A woman`s soul is bared in her home.
It may sound sexist, but I contend that women furnish the essence of a family`s home. And it`s not such a sorry thing. It is powerful.
When I browse in fabric stores, carpet or wallpaper outlets, after all, it`s not men I see. I am surrounded by other women making studied choices over chintz or stripes, this fringe or that valance, this border or that painted technique. If there are any men there, I suspect it is against their wills.
And now, because my husband Walter and I are house-shopping, we have trudged across some three dozen summations of those studied choices. On our house hunts, where we barge in with our notebooks and our listing sheets, I can glimpse the style and substance of the woman behind each household.
She is fastidious; she is faddish; she lets her children decorate their rooms. Her linen closet is fit for an army inspection. She is too busy to care. She is the kind of cook who uses all the counter space. Or she uses only the microwave. She exposes herself to strangers like me, who are eager to move in and erase all traces of her.
There was the neat Colonial of the elderly woman crippled by arthritis who explained that she cannot use the upstairs: She sleeps in the den.
There was the brick bungalow of the couple Walter and I called the ”L.L. Beans.” The house was catalog-perfect. It smelled of potpourri, with fresh cream-colored paint throughout, gold-framed lithographs and silk pillows.
And there was the frame house with a newly added family room where a babysitter was spooning spinach from a warm jar into a small boy in his highchair.
I`ve met the eyes of these home-owners apologetically, not wanting to judge them, not wanting to cluck my tongue at metallic wallpaper, a chipped sink or dark paneling. Wouldn`t I, too, be vulnerable if they saw the border in our bathroom that`s starting to peel? But that is the cycle of ownership. Choices for sale are fair game.
I am fortunate and grateful that my husband has a resigned attitude about the way our house looks. I relish my role as dictator. It saves time in returning sample books, and if the bedroom border doesn`t match I have only myself to blame.
The only aggressive interior stance Walter has taken in our almost six years of marriage has been on the choice of sofa bed for the family room. He insisted it be one of those oversize, over-pillowed comfortable couches. I withdrew my plea for a sleek Art Deco number, and-I`m not likely to repeat this-Walter`s choice is the most comfortable piece of furniture we own.
In our new house, it will be up to me to hang on its walls the watercolors I have painted. I will place our sons` photographs in the living room. I will assume the rights over a new address, with an appreciative nod to the woman who came before me. And the house will become mine. That is, until another woman comes along.
