a dream desk

 

*Correction:  Apparently, while Windsor Smith DID manage the overall Veranda show house, this room was designed by Peter Dunham.*

 If you're a decor junkie (and if you're not, you wouldn't be reading this blog), you see lots of images.  Most are pretty, a lot are inspiring.  But through all that visual noise comes the occasional image that knocks you're socks off.  That image that inspires lust, burning lust.  This shot of a green desk in front of a leopardlike wallpaper comes from a Veranda showhouse designed by Windsor Smith.  And I love everything about it, but what really gets me is that shot of  kelly green  in front of that tobacco brown.

But I think that fact that's it's a desk is what seals the deal for me.  I've always liked to write, to day dream on paper, and it was the sorrow of my childhood that my bedroom was too small for me to have a writing desk.  Since then, I've dreamed of writing desks.

 I have one in my office, but it's a place for work (and reading blogs IS work, dammit!) and internet surfing.  I like that desk a lot (it was one of the first REAL pieces of furniture I bought), but the space itself is a public one, a utilitarian one.

The curtains have migrated to another room, but everything else is the same.

Lately, I've been dreaming again, specifically about writing fiction, something I haven't done with any regularity since childhood.  And like a good decor junkie, I plan to start my feathering a creative writing nest.  While I like my office, it's too close to the center of action in the house--too close to distraction.  Plus, it's a dark space.  I need someone airy, open, more secluded.

The perfect space:  the guest room.  While we do frequently have overnight guests, it is free most of the time, and it's flooded with light from large windows on free walls.  And most importantly, as it is off the main track of the house, it is usually free of clutter and visual distraction.  I do have a sewing table set up there, but I usually end up hauling the sewing machine downstairs to the dining table for more space to spread out anyway.  The sewing table itself is just white melamine and will continue to make itself useful downstairs in my studio.

The current sewing table in guest room.

Luckily, I had a  client give me a fantastic writing desk left over from a commercial remodel.  While not the same shape as Smith's desk, it has a great silhouette and will look terrific in kelly green.  I originally tried to turn the wall behind the desk into a magnetic board with magnetic primer...an experiment that failed miserably;  I plan to resort to good ol' cork squares.  Finally, a dream desk.  I can hardly wait.

Waiting for green paint.