26
September 1999
Everyone's talking about living space. Hayley is marching Todd out to Newton to look at houses. Erika just had a dining room table delivered yesterday. Ramona and Dave are looking for a different primary address to compliment their weekend house in Maine. Jay is making a swinging bench for his balcony overlooking the treetops. Jeremy and Kristin are now first-time home owners, offering impromptu seminars for those of us who equate buying a house to interplanetary exploration. And my boss, Michael, flipped through the IKEA catalogue at work on Friday afternoon to show me his idea of the perfect dresser. When I was holed up in my windowless Stadium single in college, I used to dream about my first apartment. It always looked like the apartment where Tom Cruise lived in A Few Good Men, no doubt created in the midst of my law school/ Washington DC phase. The first floor of a brownstone, built-in bookshelves, a bay window in front overlooking a tiny, fenced-in garden. And this imaginary chair in a small, windowed room: oversized, plush, and a wee-bit tattered. Ever since I was small, I've been obsessed with furniture displays. I'm mesmerized by the way an entire detailed lifestyle can be created in the tiniest space, right around the corner from something completely opposite. One evening with Michael in LA, we found ourselves near IKEA, half an hour before they closed. Without much discussion, we ran into the store and invented a game out of thin air. We ran from one living room room display to another until we each found a favorite. Next it was on to bedrooms. Then offices. Bathrooms. Finally kitchens. When, miracle of miracle, we chose the same room, we celebrated by living there together for five minutes as if it were our very own home. Run Lola Run meets The American Dream. The smallest things turn space into home. For me it's the coffee table with a stained-glass top that my mother bought at a garage sale. The postcards that hang against the wall from clotheslines and clothespins. A cold cement floor painted hunter green and doused with random splashes of red, periwinkle, and lavender. I can't imagine a location scout wanting it for Tom Cruise's next film, but it's a zillion humble dreams turned into the reality of three-dimensional space. And home. What turns your space into home? biggest kiss... ...kristen |
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