Design Lust

Boy, am I in a strange mood these days. Who knew that your firstborn starting kindergarten could throw you for such a loop? But it's only been two days so far, so maybe I can't blame it all on school starting. The thing is, somehow, for the last month, starting around our trip to Hawaii, I feel like my childcare and mothering duties have ramped up even more. I'm not sure why this is so. I'm not even sure HOW this could be so. But man, I'm feeling very, very childcentric these days. Perhaps this is why I''m so drawn lately to images of austere, beautiful and lonely rooms, like the one pictured above. I would like to be the woman in that room, with all those beige books surrounding me, dressed in a long skirt and heels and having nothing more pressing to do than to idly leaf through a magazine. In my world, it's 99 degrees every day this week and I'm wearing jean shorts and flip-flops like it's a uniform. When I sit down for a few stolen minutes to leaf through my new issue of Domino, I'm likely to be surrounded by sippy cups and Matchbox cars and random pieces of pink plastic princess accessories. But in my mind, baby, I'm just like that blond sylph on her white carpet, and the only sound I can hear is the distant hum of the maid vacuuming the east wing.

Today Grace at Design*Sponge posted about the Conde Nast image store (and the image on her site is by far my favorite, but damn, she snagged it first.) Conde Nast is the publisher of many, many magazine and they now have an online shop where you can purchase (for a rather hefty price) vintage images and illustrations from the covers and pages of House & Garden. This is where I got my image above, and where I wasted many moments surfing through so many beautiful images of home and decor and food fabulousness that it put me into a rather cranky mood. Upon reflection, I recognized that the true name for this mood is envy. Envy and lust as I perused image after image of pristine and inspired decorating. Who are these people?, I thought. Who are these people, and how the hell do they have so much money to live like this? This is the same exact thought that runs through my mind any time we drive through a gorgeous, high falutin' neighborhood and I stare out at all the beautiful homes, practically licking the car windows and wondering: Who are these people, and what did they do to make all this money? Because, really, there just can't be THAT many doctors and lawyers in the world, can there?

Anyway. I've decided to spend the next week blogging about my own modest home, and the design choices and purchases I've made recently. Including, at long last, some pictures of the couch we ended up buying for the family room, after those posts many months ago chronicling my frustration at all the puffy couches sold at the big retail furniture stores.

I could be blogging about kindergarten, and one very excited and happy little girl, and while I'd love to bend your ear bragging about just how great and confident she was on that first morning, I'm going to stake my claim here on this blog and say this is my space, my own private design Idaho this week, and dammit, we're going to talk about the couch instead. See you tomorrow!