Rearranging

When I was a kid, I used to love to rearrange my bedroom furniture.  I think the first time I did it - alone, mind you - I was about 9 or 10 years old.  There I was, pulling my porcelain dolls off my dresser and my toys off of the little metal shelf in my room, piling everything on my bed, and doing my best to scoot the heavy wood furniture around the room.  It wasn't easy (I had heavy wood antique furniture), but every time I did it, it always made me feel like my room was brand new... like life was fresh and new again!

One summer in high school, I found a spot on the carpet that had come loose from the trim.  Lifting the hideous green carpet (which was a holdover from the previous owners, and which had just never been replaced) I discovered that it was covering finished hard wood, like the hard wood in the hallway, and in my parents' room, and in the guest room (in hindsight, it wasn't exactly shocking that my bedroom also had a finished hard wood floor).  The green carpet had always bothered me immensely - it didn't match my wallpaper, and was pretty grungy - so the fact that there was a hard wood floor underneath was completely irresistible.  I waited until a day when my mom was out of the house and my dad was at work.  I moved the furniture to the middle of the room, then worked my way around the walls, pulling the carpet free from the trim.  Once I had it completely freed along the edges, I moved all of the furniture to one side, and rolled up the carpet and underpad on the other side of the room; I then made enough space - piece by piece - to release the carpet from underneath the furniture.  I had to use my dad's heavy scissors to cut the carpet into pieces so I could carry it, but I'll never forget the look on my brother's face as I dragged huge rolls of my carpeting and underpadding through the family room and out the door to the curb.  Once I'd swept up the dust and cleaned the floors with Endust (literally spraying the floor then wiping it with a rag), my room felt so much more open, more airy... and decidedly less green.

I still find rearranging the furniture or making changes to the house to be refreshing, and even therapeutic.  In our house in Cleveland, the master bedroom had grey (GREY!) wallpaper that looked like storm clouds, complete with little silver lightning strike accents.  The master bath featured black and white prison-striped wallpaper (I had to wonder whether the previous owners used their bathroom wallpaper as a metaphor for their marriage).  Getting up in the morning was like waking in a rainstorm then heading into prison to take a shower.  It was horrible, and SO not a good way to start the day!  The day that I finally tore the first strip of that appalling paper from the wall was one of the best days ever... the satisfying "whish" the paper made as it peeled free still brings a smile to my face. When we bought our house in Cincinnati, it featured the most hideous wallpaper known to mankind, and the faded, ratty-ass carpet smelled like mothballs and Aspercreme.  Before we moved in, we hired a guy (nicknamed "Skinny Dude") to remove all of the wallpaper and repaint, and we replaced all of the carpeting.  ALL OF IT.  It was wonderful.

This afternoon, I rearranged our living room to accommodate a new African drum that we bought from a friend who is moving to China (thanks, Em... I will seriously miss you!).  Of course, the grand piano had to stay put, but I moved the chair and lamp to different spots, and brought a wicker and wrought iron set of drawers in from the foyer as an added touch.  The room felt new, and by association, I somehow felt new as well.

I've been doing a lot of rearranging lately.  Here and there in the house... here and there in my office... and here and there in how I think about things, too.  I'm getting rid of as much of the mental grey and prison striped wallpaper and grungy green carpet as I can.  When I find something that I just can't get rid of - something structural, or something that is too firmly fixed to completely jettison - I'm trying to find a new purpose for it, a new way to use it, or a new place to put it.

Sometimes you just need a fresh start.  Sometimes you just need a little... rearranging.