On the making of fantasies
I was thinking about interior decorating a bit lately, and children. When I was younger, I had some atrocious ideas on how I wanted my room decorated (blacklights were involved), but what I know I wanted was magic. Magic, another world, imagination--how do you create that for a child?
If I had to make a child's room now, I would like to give it at least 3 windows: 1 looking out on the external world, as is normal, and 2 surface-mounted on a wall, but completely identical to the "real" one--curtains, everything. Those windows would hold a different scene each--not necessarily overly fantastical, above all not fake-looking. A ship on the sea in one, a distant road leading to mountains and a lake in the other. Or maybe a scene of a forest and fairies, who knows? Properly set up, these scenes could be inserted behind the window like movie-posters, and I could even change them at will. The important thing would be to keep one window happy and one a little lonely-sad. Melancholy is good for the mind.
I would also like to make two secret compartment in the walls. One would be a small secret alcove, with a little wood box. I don't know what would be in there, but it hardly matters. That one would be easy enough to locate if you just push on the wall at the right spot.
The other one would be trickier, especially architecturally. I would like there to be a passage to a secret room, a small little burrow-hole, but with a lamp and an old carpet. I would leave some very old, random things there--clothing scraps, an antique toy, a tin of candies with only one or two stales ones sticking to the bottom, and a well-worn book. Perhaps the first book of Narnia.
That is what I would like to do.
If I had to make a child's room now, I would like to give it at least 3 windows: 1 looking out on the external world, as is normal, and 2 surface-mounted on a wall, but completely identical to the "real" one--curtains, everything. Those windows would hold a different scene each--not necessarily overly fantastical, above all not fake-looking. A ship on the sea in one, a distant road leading to mountains and a lake in the other. Or maybe a scene of a forest and fairies, who knows? Properly set up, these scenes could be inserted behind the window like movie-posters, and I could even change them at will. The important thing would be to keep one window happy and one a little lonely-sad. Melancholy is good for the mind.
I would also like to make two secret compartment in the walls. One would be a small secret alcove, with a little wood box. I don't know what would be in there, but it hardly matters. That one would be easy enough to locate if you just push on the wall at the right spot.
The other one would be trickier, especially architecturally. I would like there to be a passage to a secret room, a small little burrow-hole, but with a lamp and an old carpet. I would leave some very old, random things there--clothing scraps, an antique toy, a tin of candies with only one or two stales ones sticking to the bottom, and a well-worn book. Perhaps the first book of Narnia.
That is what I would like to do.