs and our boss, worrying about our friends or family, thinking about our future, or all the rest of troublesome life. Decorating is a hobby which is reassuring and which wraps us more tightly in our comfortable cocoon. (Yes, I'm getting a lot of this out of the Buddhism books I've been reading. You can tell by the use of words like "groundless" and "cocoon", but the rest is all mine.) Redecorating as a hobby doesn't achieve anything or benefit anyone (other than it looks nice), it just takes rather a lot of money, and chances are we'll be tempted to change everything 5 years later.
Who needs a set of 3 decorator-chosen empty urns set artistically in a corner? How does that help your life or the world, really?
On the other hand, there is no point is swearing off all improvements altogether. For example, if I hadn't taken a shower in a week, I was wearing smelly grubby clothes, I needed to wash my hair and get a haircut, then you would tell me to pull myself together. Clean myself up, get dressed in some clean clothes, get a haircut or whatever, and treat myself like someone worthy of respect. The same with my home. If I lived in an apartment with boxes stacked up everywhere, a mess on the floor, and an unidentified smell, you would tell me to pull myself together. The point is to treat yourself (and your family and friends) like people worthy of respect, living in a nice place which uplifts the spirit instead of depresses it.
I think the idea is for me to use my surroundings to help me feel relaxed and like I can tackle anything, using my surroundings like a tool, without turning it into a crutch. You can see how easy it would be to shift focus and think "I can't start any other project until I finish cleaning my house. And buying that last thing to make my surroundings perfect. Then I'll be empowered to face all the rest". I think the idea is to spend enough time and effort on one's surroundings to make them pleasant and helpful, without spending too much. (The middle path, of course.) Then use the rest of my time and energy (and money) on more worthwhile projects, like focusing on good relationships with family and friends, or education, or volunteering, or group sports, or whatever. If I died in a freak car accident tonight, would I rather think "I spent the day with family and friends", or "I collected a set of color-coordinated pillows for my bed, none of which I can take with me"?
So perhaps John and I crossed the line a little bit, from treating ourselves with respect and buying nice-enough things to uplift the spirit, to buying extra silly things just for the sake of decorating. Like buying extra pillows just for the sake of stuffing pillow shams, to make the bed look decorator nice. And yesterday we bought a $110 extra-large bedspread, when we didn't need it for warmth, just because we didn't like the way the comforter didn't hang down far enough on the sides of the bed. Ok, I admit it, I enjoy decorating and I want it to look just right. But... I'm trying to take things in moderation. And maybe I'm overcompensating a little, because we lived in a bedroom filled with mismatched hand-me-downs for 11 years.
As soon as we get our curtains up and the bedside table moved in I'll post before and after pictures. (The curtains and the table... that last little thing I need... didn't I just warn myself about that?) Whether we went over the line into over-decorating or not, I think you'll agree the bedroom looks nice now.
Next we'll paint the bathroom (which is mostly off-white, partly primer, and partly yellow. That's what comes from getting the shower fixed). After that we'll decorate Griffin's toddler room so he'll feel happy and comfortable in a new room. Then we'll have to finish the basement, once the walls and floors are done. Lots of decorating in our future, but we'll try to keep things sane and in moderation.
How about you? Are you prone to over-decorating too?
I'm not saying it's this cut-and-dried, but we can use this as an example: What if you found out your mom had bone cancer, it was not realistically treatable, and she had only 12 months left to live? You'd feel crushed, of course (assuming you have a good relationship with your mom). You'd want to know what you could do. You'd visit your mom, plan a trip to Mexico with her or whatever, and then when you stopped to rest for a moment you'd feel frightened and sad. You might feel that creepy groundless feeling you get when you realize you can't control some things. You might then feel the overwhelming urge to paint your living room and buy all new furniture. That might cheer you up. Retail therapy, right?
In a smaller sense, I think we enjoy redecorating our homes, pimping our cars, planning a new garden scheme, or anything like that because it's so controllable. We can do that instead of thinking about how we dislike our jobs and our boss, worrying about our friends or family, thinking about our future, or all the rest of troublesome life. Decorating is a hobby which is reassuring and which wraps us more tightly in our comfortable cocoon. (Yes, I'm getting a lot of this out of the Buddhism books I've been reading. You can tell by the use of words like "groundless" and "cocoon", but the rest is all mine.) Redecorating as a hobby doesn't achieve anything or benefit anyone (other than it looks nice), it just takes rather a lot of money, and chances are we'll be tempted to change everything 5 years later.
Who needs a set of 3 decorator-chosen empty urns set artistically in a corner? How does that help your life or the world, really?
On the other hand, there is no point is swearing off all improvements altogether. For example, if I hadn't taken a shower in a week, I was wearing smelly grubby clothes, I needed to wash my hair and get a haircut, then you would tell me to pull myself together. Clean myself up, get dressed in some clean clothes, get a haircut or whatever, and treat myself like someone worthy of respect. The same with my home. If I lived in an apartment with boxes stacked up everywhere, a mess on the floor, and an unidentified smell, you would tell me to pull myself together. The point is to treat yourself (and your family and friends) like people worthy of respect, living in a nice place which uplifts the spirit instead of depresses it.
I think the idea is for me to use my surroundings to help me feel relaxed and like I can tackle anything, using my surroundings like a tool, without turning it into a crutch. You can see how easy it would be to shift focus and think "I can't start any other project until I finish cleaning my house. And buying that last thing to make my surroundings perfect. Then I'll be empowered to face all the rest". I think the idea is to spend enough time and effort on one's surroundings to make them pleasant and helpful, without spending too much. (The middle path, of course.) Then use the rest of my time and energy (and money) on more worthwhile projects, like focusing on good relationships with family and friends, or education, or volunteering, or group sports, or whatever. If I died in a freak car accident tonight, would I rather think "I spent the day with family and friends", or "I collected a set of color-coordinated pillows for my bed, none of which I can take with me"?
So perhaps John and I crossed the line a little bit, from treating ourselves with respect and buying nice-enough things to uplift the spirit, to buying extra silly things just for the sake of decorating. Like buying extra pillows just for the sake of stuffing pillow shams, to make the bed look decorator nice. And yesterday we bought a $110 extra-large bedspread, when we didn't need it for warmth, just because we didn't like the way the comforter didn't hang down far enough on the sides of the bed. Ok, I admit it, I enjoy decorating and I want it to look just right. But... I'm trying to take things in moderation. And maybe I'm overcompensating a little, because we lived in a bedroom filled with mismatched hand-me-downs for 11 years.
As soon as we get our curtains up and the bedside table moved in I'll post before and after pictures. (The curtains and the table... that last little thing I need... didn't I just warn myself about that?) Whether we went over the line into over-decorating or not, I think you'll agree the bedroom looks nice now.
Next we'll paint the bathroom (which is mostly off-white, partly primer, and partly yellow. That's what comes from getting the shower fixed). After that we'll decorate Griffin's toddler room so he'll feel happy and comfortable in a new room. Then we'll have to finish the basement, once the walls and floors are done. Lots of decorating in our future, but we'll try to keep things sane and in moderation.
How about you? Are you prone to over-decorating too?