Guest Room Re-do: An Update

I've been making some progress on the guest room redo, and the painting is in progress. I'm only about half done, but I thought I share the process because the difference between the old and new color is so different.  I'm in the process of changing it from sweet and light-filled to moody and sexy.

About 1/2 way through painting.

 

 

 

 But, I have to be honest, I'm at the (unfortunately common) stage of the project where I'm starting to second guess every choice.  This doesn't always happen, but it does a lot, especially when everything in the room is a wreck and everything is half (or less) finished with some major choices still up in the air.  In times like this, I just have to go back to my inspiration, my plans, and my design intent and trust that I wasn't smoking crack when I came up with those. 

I spent a lot of time picking and testing the color before painting, and I definitely wanted a change and a cocoon feel for the room.  I think, though, what freaked me out was when I looked at the new color versus the old and realized that I am going against the trend that every other blogger seems to be following....I'm painting over pale grey with a brown!  Too be fair, it's actually a greeny bronze in person, but it definitely reads as a brown variant. My freaking out leads to the other point of this post:

Are reading too many blogs bad for your morale in the way that too many fashion and fitness magazines can leave you feeling bad about your body?  I mean, even though I devoured shelter magazines for years, I never really compared my homes to the ones featured, or let the trends they showed influence my own decorating decisions.  Somehow, like glamorous black and white photos of old Hollywood stars, I knew they were just a fantasy and without a million dollar budget I could never duplicate them, so I never really saw them as a feasible possibility for me.  Thus, I was able to enjoy them without comparing my home to theirs.  

With blogs, though, it feels different.  I find myself thinking, "If just an average person can do it, why can't I?"  And now, seeing so many trends repeated on many blogs, I have started thinking about whether or not my choices are "dated" which seems to have become the worst thing you can say about a room.  I'll be honest...in the middle of painting, I thought,
  
   " I should stop, reverse and repaint it gray, pull out some linen feed bags and tart this room     up all Belgian and full of patina.  If I do, maybe I could get some blog exposure, because right now, no other blogger would feature this room."

But that felt so fake.  Not that there is anything wrong with following trends if that's what you want that look, but it just feels so far from what I believe in , which is personal style and personal decorating.  And the point of the room should be to make my guests and me happy, not a blog audience.   Even after writing this, I'm toying with whoring the room out in the current vogue.   Who knew that painting a room could lead to an existential discussion about being true or being popular?  Good grief, I feel like I'm in 9th grade again.  I guess I'll go listen to Culture Club and scrunch some socks until the mood passes.

 

At least the magnetic primer worked.

 

Leaving Negative Comments: What's the right approach?

I try to avoid the negative.  And it's for selfish reasons--the more I focus on the positive, the better I feel.  Critiquing other people's work is fun: snark is fun, but if you get too much into them, it's hard to avoid that negativity creeping into other aspects of your life.

Therefore, I normally don't do critiques of other people's work.  It is, quite frankly none of my business.   However, I was recently face to face with a design I hated, the living room on the cover of House Beautiful.  The designer is a major one and his work was deemed good enough to make the cover of House Beautiful, it's really only important that his client like the way the room turned out,  it seems (though we didn't really get enough photos of the room to get and idea of the size and layout) that this was a hard room to decorate, and to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, "The opinions of one little blogger doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."  And, to be fair, the colors and furniture pieces themselves are lovely.  However, that two chair/ cocktail ottoman set up in the middle of the room is just stupid looking and completely impractical.  While I admire people who can take a fresh approach to a room, I hate it when a design is strictly about "Hey, I'm new and different....nobody's done this before."    In this case, there's a reason for that.

What I think is wrong:  Number one , the chairs and ottoman are described as easy to rearrange as needed for entertaining.  I've worked at a furniture store.  I can guarantee that high-quality furniture of that bulk is anything but "easy to move."  Besides, while I don't mind a little tweaking for different occasions, if you have to continually move furniture for a room to function---something is wrong with the layout.  I also think that the three pieces are very heavy looking.  In my opinion,  better solution would have been a huge pink round about like this one in Windsor Smith's foyer:


Or a small center table and two stools:

I think either solution would fit the space better and be more attractive when the room is not in use.

I've now broken my rule and posted a negative comment, but I feel that any one putting their work up for view in such a public display can take a little criticism.

Letitia Baldridge, Jackie Kennedy's Social Secretary, and etiquette expert.  Love her.

 Where I feel really uncomfortable, though, is commenting negatively on blogs.  What I struggle with is, is it better to take the "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" approach.  Or is that just a cop-out.  (To clarify, I'm talking about discussing impersonal design decisions or criticisms like "that mirror is too small" or "I think that rug is the wrong choice," not "you're ugly, so is your room...and your dog is too fat.").

The problem is that not having a separate viewpoint means that there is no discussion---no matter the actual design features of the room, whether they work or not, everything is "j'adore" and "lovely."  But on the other hand, part of the problem is that a lot of blog readers don't have a design background, so they end up like the celebrity judges on Project Runway.....instead of dispassionately discussing the room from a design perspective, it's all "I would have that room" or "I could never live there."

