We were forced to redo our bathroom recently. (The tub cracked, and next thing we knew, we were getting a new floor.) I picked up an issue of Renovation Style magazine and was thoroughly creeped out.
First, who are all these people with the money to do this kind of renovation? This is not "I repainted the cabinets," it's "I raised the ceilings, gutted the bathroom and added a new wing." I know it's a big country, but there are *bunches* of these magazines, and they publish continuously. Has everybody with an income over 80k been approached?
Second, here's what I kept finding:
"Closed storage cabinets...work well for hiding lockable file drawers."
"A small cabinet can hide an electrical outlet."
"The beaded-board window seat hides a recycling center."
"...the kitchen, an efficient area planned to accommodate--and hide--all the appliances."
"The use of built-ins throughout the house is key to containing clutter..."
"When clutter is hidden..."
These articles use the word "hide" and its variants so often that one starts to feel the ghost of Papa Freud. People who are so eager to "hide" their recycling bins and "hide" their shoes ("Lori Leistico suggests keeping shoes and boots...in...drawers under a bench") and "hide" their file cabinets and "hide" their electrical outlets start to look like they're really interested in "hiding" themselves--from themselves. (The obsession with "hiding" and "containing" "clutter," that vague, ominous concept, is particularly telling.)
Okay...people have clutter because they *use* stuff. Furthermore: shoes, recycle bins, outlets, and cabinets, not to mention computers and TVs (always the first to get shut away in armoires when designers get hold of you), *are* the stuff of modern lives. Why don't we want to look at, and see, what we are and how we live?
I'll say it right now: my house is a pit. Don't even think about my work room; it is not just a pit, it is a *Sarlacc* pit. I have enough "clutter" in one corner to send one of these "I must hide my sin recycle bins" people to the nuthouse, pulling out their hair and screaming "Out, out, damn'd spot" all the way.
And when I read these articles, with their constant harping on "hide!" "contain!" "simple! sublime! subtle! silence!" (from the article "With Peace in Mind," that was mantra of one family's home renovation--and you want to scream "It isn't even grammatical! It should be 'simple sublime subtle SILENT' or 'SIMPLICITY SUBLIMITY SUBTLETY silence!!'")....
....I am so, so glad.
