Hard Work

INTERIOR DECORATORS-GOD BLESS 'EM–I DON'T

 

Over many years I've come to realize that interior decorators and I are not good for each other.  Way back in time, when we began to see the financial light, my first association with one should have been a warning. Oh, David was nice: David was capable, probably, but David had a ceiling light fetish (or, stock in a fixture company). Wherever there was a wall hanging, a chair, a drape, above each and every one he designated high hats, spots. The ceiling would have looked like the Astrodome if I hadn't switched him off. With his ego only slightly crushed, he got so cutsey wootsey he wanted to turn our den into a french café or primitive Tahitian hut. That's when I said, 'Aloha,' and we parted company.

 

Several years went by and Florence came into my life. Florence liked flowers. Probably her mother told her about the derivation of her name and never let her forget it for a moment. As Florence was more knowledgeable in her field than I (it turned out to be full of weeds) I
went along with her tulip suggestion for our bedroom walls. God and I knew, in only one night, that flowers belong in certain places; in the garden, in vases, on tables, bouquets and graves.–not my walls. My burnt orange and silver tulips became alive and grew and grew, devouring me, covering me like a bier. Three coats of paint finally saved my sanity. I uprooted Florence and planted her in an ex-friends house.

 

John, swishy, swingin' John- the exact opposite of David–was a lulu. No light! He wouldn't place a good reading lamp in the living room and told me to read in bed. My beautiful view of a wide golf course fairway was to be hidden because he liked the sofa back to the view so people could look at each other. 'It's a good line,' he said. 'Sit sideways and you'll be able to look outside.'

 

 Where do I find these jerks? I don't know but they seem to come out of the woodwork when my pocketbook opens. Whether John approved or not, I saw the light and he saw the front door from the inside out.

 

My next episode involved a southern kook, Betty. From this one we ordered window treatments and almost everything else we needed eight months in advance. Two days before we were to move in, she advised us that all of our window selections had been discontinued three months previously and we would have to make other selections. The first one we made, was a new decorator–MYSELF. In our fishbowl  house, our aggravation compiled as almost everything we had done with Betty had to re-done., including the wall into which her delivery man had  made a gaping hole as he stupidly tried to carry in a sofa unaided. We patched that up, but not our association.

 

Simultaneously to working with Betty, Richard took over the decor of our new northern condo. Who recommended him? I honestly, and luckily, don't remember. If I could, she'd be on my 'kill' list. Richard's paperhanger put my lovely perfect pattern on the foyer wall and included the words 'cut here'. Every three feet the paper cried out to all visitors, 'Cut here, cut here,' He didn't believe me when I called but, when faced with proof positive, he was so upset and embarrassed , he walked off the job, leaving me with ½ the wall to take down and a whole wall to do. Try it sometime! With all of Richard's slide rules, tapes, scale models and expertise, I still ended up with a sofa ten inches too short, or maybe it was ten inches too long. I then had to have a table made to fit the area. Now be honest–what good is a ten inch table? The answer is –just about as much use as Richard.

 

Do you think that was the knock-out punch? Hell, no. We had decided to move permanently to Florida and were having a house built for us. I was smarter. I interviewed three highly recommended people, put my money on the middle-of-the-roader, not too far out, not too blah, but my luck rode on the same track. Somehow I picked a dog, another loser. Lois turned out to be a despot, the Czarina of Florida.  She wanted to put my husband's wishes, my likes and dislikes in a dungeon so she could rule us both. Her likes HAD to be my likes and they weren't always. Off with her head! She thought. What price are these fabrics,' I asked–and you will love her answer–'Expensive. Everything I show you is expensive.' When I insisted on bronze glass instead of smoked gray for the dining room table top, she went up in flames and burned herself right out of a hefty commission.

 

And here I sit, waiting, thinking, dreading the sound of the doorbell.

 

"Hello, Bob"