This week was vacation days ... Spend money like it was water. At least it feels that way when my wife is involved. So, one of the stops--my desire--was a wood furniture store.
Everything (I assume) was handmade, or within 192 copies of original. I am walking on curly maple flooring, the same stuff that's in the furniture. Cheap old doors in the shop are surrounded by the same maple. Suddenly. Really. Cheap. Both the flooring and the furniture made of same looked almost Highest Architectural Record Ghetto.
The furniture is what I see in the couple of woodworking magazines we dog ear. That same furniture really looks a lot like the fake stuff in the hotel room. Bespoke particle board. My fingers crawl over the orange peel stipple of surfaces not rubbed out. I make a mental note to never let anything I make escape without the smooth glass-like feel of finished surfaces. But, maybe, the finish is the same stuff used to turn floors into 25-year diamond surfaces where sand paper is a joke.
The day after we see the furniture, my wife says something very deep, something that separates her from the dumb blond we see everywhere. She didn't like the furniture. It was "too plain". It needed the decorations we saw a couple doors down the street.
The hotel rooms were the same. The furniture was too dull. It needed more than a television. Had I been able, my favorite pillow, instead of the four provided, would be joined by my favorite mattress. That furniture looked more "homey" as we divested items from bags and suitcases.
Sometimes, timeless feels like the next stop is Goodwill ... in a good way.
Everything (I assume) was handmade, or within 192 copies of original. I am walking on curly maple flooring, the same stuff that's in the furniture. Cheap old doors in the shop are surrounded by the same maple. Suddenly. Really. Cheap. Both the flooring and the furniture made of same looked almost Highest Architectural Record Ghetto.
The furniture is what I see in the couple of woodworking magazines we dog ear. That same furniture really looks a lot like the fake stuff in the hotel room. Bespoke particle board. My fingers crawl over the orange peel stipple of surfaces not rubbed out. I make a mental note to never let anything I make escape without the smooth glass-like feel of finished surfaces. But, maybe, the finish is the same stuff used to turn floors into 25-year diamond surfaces where sand paper is a joke.
The day after we see the furniture, my wife says something very deep, something that separates her from the dumb blond we see everywhere. She didn't like the furniture. It was "too plain". It needed the decorations we saw a couple doors down the street.
The hotel rooms were the same. The furniture was too dull. It needed more than a television. Had I been able, my favorite pillow, instead of the four provided, would be joined by my favorite mattress. That furniture looked more "homey" as we divested items from bags and suitcases.
Sometimes, timeless feels like the next stop is Goodwill ... in a good way.