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"Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear,
but forgetting where you heard it."
-Laurence J. Peter
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"Read not to contradict and confute,
nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."
-Francis Bacon
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Do you ever see any interior or garden magazines like
"Country Living",
"Victoria",
or similar publications? If you do, you may have noticed a trend which
has existed for years now to fill your house and garden with "distressed furniture".
No, it has nothing to do with the furniture having a mind or spirit of its own and suffering
from a typical symptom of our time - mental or emotional stress.
Instead, it is furniture which is first
sanded and painted, usually given several different colour layers, upon which it is sanded
again. As a result, lower paint layers show through the top layer, which is called a
"distressed effect".
Where do interior and garden designers get this idea? Oh, that's simple. A real trend in
exterior and garden design is to make things look old, even when they're not. Many people who
do not understand this trend still scrub their patio tiles to remove the stubborn green stuff
that builds up on them over time, because it makes them look neglected and renders them slippery.
Most people in my extended family don't like the green stuff. They hose the tiles down. They scrub them.
They do anything they have to in order to make them look as new as they can.
But in our own garden, we don't do that. We make it look "rustic" -
which simply means we don't bother scrubbing tiles.
Does that mean we're lazy? Or do we simply like the "rustic look"?
I'll leave you guessing for now.
There are those people who take things one step further. They're the ones who can sometimes be
seen washing their flower pots and patio tiles with buttermilk. Because, you see, that promotes
a quick build-up of a green layer. Some of these people create, in doing so, quite a contrast.
If they live in modern homes, they seem to have a garden belonging to a 100-year old cottage.
A more or less neglected cottage garden, that is. Because in order to achieve this look,
you either have to neglect things a bit. Or, if you're a real fanatic, you can actively cause
that effect to appear.
If you think that sounds ridiculous, think again about the furniture I mentioned. Can you
imagine buying a nice piece of furniture? Of course you can. But can you imagine subsequently
beating it with metal chains and rubbing sandpaper over it? With no intention whatsoever of
re-painting the sanded surfaces? And with only one purpose: making the piece look as old and
neglected as possible?
Well, I can imagine it. Because I've seen people do it. And many of the magazines my wife
buys (she is a great fan of the country look) show furniture that has been treated this way.
Now, I also like old furniture myself. I'm even more of a fanatic at visiting flea markets and
jumble sales than my wife. But I have one handicap as far as this trend is concerned: whenever
I buy a nice but neglected piece of old furniture, I get an irresistible urge to make it look
as good as possible. And yes, I do use sandpaper, but only before painting. I do not
remove the paint layers I put on. I cannot bring myself to do it. I do not beat the
furniture with metal chains. I just couldn't bear it. In fact I think I can safely say: distressing
my furniture would distress me too much. After all, what's worse: having undistressed furniture and
an undistressed owner, or distressed furniture and a distressed owner?
Or could it sometimes be the other way around? Perhaps people who are distressed themselves
already enjoy taking out their frustrations on their furniture? I believe there are
psychologists who recommend breaking dishes, throwing cushions, etc., to clients as some kind of
release for their stress. (There's even a film,
Analyze this,
with Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal, in which a psychiatrist's patient, a mobster,
shoots a cushion with his gun, and says that this does indeed feel good...)
But although I don't believe furniture has a soul or anything like that - with
which probably some sect somewhere would disagree - it just doesn't feel right to me to take my
distress out on my furniture. I think I'll just stick to the "normal" procedure: taking out
my distress on my family and friends, and treating my furniture as well as possible! :-))
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Disclaimer
This column is only for the purpose of entertaining, educating or
giving food for thought. Any persons, characters, countries, institutions or groups
mentioned are - as a matter of principle - fictional: any resemblance to existing ones is
purely by chance. ;-)
If the content of this column offends anyone, please accept the
columnist's apologies: no offense was intended.
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column noun
1a: a vertical arrangement of items on a page
b: a vertical section of a printed page
c: an accumulation arranged vertically
d: a department or feature (as of humor, sports,
literary reviewing, or gossip) in a newspaper or periodical, under a permanent
title and generally reflecting the writer's individual tastes and point of view.
2: a supporting pillar
3: a form, structure, or formation shaped like a column
(Webster's Dictionary.)
Relevant reads:
Easy Country: A New Approach to Country Style
Making Rustic Originals: Turning Furniture Finds into Folk Art
Rustic Garden Architecture
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