It Has To Be In The Genes...

"How does this look? Where should I put this? What do you want near the door? Does this lamp look good on this table? This wall needs more pictures. No, No! Right under the window so it'll get the light".

Sounds like someone's moving in, eh? Not necessarily. It could be any day in the life of some people. You could take a room that is 4X8 with only one door and no windows, put a sofa and an end table in it with a lamp on the end table, with no room to turn around and a week later the sofa would be on the other side of the room and the end table would be at the other end with 1/8 of an inch between it and the far wall. Don't look for the lamp!

It's in the genes; it has to be! Some people just have to move things around...change things occassionaly to stay sane. Or, at least, to stay satisfied...for a moment.

I once owned a house in Orland. It was about 1300 square feet. Not too big but big enough for the two of us. It had three bedrooms and two baths. Our bedroom, the Master Bedroom, was quite large compared with the other two.I immediately removed the two sliding closet doors from one of the extra rooms and converted that room into a study.

It contained a full stereo on a large cabinet set into the doorless closet. The stereo was a seven component (Receiver, dual cassette deck, vcr, turntable, 8 track player/recorder, karioke cd/ld player and a Nintendo player) set with a tv added.

On one wall was my pc desk with the pc, monitor and printer; on another wall was a bookcase for about a hundred of my most cherished books and on the part of a wall by the closet door was a place for my cds, records and vhs tapes. In front of the bookcase was my keyboard. It was a Yamaha 500.

By the door, along a short wall, was a leather love seat sofa Donnas' Dad made. It was very comfortable. In short, the room was perfect.

Now for the rest of the house, ie, Donnas' Domain.

She walked into the house for the first time and right away started arranging things in her mind. This was before we even moved in.

We got moved in and she told me where she wanted things as we carried them in.

The living area and dining area is one long room with the kitchen at the dining area end, separated by a long counter. It is a very nice setup.

The only drawback is the lack of wall space in the living area. That didn't faze Donna.

When we finished moving all the furniture in, the house/furniture layout was perfect. Donna has the eye of an expert decorator.

I was glad about that because we didn't spend much time moving things around. She did it all right the first time.

At that time, I was driving a truck from Orland to Medford, Oregon and back every day and was home each night. Our new home was a nice place to come back to. It was very comfortable and homey.

A week later I went to work as usual and made the trip to Medford and back with no trouble. When I got back, I parked the truck at the motel where the turn driver from LA stayed while I was gone and turned the truck over to him.
I hopped into my pickup and drove home. I walked up to the door and went inside.

I immediately did an about face and hurried back out the door, thinking I had stopped at the wrong house.
"Nope" I nope-ed, "this's the right place," I opined in my mind. I walked back in just in time to see the very large grin on the face of my betrothed.

"How do you like it," she questioned liltingly. I calmly perused the living room and then the dining area.
Being the intellectual giant I am, I told her I loved it unmeasureably. She retained her smile and we, as we would many more times, again got used to our new home.

I was reluctant to go into our bedroom but finally forced my self to do it. Luckily, there was only one way our huge solid pine bedroom set with an amoire and triple dresser (and a treadmill and rowing machine) could possibly fit into the room.

Well, that was the first of many times our home was re-invented. I could never count on exactly when the place would be re-arranged but I was always confident it would be.

When we sold the house in 2002 to move into an adult park, my study on Canella Drive was exactly as I had made it in 1989 when we moved in. Even the piece of a toothpick I accidently dropped by the stereo that first day was still in the same place. It, as well as everything else in that room, hadn't moved an inch!

Like I say,"It's all in the genes!"

Later...