Before I started A Speckled Trout, I toyed with the idea of making it a home decor blog with cool pictures of our house and projects I’ve done. Then I just started writing stories and it never materialized into that, but once in awhile I tap into the interior decorator in me and want to share the results.
At the start of summer I painted our bedroom. Mark painted the ceiling because of my bum shoulder. He is always reluctant to board the decorating train with me – this one especially so. I’m not sure why. No, wait a sec. There was this one night early on in the project when he was just about to drift off to sleep and I let out a big sigh and said, “I don’t know…..maybe all of this was a gigantic waste of money.” I think that might have been the game changer for him.
Now we are headed into fall and it is still not done. The Big Daddy joined was forced into the project and installed some bamboo shades and declared when he was done, “You know, this is really hard on my hands and wrists. There’s going to come a day when I can’t do these kinds of projects around here any more.” That’s because we don’t have a power screwdriver like normal people. We do it the old-fashioned way like the Amish. In fact, the Amish often come by in their buggies and ask us what’s the hardest way to do something around the house and we say, “Well, we’ve heard that if you use a tool that plugs into an outlet and makes the job easier you will burn in hell.” And they say, “That sounds about right,” and clip-clop away.
Anyhoodle, when he said that I was all like, “Wait just a minizzle, Lance. Didn’t you just stuff your hail-damaged ass into some spandex and ride forty miles on a bike this morning? Now you’re telling me you’re weak in the wrist and can’t do this?”
And he was like, “Oprah, you’re busting my chops like I’m some kind of lying cheat low on testosterone.”
And I was like, “Un-huh.”
After that I brought home three different pairs of lamps. Disclosure: I worked in a lighting shop for two years. My job was to help people pick out lamps. I liked the second pair but Will made a face like he’d just seen that new wrecking ball video and so they went back on the shelf at Home Goods with Lamps #1. After I left with another pair, #1 and #2 said, “Best of luck to you Brushed Nickel Lamps. That freak couldn’t decide between paper and plastic if the grocery store was burning down around her.”
Then I went next door to T.J. Maxx and bought two tops because I had Acute Decorating Stress.
It was time for a craft project. I painted a clock that we’ve had forever. First I painted it gold, then bronze, then gave it a sanding and a coat of wax and that’s when it was official. I turned a perfectly good clock into a ticking piece of shit. I also didn’t tape it off to touch up one little spot because I knew I’d be extra careful, and so its face was splattered with a mist of spray paint which resembled Al Roker doing beach coverage during hurricane season.
I hated looking at all the bare walls but when I looked down that was even worse. Have we been wiping our butts on the carpet? We went to Lowe’s and got a quote for new flooring that was $2777.15 which was quite a surprise, much like the “guess how much our health insurance is going to be” surprise that we’ll be getting on October 1st.
The scenes from the crime…………….
The bed……… Not sure about the baby beluga because, after all, we do live in Kansas. I tried hot-gluing wheat and soy beans up there but they kept dropping into my hair and crowding out the acorns.
The nightstand with the latest lamp, still wearing its tags in case it goes buh-bye like the other two. And what’s that by the frame you ask? Why that would be my drooly mouthguard which you won’t see on most any decorating blogs.
Here’s the wall that was supposed to be a cool Pinterest inspired mix of prints and photos but is neither because big prints and photos cost too much to frame so I repeatedly use small ones. This repeatedly looks cheap. And stupid.
The Craft Project Clock which looks like it belongs in Liberace’s house (or around the neck of Flava Flav), and when I ask The Big Daddy what time it is he says, “Why, it’s half past that metallic monkey’s ass.”
And here is the real reason I have no business having a decorating blog………..the photo with the hand held massager (is that what the young people call it these days?) that my neighbor lent me for my bum shoulder. Holy shit…….how’d I let that get into that picture?
In the design blogosphere this is referred to as “that unexpected touch of whimsy.”
Alrighty then. I got me a design blog.
