Blind Love (or I Love Blinds)

When I was growing up, we had curtains: long drapes in the living room, ruffly ones in the kitchen. I didn't love them, but sometimes, if the mood struck, I hid behind the longer ones and wrapped their material around me like a ball gown (I also stood over furnace vents while wearing my nightgown and watched it--the nightgown--billow up, and pretended that I was pregnant).

As I grew older, my tastes evolved. My grandmother in Northern Ireland had venetian blinds, and when I visited her the Summer that I was twelve, I was consumed with the adjustment of them--open the slats fully, close them just a bit, tug the cord and elevate them, let it loose and watch them crash down. The woman practically had to rip me away from the damn windows, as occupied as I was with playing with them (that was also the Summer of Jane Eyre and sliding down banisters and pounding out the song, "The Entertainer" from the movie "The Sting," on the piano).

Soon after my first taste of "European window treatments," I visited my Summer friend, Stacy, in Ohio. She had no interest in her mother's interior decoration hobby, but I most certainly did. The Missus and I sat at the kitchen table, poring over material swatches and paint samples. There were shutters in their house. In keeping with precedent, I adjusted them, too (although I was starting to understand that this window treatment love was a bit weird, so I snuck the adjustments).

When Lou and I bought our house, we threw up a bunch of cheapy venetian blinds on most of the windows. One ambitious afternoon, Lou installed shutters in one of the three kitchen windows, but "window treatment love" was starting to become a painful affair; with home ownership, we realized that a lot of window treatments--especially ones for non-standard windows--are expensive. The other two kitchen windows, consequently, were never "clothed." Scrimping and saving, we finally put a roman shade in our front room (along with a matching shade on the door). Neither can be cleaned. This bothers me . . . what with four animals . . . but I roller them occasionally and still think that they're pretty (the shades, not the animals . . . well, the animals, too).

We recently painted our bedroom. And we're tired of the solo shutter in the kitchen. So, it is with much excitement that I prepare to invest in new blinds for these rooms; my tastes have remained varied, which is a good thing. Current infatuation is with natural wood shades, with names that are like poetry: fiji, lotus reeds, grasses osaka. I spent hours online last night, clicking and scrutinizing and searching for iridescent, scarlet, window scarves. And for the kitchen, I'm stalled in the eighties: huge floral prints and ballooned-out fabric.

Apparently, that window treatment love never fades. And I still love a good door, a door knob, interior and exterior shutters, and gates--just as much as I love a good purse.

I have my accessories. The house has hers.