Monday, November 7, 2011

Crooked Little House

Casual in The Red Room
Casual in The Red Room

The walls aren't straight. The floors aren't straight. The tub in the bathroom struggles a bit to drain because the floor is almost as tilted as the tub. We sleep downstairs, in part, because we're a tiny bit concerned that one day the top of the house might decide to pay a friendly visit to the bottom of the house.

I'm talking about my new home, as of October 1. It's charming and adorable in that way that century-old homes can be, with a spider-web-filled basement and not quite enough electrical outlets, but fun architectural moldings around the archways downstairs and a cozy wrap-around porch for warm weather neighboring.

The upstairs was clearly an afterthought: attic space enclosed when someone made a bit of cash, all the walls tilt inward along the roof slope, and possibly done before building codes were quite as rigorous as they hopefully would be today.

None of this concerns you, except the part where I hung up rope lights in the new Fuckatorium for diffused lighting, set up my desk, set up the couch, and then saw... wait... why doesn't the rope light line up parallel at the top of the screen? And why is one end of the couch further away than the other end from the rope light?

This investigation led me to discover out that the floor is subtly crooked enough that the picture doesn't line up square unless I prop up one side of my desk. Oh, hi, door wedges, I'm so glad now that I unpacked you already, and that you no longer have to live in the junk drawer.

The Fuckatorium 3.0 is not quite ready for a prime time video just yet. But the picture above was indeed taken tonight in the new space. It is 9 feet wide at the floor, 18 inches wide at the ceiling, 22 feet long, and painted a deep, sexy, brick red. We call it "The Red Room". It is a crazy, insane, bizarre space. Perfect for me, don't you think?

I just showed my husband the tilt in the floor. He helped me figure out the most level place for the couch. Then he said, "Great. I have a wife with rare neurological vertigo, and I picked out a crooked house for her to live in..." and then looked a little sad. So I recited the poem "There Was A Crooked Man" while getting the dogs to dance along to the rhythm of the words. Now it will be stuck in our minds forever when we think of this place, I'm sure.

I have noticed that sometimes I have to figure out if I'm dizzy or if the floor is just funny right in that spot. It's oddly comforting when it's the floor. My brain might eventually just go "awwww fuck it" and stop trying to balance me altogether..

Most importantly, the rope lights + the red walls make me feel all cozy and dreamy and sultry in here. The decorating concept this time around is "bare minimum" - I won't do anything in The Red Room except be Galiana. My non-lingerie clothes, my guest bed, my jewelry, etc is all elsewhere this time around. The Red Room is just for video and pictures and phone calls.

I look forward to you dropping by!

No comments:

Post a Comment