So since I'm a wienie, I usually just say nothing, though I'm often tempted to take the easy way out...a negative view via an "Anon." comment.  What led to this topic....I see so many blogs with rooms that are the decor equivalent of actress Blake Lively...undeniably pretty, but just as undeniably bland, and almost impossible to distinguish from dozens of others that look just like it.  Those rooms that look like they were (and in reality the probably were  designed from  checklists:  take this rug + this fabric+ this color+ these accessories+ this art= fashionable room.  The result is that it is attractive and on-trend, but has absolutely no personality.  None.

Oh well, at least I don't have to live there.

Ms. Baldridge checking on arrangements for a state dinner at the White House.

To edit or not to edit: blogging your life

Amy Adams as Julie Powell

Editing their lives.  Is that what bloggers do?


I just finished watching the movie Julie and Julia. Several years ago, that book introduced me to blogs--or at least to the fact they existed.  I enjoyed the book, sympathisizing with Julie's unhappiness at her seemingly dead-end life and with her attempts to climb out of the doldrums.  And boy did she ever climb out.  She did it in a way that inspired the dreams of bloggers everywhere:  blog leads to media coverage leads to book deal leads to best seller leads to big budget movie starring Meryl Streep. Every blogger dreams of this: his or her musings, insights, etc. leading to fame and fortune. What does all this have to do with bloggers editing their lives? Dear Reader, I'm glad you asked. The truth is that blogging CAN lead to perks, book deals, fame, money, etc. on all sorts of level, from small to large. And like success in any other entertainment media, a measure of that success depends on the blogger's likeability; therefore,  it's tempting for a blogger to edit themselves into what amounts to a fictional character.

Julie Powell's likeability in Julie and Julia is one of the main reasons I enjoyed the book. She's a conversational writer, and most of the conversation was funny, even if some of the comedy was tinged with black. However, when the topic veered too far away from her attempts to master Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I found her sometimes whiny and annoying. One of the reasons, though, that I still liked and rooted for her in spite of that was because I liked her whole package as presented. She could be a whiny, drunken, flawed drama queen, true, but one with a swell husband, great friends, boho apartment, cool brother, and, especially, a wonderful marriage. I found the movie slow, so while watching it, I casually googled Julie's name to see what she'd been up to after achieving success. Apparently what she'd been up to was writing another memoir, but not another feel-good one about a loser who manages to win with the support of her adoring (and adored) childhood sweetheart/husband. The more recent one chronicles, among other things--many other things-- her 2 year obsessive S&M spiced affair with an ex with whom she had already cheated (the original affair predated the events in Julie and Julia and was never even hinted at in book or film) and suggests mental illness. (For truth in blogging purposes, I have not actually read the 2nd memoir, Cleaved.)

I guess I knew at the time I read the book that the Julie on the page was an edited version of the real Julie Powell, but even before I read about her affair(s), I had already realized how much the character of Julie had been edited from the book during the transition to the silver screen to make her, quite frankly, much nicer and more sympathetic. In fact, in an interview, Julie described the movie character as not being very simliar to herself---in fact as being  merely based upon her. All of this makes me wonder how much she had edited herself in the original blog. In other words, was movie Julie a photocopy of book Julie who was a photocopy of blog Julie who was a photocopy of real-life Julie--each one a slightly blurrier, less accurate version?

Let's face it--if your life intersects with your blog---it has to be edited. You may have to condense, tweek, etc. just to keep posts mercifully brief, and if you're writing a design/lifestyle blog, readers probably don't want details of your last fight with your spouse over his wandering eye.  But if part of your blog's appeal is its portrait of a happy family, should you let readers know that there is trouble in paradise?  Writing a blog is  like crafting a resume---how do you condense your life onto one page,  make it as flattering as possible,  omit the unneccssary, and still stay honest? You can be truthful without being accurate. But how much tweaking is kosher and how much tweaking is  too much?

Potential blogging rewards have increased.  Now, a successful blog with a large following, great hook, and good writing skills  can lead to fame, money, career success, etc. on a lot of levels, from reknown in the blogosphere to that distant shimmering beacon: a book deal. A blog is personal; therefore, its success depends partly on the author's ability to be likeable.  A successful blogger has to not only find a unique writing voice, but to present their personality in a way that is pleasing to the largest number  of readers. God knows bloggers can be touchy, so I'm not naming names , but many of the most successful design blogs have their author's personality, personal life, and a storyline as an integral part of their blog.  Lives are condensed like the plot of a Lifetime (television for women---and gay men) made-for-tv movie:  young couple buys fixer upper and decor hijinks begin or retired executive and beautiful blonde wife leave NYC to renovate farmhouse----oh wait, the last one is the plot of Green Acres. Because there can be real  material (if only for a handful of bloggers) rewards from a blog, it becomes tempting to spin everything...to accentuate the positive (and only the positive) and elimnate the negative--completely.   All stories can be spun in at least two ways.  Take  Gone With the Wind---Epic love story between star crossed soul mates set against the turbulence of a nation ripped apart by war or a tale of a lying narcissistic opportunist  and her partner in co-dependence whose fortune was built on the backs of the less fortunate, including slaves, convicts, her own sister, and two dead husbands?  If you include your personal life in your blog, how much spin is too much?  Should it be total honesty all the time? Does it even matter if your blog persona is artificial?

One good thing about blogging---if you can't personally resolve the issue in your own mind, you can always end it by questioning readers.  And by the way, if any one wants to offer a book deal, my schedule is open.

the real Julie Powell