Would you like fries with that painting?

Welcome to the world of home decor ... when our younger one turned two, we finally decided it was time to furnish the house. Nothing fancy, just the usual couches and rugs and tables. The main point being to convert the playroom to its intended purpose, the formal living room and library (really the formal dining room, but what can I say, we're rebels).

First step: Combine the playroom with the family room and computer room.
Second step: Furnish.
Third step: Decorate.

The first step was mostly painless, no fun to be had. Moving toys and play mats is easy peasy.

So there we were, a vast empty living room ... which brings us to the second step, also relatively painless. Having experienced the IKEA quality in grad school, it was time for better furniture ... still Scandinavian, just better, so off to ScanDesign, and that took care of the "this is the fancy place where my butt shall rest" part.

But the decoration ... enough to make me go, "Oyoyoy" (I sometimes pretend I speak Yiddish).

Our decorator (also the grandmother of one of KidA's classmates) helped select the first decorative item ... a big ugly brass bowl with fake fruits and veggies (all with a hanging tag proudly stating that they were made in China). My first thought on spying the bowl was how visiting kids would use the veggies for toys, and maybe our 5-year-old would try to chop them (she is aspiring to be a sous chef). Besides, what's the point of fake fruits and veggies in a bowl? Years ago, cavemen would lure people into their caves with fake fruits and veggies, then they'd club them on the head and eat them. Our instinct still tells us to decorate with fake food, but the point of it is largely forgotten.

For the big empty expanse above the fireplace, a Philip Craig print of artichokes and other vegetables on a deep red background from the local Costco. Here's the thought process: "Hmmm, this painting has the same color in some places as the couch and the rugs, plus the frame would go well with the tables ... let's get this." That print had to be returned after the visiting sister-in-law wrinkled her nose at the very idea of vegetables as home decor. (The brass bowl had already been removed.)

Next up were a pair of anonymous oil paintings, with beautiful texture (important to contrast against the muted texture of the wall). Both paintings were scenes of the beach, again selected for the presence of a small amount of purple in the color scheme, but this time with a gilt-edged frame that matched (in our twisted and demented minds) the oak floors. The painting-shop was not a gallery where we met with the artist, it was the middle of the local Costco warehouse, where they had just finished putting the Philip Craig print back in place. As we stood in line waiting to pay, the juxtaposition of Costco's hothouse bell peppers, the paintings, and size 4 diapers in the shopping cart was what next gave rise to doubts.

Putting the paintings up on the wall did not help matters any. The immediate reaction was, "Gosh, this costs money!" Two days later, the realization dawned that the paintings were not just blah, they make the room look like something from a hotel lobby. We didn't have any passion about the artist or the paintings, they were just some random colored things to fill up the blank wall. No personality, no pizzaz, no masala, nothing!

Who buys these things anyway? In all the time I've shopped at Costco, I've never seen anyone pick these up ... I remember reading about Costco fanatics who would decorate rental properties with Costco furniture and paintings, maybe these are targeted at the hospitality trade, perhaps that's why the association with hotel lobbies was so strong. A Star Wars poster (for me), or a Toy Story poster (for the kids) would have been better, at least someone would've felt like it was cool.

So the paintings are now back at Costco.

A briefly hung mirror is back at the "Real Deals on Home Decor" store - upon reflection, it turned out to be badly distorted. While at the home decor store, the incredible fakeness of the whole experience made me want to scream: faux wood signs about love and forgiveness, plastic clocks that said "Kensington London" in an array of sizes, purporting to be from London's Kensington Station, or something in French (perhaps the name of a French metro station) none that looked authentic, all that sported prominent "Made In China" tags. Ugly garish bowls with warning notes like, "Decorative use only, may poison food!" Of course, all I have to do is cart this stuff home, remove the tag, and people will marvel at how I happened to be at Kensington when they were throwing out the old clocks.

So we're left with a store credit certificate - the store does not do refunds.

Although the wall above the fireplace is now empty and waiting for a better mirror, most other walls within my five-year-old's reach are decorated. Seeing us go through so much pain to decorate the house was too much for her ... plus her friends were visiting for her fifth birthday. She's decorated with her paintings, scrawls, sketches. There's one of the deck, complete with chairs and roof and flowers. There's another of mum and baby. There's one of me waiting at the airport for them to arrive back from India.
A4-sized art by an in-house artist. Almost disposable, all easily replaced, most of it with some meaning ... I like it.

p.s. I should note somewhere that the decorator did a fine job overall, there's a decent mirror on top of the fireplace, some nice lamps (on the tables, not on the fireplace), a wrought-iron fireplace screen (which may really be painted aluminum), and so on.

By,
Speck42 (speck42[at]gmail[dot]com)