Wallpaper Dreams

(Copyright of image belongs to me! Corrie)

Peculiarly enough while I sit here trying to figure out how to start writing this week's blog post, fragments of Van Halen's version of Pretty Woman are running through my head. Now that won't sound so random when I say that every morning while I'm getting ready for work I listen to a rock station out of Green Bay, WI on the Internet and subsequently get one song or another played during the time I'm listening stuck in my head for the remainder of the day.

This leads me to a side note, while I was at school during the last spring semester one of my roommates kept complaining of songs she heard getting stuck in her head. So one night while we were sitting in our cramped living room eating dinner together I told her she has a "radio in her head", and since then the term has stuck and she uses it occassionally. Now I'm starting to think I have a radio in my head! I mean, do any of you have that same problem where you hear songs in the morning - or anytime during the day - and then they're in your head all day replaying over and over again like a tape stuck in the tape deck of your car? And it doesn't have to be a song you know either, I've gotten songs I don't know stuck in my head just the same, and those are the worst because it'll be the same refrain replaying, like a roll of film that is actually the same segment of video for four hours straight, and there's nothing you can do to turn it off, or remove your behind from the seat.

Well, that was an interesting diversion wasn't it? You're probably wondering what that has to do with the title of today's post, not the mention the picture, and I promise you! I'm getting to that. In my meandering way, I'm getting to it.

You see, since I first realized I love Victorian homes - and therefore flamboyant, oversized prints - I've been fantasizing of the type of wallpaper prints I can layer my future Victorian house with. And, ta-da!, this is where the picture in today's post comes in! But just as quickly, another diversion. You see, I have this nagging, impuslive habit to buy things according to their color, print or style instead of their functionality, Which, I'm learning, is why I should never go shoe shopping alone. Because I'll just end up with a pair of oh-so-cute strappy, wedge-heel green and tan flower-adorned sandals that are in fact ruthlessly murdering sandals that cut into the insides of my feet beside my big toes and rub  the skin raw there. I've even put those non-slip rubber pad things on my sandals but those don't seem to help either. Well, I didn't start this rambling diversion to complain about a pair of murderous sandals that I bought - although do beware the next time you're in the mindset to buy a pair of cute, summery sandals - I started it to talk about the picture in today's post, which is actually the print on my wallet I got from Target roughly two years ago, or maybe a year? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I not only bought the wallet because it was one of those flat ones so I didn't have to fold my money and spare myself the embarassment of pulling it all out and unfolding it just to see how much I have, but also...because of the print! Like I said before, I've selected many an article of clothing merely because of its print or color - and yet, with that said, I still have no red clothing! - and thus was what drew me to the wallet I still have today. In fact, I believe the moment I saw it I thought what a beautiful wallpaper it would make. Now you might be thinking, isn't it a little dark with the black background? And I would say...no! Because for some inexplicable reason the darker the woodwork, and the darker the wallpaper...the happier I am!

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not any "Victorian gothic" offshoot or anything like that, I simply like deep, rich woodwork and dark wallpaper. And I also know that the darker the wallpaper, the smaller a room feels, but frankly? Whenever I picture my future Victorian house I don't imagine pristine white walls or Heaven forbid! white painted woodwork! I picture sinuous Victorian-era couches and wooden furniture with deep cherry wooden trim and plush, deep red cushions, or maybe a rich purple or golden yellow. I don't care much for white...in general. Except in my future kitchen would I make an exception with the color of the cabinets, but only off-white or cream. I can't stand pure-white cabinets.

Yet, as my fantasies become more indepth where my future Victorian house is concerned, I fear that the interior designer in me will prove to me much like my mind in the way of my writing habits and just go on a whim, constantly riding the edge of that crumbling, narrow country road, head flung back to a great Peter Cetera tune, unawares of the car's haltings and skiddings as it eyes the perilously tilting shoulder rolling and bouncing away from the relative solidness of the road's asphalt in mockingily gay tumbles of rocks and dust. Then again, if that mindset has worked for my novella writing - well, that could be debated now couldn't it? :) - why couldn't it work for my interior design pinings? I mean, no one but myself might find it interesting and that it works as a whole, but I believe there would be something endlessly exciting and mesmerizing about funneling random, tumbling ideas into the glaring, unblinking light of life.

Which is why I really want to pick up a house designing game that I spotted at Best Buy a couple years ago, only problem is it's a hundred dollars, and unfortunately I don't have cash like that just lying around! For many years I have been trying to put the vague designs in my head onto paper, whether it be through drawings or novellas. And let me tell you, the novellas have been far more successful than the drawings! I love drawing houses, but I have major perspective issues, and until I can either A) Take some drawing classes on specifically houses or buildings or B) Get a drafting table I believe the problem will never be fixed. And perhaps my yearnings to translate interior room designs through my stories by way of rambling, dilapidated Victorian - and sometimes non-Victorian! homes - is part of the explanation for why I habitutally insert so much detail into my novellas, because I yearn to communciate every detail of every room to my readers. But of course I'm writing like that for myself, not for them, or for you either!

So, you might ask, are these blog posts for us, the readers? or for you? the blog poster? Well essentially I began this blog because I had to, continued it because I wanted to, and write about what I do because I enjoy putting my ideas out there for others with shared interests to communciate, and also to see what others have to post in their own blogs. Because blogs, like houses, are highly personalized and reflect so much of their owners, whether they know it or not. Which - insert another self-reflective question here! - is perhaps why I love houses, and old houses at that, so much? After all, historical houses have had many centuries to collect and absorb the good and bad of many personalities, and like an old favorite coat of your grandpa's in the mothball closet, it too carries memories and stories with it, some blatant on the surface, and others buried deep, waiting for you to discover, to step over the threshold, whether it be real or figurative.