HGTV Dreaming

If you could see my office right now you would call the police. Because nothing can be this messy and still be legal. I am semi-sharing it with Amanda as it was her room when she lived here full time. Now that she is here part-time it has become a depository of sorts - a depository for the overflow of stuff that lives with a 21 year old girl. (Woman?) Anyway, that, plus all my work stuff and a magazine mailing of 200+ and this very small room is in desperate need of organization and cleaning. And a decorator.

So naturally I decided to write.

I look around at my home, knowing that it holds tremendous potential. I can almost imagine it - but just almost. And this is cause for tremendous frustration for me. Because I have great taste! And I have a great sense of space. But I can-NOT put it together. And I cannot tell you how much time and money I have spent making mistakes.

Enter HGTV - the aspirational and extremely addictive (like heroin) basic cable network and I become a woman obsessed. I watch program after program watching designers and stagers, landscapers and architects create - within a half hour - effortless and perfect, amazing solutions to chronically failed rooms and landscapes just like mine. I am exhilarated with the before and after photos and feel a sense of hope well within me. I get out my computer and search for items I just saw - plot and plan, imagine and dream and then...

And then, just like heroin, I crash and burn. I cannot really make it happen. It's not just that I lack the funds, I lack the eye. And let the sulking begin!

Case in point: "Big Blue". Big Blue is an 8 foot blue leather couch that owns my smallish family room. Why on earth, you may ask, did I buy a big, blue, leather couch? Well I'll tell you. Because 10 years ago, leather was the only textile that made sense in a home of 4 kids, 2 dogs and Bob and all their careless shenanigans. And blue, because at the time I bought it, I thought I wanted "french country". So I had blue and I had yellow. And a smattering or red. But it looked awful and yellow gave way to uncountable colors that tried to pair with Big Blue. So why not chuck the couch? Well, because I was right about the leather - it has lasted. And apparently it will survive for generations. As it should. Because Big Blue is actually made of gold. At least that was what I paid for it. So throwing it out would be a bit like throwing out the hideous brooch your aunt left you that is worth a fortune.

Big Blue has cousins in every room of the house and I am at a complete loss for how to fix them. I watch design show after design show and know that it should be easy - but it isn't. I long for one of the HGTV crews to pull up to my house and give me a makeover.

I love the idea of framed family photos in the hallway. So I did that and after having them up for a month or so, I see I have way too many. But I spent a bloody fortune on frames. Everything is almost right. But not "almost right" enough to almost work.

To say nothing of the landscape. When your front yard is a nearly vertical slope straight to the house it requires nothing short of a $60,000 landscape professional or a miracle to make it work. And I do not have $60,000. So I'm praying.

Yes, I'm praying. Praying that one of the people from "Curb Appeal" or "Designer's Challenge" or "Divine Design" will read my letter, filled with humility and need, and send a crew to help me. And maybe give me the courage to put "Big Blue" on Craig's List.