Home decor: what it takes to make your place both beautiful and functional
Few months ago, I have decided to finally finish furnishing and decorating my apartment. I moved in more than two years ago and I’ve been living in an almost empty apartment ever since. So much so that in the living room, if I paid close attention, I could even hear the echo.
Photo by Andrew Neil
The reason why I waited so long to furnish and decorate my apartment was not because I lacked of the taste and the personality needed to pull together some pieces of furniture in a coherent and sensible style (come on, I do have personality and style, don’t I?). Nor because I got trapped into a cult of strict minimalists from which I could only recently get out of thanks to therapy and the police. Nope, none of the above. The reason why I’ve been living for so long in a void apartment was due to my inability to deal with “handy chores” around the house. I have no clue about how to mount a chandelier, assemble a bookshelf, hang a picture and open a jar of pickles. Light bulbs are especially difficult to me. That one time I needed to replace the only light bulb hanging from the ceiling of the empty living room, it took me a couple of visits to the supermarket to buy the right one and a total of three weeks to actually replace it.
Photo by Pixabay
The deadline I had decided for my home decor goal was the end of the summer (yes, this summer). Despite all the efforts made by global warming and climate change to lengthen summer all over the world, for an Italian girl sensitive to cold like me, “end of the summer”, in Switzerland, still means mid-August. At mid-July, while I was packing to go on vacation, I realized I had taken zero action to meet my home decor deadline. I freaked out. How come I was not upholding the highest version of myself and behaving, instead, like those underdeveloped people who cannot even stick to simple goals? Like drinking two liters of water a day. As someone consistently drinking four liters of water a day for the past ten years, I had to absolutely reverse that and align back to my preferred identity. I made a huge order and purchased the pieces of furniture and decor I needed all at once, called the customer service to agree that they would deliver once I was back from vacation and went straight to the airport to catch my flight. When I came back home, the whole delivery had been already shipped and giant, intimidating boxes were already waiting for me outside the front door.
Photo by Cottonbro
The day after, I had to make sense of all the pieces I found inside those boxes. At the same time, I had to take care of the luggage and, most important of all, start working again. I took care of the dirty clothes during lunch breaks and opened the boxes and try to assemble something in the evenings. But after a couple of days, I still had to fully catch up with work, had assembled zero furniture, my clothes were all around the living room and my apartment seemed a battlefield. The level of clutter was so unbearable that it messed up with my sleep cycle more than the jet leg. Even two pills of melatonin before going to bed wasn’t helping. I was tired, overwhelmed and frustrated. It was in that moment of despair that, suddenly, I remembered the words that my mum once told me: “Get a plumber, or an electrician!”
The context in which she said this to me had nothing to do with home decor. She was giving me dating advice. That was her response to another failed attempt of mine to establish a relationship with an (apparently) complex man who, instead, turned out to be just complicated. The point my mum was trying to make was that, with my already demanding job, I certainly didn’t need to engage in sophisticated discussions after a long day of work. What I needed was, instead, someone simple, down to earth and with whom I could easily interact even with half a brain switched off. According to my mum, plumbers and electricians most likely fall into the category of men requiring low mental maintenance (you got it, my mum is not politically correct) and that these were the men I had to look for. She continued saying that, on top of that, as if being mentally underdeveloped was already an advantage (nope, I am not politically correct either), plumbers and electricians have the added benefit of being handy and of support around the house. A feature that my complicated men didn’t necessarily have. “Remember you almost kill yourself every time you try to open a jar of pickles: a plumber would be perfect for you!”
Photo by Lilartsy
My mum’s advice shocked me back then. I had always wanted to be with someone profound and with whom I could contend with. How could I be with someone I might not be able to watch a philosophical debate with, or who wouldn’t think of a museum as a romantic place for a date, or who would see me moved at a classical music concert and think it’s because I’m about to get my period? Also, how could my mum trade profound feelings and emotions for house chores and pickles? These two things don’t even exist in the same universe! The other bit that upset me was when she talked about my job as sort of a roadblock. Yes, I have a demanding job and work long hours. But why does that mean I should pair with a yes-man who requires zero energy to interact with after a long day at work? Is this the destiny of a woman with career ambition and a busy life? She finally added: “For the profound bit, push the plumber down a well and see if he turns out to be deep enough for you.”
Photo by Karolina Grabowska
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, it was early August, my home decor deadline was approaching and I was in the middle of a battlefield. Half dirty and half cleaned clothes, open luggage and pieces of furniture everywhere. My mum’s infamous dating advice started to resonate with me… Still, her words created some resistance inside my body, but I couldn’t deny that what she had told me was useful and practical after all. At last, on top of the jungle I was living in, one morning I woke up and found out that the sink pipe in the bathroom was completely clogged. It was the third time in just one month and I had no time to fix it because I had back-to-back calls all day and some more work to finish in the evening. It was in that very moment that I realized that philosophy is useless when you cannot use the sink to wash your face and that all I wanted, more than anything else, was a plumber.
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Now I would love to hear from you! What do you look for in a partner? Do you think it is possible to have a high-maintenance job and relationship at the same time? Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe to the Breaking Thirty Newsletter for more awesome posts.