Advice on Interior Design

My interior decorator and I are not exactly having a meeting of the minds.  I’m definitely beginning to have second thoughts about his qualifications.  And his personality is a little difficult to swallow.  He’s moody and pushy, and somewhat unpredictable.

It’s not that I don’t like his ideas.  Sure, I’ve been wanting to make some changes for awhile.  And, he’s absolutely right that we need to get rid of the couches in the living room, and replace them with something less freshman-year-of-college.  It’s just his timeline does not quite mesh with mine.  And he keeps changing things without consulting me first.  He seems to think we have a bottomless decorating budget.

You might be thinking that we are made of money, too, since we have an interior decorator.  But you would probably change your mind if I mentioned that it is our bulldog who is doing the redecorating.

He shredded the bottom of our sofa, which we were planning to replace anyway.  He tore apart our carpet and ate the padding, but we also had plans to get rid of that.  Not anytime soon, but it was on the list.  Now, though, he’s starting to go off the reservation by destroying things we had no intention of replacing.  He decided to give the bottom of our ottoman the “distressed look”.  That was the one piece of furniture that my husband and I had taken months to find and agree upon.  I do not appreciate what our canine designer considers to be forward thinking.

His very silent partner, the mature golden retriever, does not seem to approve of his impulsive renovations, but she hasn’t done a whole lot to stop them.  All she does is greet us at the door, tail nervously wagging, obviously trying to distance herself from the most recent abstract redesign.  She is a traditionalist at heart.

Stevie’s* latest work resulted in lovely spots of black and green marker on the one section of carpet that we hadn’t planned to replace (ironically in the room I always insist on calling our “studio”, but to the other members of the household it is “our office”).  In case we had any doubts about the identity of the artist of this new canvas, Stevie thoughtfully dyed his own paws green during the creative process.

Apparently, we watched Nate Berkus too many times this summer, causing the poor dog to go into an accessorizing frenzy.  It was not enough to have one potted plant in the bedroom.  We needed green leaves and dirt strewn all over the floor to bring more nature into that part of the house.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you have the misfortune to visit our home anytime soon, please don’t judge our lack of flooring, furniture, or window coverings.  Let it be a lesson to you.  Do not let your dog watch T.V.

*Some names have been changed in order to protect the guilty.

Advertisement