Cold Feet

I am a design-chicken. When it comes to color strategizing, room layout and flow, I just freeze up. I vascillate between images of myself as Bride-zilla, insistent that every wedding detail be autobiographical and original AND THEN myself as an insecure Freshman memorizing the outfits of the varsity girls. We are moving into this house and I am daunted at the walls to paint, the floors to smooth out and the crazy, anachronistic fixture choices of our predecessors. See, I'm not sure what I want but I AM sure of what I DON"T want: A stone fireplace with a rare and original iron fireback painted white with candy-cane red inside the grout-DON"T WANT. A 5ft. pocket door off the family room with an imitation brass doorknob drilled into it-DON'T WANT. But now, do I want a floor to ceiling pantry? Do I want a separate cupboard for baking? Do I want stripped oak floors restained or will painted pine do? Should the floors be uniform throuought the house? Should we spend the money to give the front porch a facelift? Should we use our IKEA veneer bookcases in the living room or relegate them to the play room?

Our home was built in 1910 or the early teens. We plan for this house to be the one that our kids become adults in. So, how do I reconcile my limited knowledge of W. Germantown period accuracy with the fact that I just want an inspiring space so we can raise our family? A friend whose decorating confidence I admire met me at the paint store. She was talking palettes that could appear grey or murky and I was amused at the color names on the strips. I found a book at Border's today about color families that evoke time periods and emotions. I felt like I was reading inane horoscopes. Needless to say, I did not buy the $50 book.

Like our wedding, which when I look at pictures, I see we were JUST kids. We stood there in clothes slightly too big for us standing up to promise GIANT promises. I feel like that now. Unlike then, though, I laugh much harder at myself. I see how in over our heads we are. I see the ways we are finite and God must be trusted to be INFINITE. Today I had Clara on my back and all of us were cleaning up our front yard. Our boys were sweaty and sort-of helping. Veiled in sweat and bugbites, I looked at Geoff and he said to me, "We labor out of rest. We don't labor to rest." I understood this in a new way. We don't work to be like the neighbors or our endowed friends. We work out of assurance of our sweet rest in Christ. His abundant and infinite comfort. His approval which has been gained already. We work out of the pleasure and the joy of a life of freedom. I want a home that communicates this. There will be no fast dancing to keep up with the Bang and Olafsen stereos or the signed print from Darwin's journal (two things my favorite poetry professor's home had). There will be much playing, much tinkering, much sloppy gardening, and tons of laughter. There will be cat-scratched upholstery and there will be mismatched floor boards and a piano with prosthesis legs. There will be yummy, unfussy food probably NOT cooked on a Viking range but there will be plenty of it and our door will be always be open.