Screw neutral. Let’s paint the walls gold and hang giant school maps from the 1950’s on them, and then let’s call it the eclectic boho gypsy decorating style.
My family mocks me, for my bold use of the color yellow, my relentless devotion to butterflies, and my nutty love of big maps. Tough. Decorating should reflect the inner spirit of those that live in a house. My inner spirit is a giant yellow butterfly in the shape of Greenland.
I don’t rent my house. My walls belong to me—mostly. So I hang things on the walls that make me happy: hats, maps, nests, teeth, bones, baskets, skulls, quotes, words, and a Maori dance skirt. I do not use colors of paint that can be described without an explanation point. And books. Books everywhere.
I wouldn’t even know what the words eclectic, boho, or gypsy meant if it wasn’t for books. Thanks books.
My children are at an age when they are making children. Those children then grow and fill up the houses they live in, causing the buying and selling those homes. Their tales of having to turn their houses into neutral tan, non-threatening palettes of blah for potential buyers makes me sad. I understand the theory. Tan goes with everything—and is therefore neutral. Tan makes people think they won’t have to paint just yet. Tan is non-threatening.
Tan is the underside of a leach—a neutral, non-threatening leach. For some reason people are comforted by that when they buy a house.
Buying and selling is not as much fun as being a wall hoarder, which is what my daughter’s husband calls her. She likes to hang picture frames on the wall full of old ballet toe shoes and mod podge . . . everything.
Hey! That’s not wall hoarding; that’s her own kind of beautiful.
It’s nice when the buying and selling is over and the living begins: even if your decorating style resembles the inside of a tambourine tied with gypsy scarves.
Linda (Butterfly High) Zern
