I got, unshockingly, another Pottery Barn catalog yesterday. They don’t seem to care that I’ve called several times to ask them to take me off their myriads of mailing lists. “Please take me off your mailing list,” I tell the nice lady on the other end of the phone. “Take me right off it. I’m never going to buy anything from any of your stores ever. Just wite-out my name and address, okay?” “Will do, ma’am,” says the nice lady, and what’s in my mailbox the next day? Yeah. The American dream, also available in eggshell, taupe, and putty.
I sit there on the purple futon…and I notice they don’t ever show futons in the Pottery Barn catalog…and flip through when I come home from work. Order. Harmony. Votive candles. Soft colors, soft textures, soft light. Beautiful arty pictures on the wall. There are no stains on these carpets from the time the cats ate some yogurt I left out for a minute. The paint is smooth and uncracked. The bathrooms don’t have that big mildew stain in the corner that I’m sort of afraid to go near. “Welcome home,” the pages whisper. “Welcome to how your life could be.”
“Ooh, ” I think, reading the blurbs, getting a little hot under the collar. ‘Built to last with kiln-dried, corner-blocked hardwood frames and upholstered in supersoft full-grain leather, indeed.’ Full-grain leather, huh. I love it when my furniture takes charge like that. No more sitting on a purple futon for me, my friends. PB gonna make it all right. PB knows what I want. ‘Detailed with wainscoting in a glossy finish, our mini vanity adds extra storage space exactly where you need it, with two fixed shelves and a storage compartment beneath for supplies.‘ See? Exactly where I need it.
And I do need it, I need everything the catalog sells. I need the money to buy a gorgeous renovated barn in Montana, or a Colonial in pristine condition in Conneticut. I need the time to figure out what I need to know about furniture, and then to hop in the car and head on down to the mall and choose the appropriate pieces that will adequately express my unique personality and vision for living, and, of course, make my house a home. I need the brain cell real estate to make informed decisions regarding honey stain vs. mahogany stain, loose-back vs. scatter-back sofas, prints vs, florals for the bedroom. And forget about the paint colors. Shell? Foam? Wheat? Sky? Ocean?
Most of all I need to live in this fantasy world that they’re selling, where you can bring order to chaos by discovering an innovative way to store your TV in a big armoire. I need to shut the French doors and pull the moire curtains against everything outside, and I need to muffle everything on the inside with 250-count sheets and thirsty terrycloth towels. All my issues? They go in cleverly constructed wicker baskets. It’s the perfect balance between a life of introspection and of action. Not only do you have to think deeply about exactly what kind of light shades will go best on the chandelier above the hand-weathered, edge-rubbed extendable table, but you also have to go out into the world, aggressively choose those shade, cart them on home, (maybe after a latte), put them up, and make sure they match with the rest of the room. You can do this infinitely, you can always be changing something in your house. You may not ever be in your house because you work eighty hours a week to be able to afford all this stuff, but it doesn’t matter, because when you are there, it’s yours. The light, the space, the harmony. It becomes you. Making a house a home is one of those accomplishments that offers a high amount of instant gratification…the lightshades look perfect… as well as the satisfaction of always having something else to do…like, for example, that rug over there. It could be a little hipper, a little cooler, a little more you. And you know that Pottery Barn is always with you, every step of the way.