I Want My Stuff!

I generally think of myself as not very materialistic, I drive a real old car – if I drive one, now I don’t have a car, just a borrowed bike – designer clothing means nothing to me and I rather improvise with something creative that just hang something big, expensive and ugly on my wall.

Improvising being the operative term here; to be able to improvise one needs to have … something. At home in California I have lots of stuff, a whole garage full of stuff. Cheap stuff: old books from garage sales, torn out ads from magazines, flea market finds, old drawer knobs from architectural salvage places (better than any Gucci store for me – I LOVE architectural salvage places, love, love, love them!), and paint chips from the hardware store. Somewhere there must be a hardware store that went broke because of all the paint chips I took home from there.

My Pantone chips – fresh off the boat from the US – decorate my left hand office wall

So here I want to improvise and be creative but I have – nothing. No old books, only a few door knobs (I brought them from California) and just a few rather uninspiring paint chips. Good thing I brought paint chips, too, the cute square Pantone colored ones. If the thought crosses your mind that only really crazy people bring paint chips from the US to Europe when they move and all the have is five suitcases and six pieces of hand luggage you shall be forgiven. Even I admit that it is a bit crazy and that is even before I confess to having brought wall paper remnants as well. Only a few pieces, but you know what, it was an awesome idea. Since I have nothing to improvise with here and collecting improvisation-worthy material is not a trivial matter and can’t be rushed, really, those paint chips and wall paper remnants have been all I had to work with and I put them to good use – I think.

wall paper remnants imported from California decorate the right hand wall. Mom contributed the heart.

My formerly barren office walls look a little nicer and more colorful without clutter and cheesy prints. I am basically out of materials now, though, a few door and drawer knobs left for the coat hanger in the entry way – and then I might have to earnestly get into collecting more stuff here, if only I had room to store!