It was time to take my own advice
It was time to take my own advice
It’s easy to recall special memories associated with photos, scents and music. But with furniture? I didn’t really think that was possible. Now I know better – and I understand how home décor can suffer when you’re overly sentimental.
We all tend to hold onto furniture pieces way past their usefulness. As an interior designer, I have helped many clients freshen up their homes by replacing old furniture with new pieces. In my own home, however, I was reluctant to heed some of the recommendations that I’d freely passed along to others
I a recently moved from my home of 16 years. Although we were very comfortable and settled in, it was time to start anew, freshen things up.
The first stage of moving required putting on my interior designer’s hat. As I’ve done with many clients over the years, I selected some furniture pieces that simply needed to go.
“That looks tired, that looks dated, give it away,” was my mantra but I found myself arguing with my inner soul. “I love that, we’ve traveled a lot of life together,” was the counter-argument.
This type of internal debate went on and on, for almost every piece of not quite with it furniture. It seemed the more dated a piece was, the tighter my grip.
The conflict peaked with my 20-year-old bedroom set, finely crafted of waxed knotty pine with very oversized posts. Just a glimpse of these wooden pieces transported me back to our first days in the Colorado mountains. Sure, the set was tired– but there was a certain nostalgia that overwhelmed me.
It was then that I realized it was much more than a bedroom set. It represented fond memories that could never be replaced. We bought the set shortly after moving from New York to Colorado, discovering our mountain connection through furniture.
One time, in the middle of the night, the dresser cracked, awakening us with a noise so loud it sounded like a bomb. A few weeks later, a furniture maker replaced the dresser, explaining to us the effects of high altitude on furniture, not to mention human skin (yikes!).
At that point, I knew we couldn’t keep any of the old pieces. Their time had come and gone. And I had finally come to grips with not wanting them anymore. That old furniture represented a lot of why we were moving in the first place.
I have no regrets. Actually, we could have tossed out more of our aging possessions. And when I look at our home makeover, I feel energized. The new décor is fantastic and we love it.
Once in a while, however, a little sadness creeps in. I think about my knotty pine bedroom set and all the great things that happened in 1994. I moved to the mountains of Colorado, we bought our first house, I met my best friend.
And I bought a whole lot of great new furniture.
This is from a column I write for The Vail Daily Newspaper.
