Miscelaney

by Heather Paper

Hi. My name is Heather. And I’m a design-aholic. Lurking in every nook and cranny of my otherwise normal abode are magazines devoted to home décor. I’m not talking about a couple of back issues here; for years, I’ve hoarded these pubs like precious metals. A stash of House Beautiful here, Elle Décor there. I treasure them all. Particularly prized are those I’ve written for—including Seattle Homes & Lifestyles—and those no longer being published; I’m still mourning the demise of House & Garden and, more recently, a regional favorite, Southern Accents. Truth be told, I could open my own library devoted to home fashion mags… if I’d ever really understood that whole Dewey Decimal thing.

Lately, I’ve been reading how purple is one of the current “it” colors in home fashion. To which I say: “Been there, done that. But I’ll gladly go there again!” When my husband and I built our first house, he (no doubt regrettably) gave me carte blanche on the décor. I picked out paint colors, cabinetry, wall and floor coverings—with nary a question the entire way. Then, one day, I got a call from our contractor. “Heather,” he said, “you’ve got to come out here. They just delivered the countertops and they’re the wrong [insert your own expletive here] color.

“What color is it?” I asked. To which he replied, “it’s some weird dark purple thing.” So I pressed him a little further. “The color should be marked on the box; what does it say?”

“Let’s see…it says au-ber-gine,” he answered. That’s all I needed to hear—the eggplant-colored countertops I’d ordered had arrived.

But there came a point in the building process that even my own husband questioned my sanity. I called him one afternoon to tell him that I’d found the perfect carpet for our bedroom, going on to describe it as a “soft, dusty plum.” For a moment, there was silence at the other end of the line. Then he shrieked “You ordered [again, insert your own expletive here] purple carpet!”

Over the years, my color preferences have evolved, not quite changing as often as the seasons—but almost. Recently, though, the color purple found its way into my consciousness again. When it came time to trade cars a few months ago, I found myself partial to the Honda Fit. My dealer had every color imaginable in stock, but I was immediately drawn to one in particular—a cute little number in “Blackberry Pearl.”

That Fit is now, officially, my new ride. But its implications have my husband living in fear. Can aubergine countertops be far behind?

Heather Paper is a freelance writer/editor who specializes in all subjects design-related. A contributing writer for Miscelaney, she’s a dog-lovin’, wine-slurpin’ resident of Atlanta who considers Seattle her second home.

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