Empty corner in living room waiting for something, but what?
This was the first year in as long as I can remember that we didn’t travel for Christmas. What that meant was that for the first time ever, we could have a real tree!
Growing up in New Mexico, our trees, even the years we had quite nice trees, were always spindly. Sometimes, we even had to drill holes into the trunk to add more branches to fill it out a bit.
But, an Oregon Christmas fir tree doesn’t have those problems. It is a very large and full tree and requires quite a bit of space. So, we rearranged our living room furniture to put it in this corner. We put all our ornaments on it, and they barely made a dent, although I liked the way that looked — sort of like a random tree in the wilderness that someone decorated.
Christmas tree in corner
When we took the tree down, we decided we liked the furniture arrangement we’d created to make space for the tree, so we decided to leave it, and now we have the empty corner.
Or, a design dilemma/opportunity. What should we put there?
I must confess that the corner is not always this empty. There is a piece of art that normally hangs on the wall and will go back up. We call it the folk art needlepoint, and it’s quite large, and we bought it in Paris at the Port de Vanves flea market. To get it back, we had to raid a dumpster near where we staying to collect cardboard boxes to make a flat box for it to fit in oversized luggage on the plane. (We had it framed on our return.)
Folk art needlepoint from Port de Vanves flea market
What, of course, would now be perfect in the corner would be the vintage and in-quite-good-shape white leather Wassily chairs we also saw at the same flea market and were tempted to buy, but decided would be a big pain to get back if we were also going to try to manage the folk art needlepoint. (We’ve long since regretted that decision about the chairs.)
I suppose I could see the empty corner as a metaphor for 2014. What will I fill the corner with? What will I fill my year with? Right now, I’m thinking of putting a chair, such as a wing chair or a Papa Bear chair, and a small table for holding a book and a tea cup. That’s the kind of thing that makes me happy, which, of course, is what I should try to achieve for 2014 — se my time and resources to make sure my life is filled with the things that make me happy.
Happy New Year!