Sissy's Room

So our Sissy is now 11. She is on that tender cusp between little girl and snotty teenager and I’m desperately trying to keep the snot out. Sis has always been a mamma’s girl. Without question, she adores her father, but she has an inherent need to be connected to me physically and spiritually, so we foster that. My mother would tell you she is exactly like me from her quick temper, to her endless collections, to her always-game-for-an-adventure attitude, to her eager drive to see things through. With that, I’m going to side track our tale for a bit and share a relevant slice of the present…

Last week, she was eager to “do something” with her room. Her brother just had a cool man-chair added to his room to help encourage high school studying, and she, naturally, was feeling short changed. I told her I’m not discussing anything about her room until it was CLEANED UP, and surprisingly, she didn’t fight me on it. She was really angling… It should be noted that in Sissy’s 12’x12’ish room, she has a desk, chair, narrow chest of drawers, 32” round pedestal table, end table, her bed, and Tuna-the-cat’s bed.

Finally she announced that her room was vacuum ready and with tape measure in hand, she ordered me up to discuss rearrangement options. She was bent on rearranging things herself, was desperate to move her massive bed around, sling her dresser and desk to opposite ends, add a man-chair of her own and bring in a dance floor. She did not like me telling her it’s not gonna work. We pulled the tape, we monkeyed with curtains, we discussed balance, and finally I had to pull out my Professional Interior Designer card and tell her (in the same gentle terms I tell all of my clients things they don’t want to hear), that there is no other way to arrange her room for more floor space and that what she has is the very best way to arrange her room. (It should also be noted, too, that through all of this I’m laughing to myself as I’m rolling my eyes at her—after all, this is my determined little thing—MY most recent sculpture—the same girl who for Christmas two years ago wanted crown molding in her room!) She was crushed, though. Life isn’t fair, Jims gets EVERYTHING, and she never gets anything, lalala…

Once she finished her tirade, we sat down on her bed, and with her silky brown head in my lap, I reminded her that her corner desk was mine growing up where I did all my homework, wrote in my diary, and read my Nancy Drews while I sat in the same old maple almost Windsor-backed chair that used to be Grandpa Evans’ kitchen chair when he was a boy. Then I told her how her side table came from the radio cabinet makers in Aluksne from our first home, and how I fell in love with the chest of drawers from Latvia crafted by a friend who made new furniture from recycled antiques scattered around the Baltics. I asked her if she remembered when she was six and we found her pretty, shiny, black round pedestal table at a funny furniture store in the town where her Grandnan lives. I reminded her about how I stumbled upon her fantastic Tord Boontje die-cut light fixture while in Paris with her Aunt Lisas, and how I had to have it for her because it was called “Misdummer Light” even though it meant I had to hand carry it all the way home. And then I told her the story of her gorgeous bed...a story that will have to be continued tomorrow…