About walls.
As you know, I’m new here. I have lived here not quite two months. Two insane months. My housewarming gift from Mother Nature has been a gorgeous, dangerous cold. She has shut me in.
Being shut in has put me in close communion with my new walls. Have you noticed, dear reader, how walls differ? It isn’t just the color; it’s size and height and the way they join hands or don’t.
My wall jewelry is — ahem — eclectic. My last house was 3400 square feet; this one is 2000. Even I can do that math. Placement must be judicious.
Since I have not had them painted yet, my walls offer particular possibilities. I am Columbus and these walls are the flat unexplored world. I can try this and try that; if it’s awful, I can take it down and the holes which tell the story of my bad ideas will be plugged and painted.
(Would that the history of all my bad ideas were so nicely disclaimed!)
Two days ago I hung three botanical prints I love. They look awful. They were perfect in the same arrangement in my old house. Here, awful. The space is so different. And space must be carefully sculpted. The walls might be flat, but the whole is multi-dimensional. A plain wall can be the best. Or tedious. A beautiful print can be just as tedious. Where do things go? Ah, the cry of the newly-moved.
In the Grand Scheme, my walls do not meet the lowest bars of significance. Perhaps that’s why I am so compelled by them: in some peevish way in an overwhelming world, I decide.
Oddments 
January 5, 2018 at 6:38 pm
Anyone who has downsized and reads this will smile and have a memory book to draw upon. In my case, it was donate, donate, donate, and then store those with family significance in the attic to never see the light of day again. Down the road, they will see light when my only daughter gives them the heave ho. 🙂 I use to love shopping for things and finding just the spot for them. After the big move, I became a minimalist and have come to like the clean lines of that. The first day in the SC condo, I took photos and then shoved every knick knack in a cupboard – too much clutter for me now days. 🙂 I love to paint. If we lived closer, you could buy the paint, and I’d be a happy woman with my roller and brush to cut in the edges. 🙂
January 5, 2018 at 7:14 pm
I laughed, of course, at the part about how old family treasure wouldn’t see the light of day until given the heave-ho. Into the daylight and out in the dumpster! Or maybe not. Who’s to say how those old things will be regarded when that day comes? I certainly understand getting the knickknacks out of the way. I am not a fan of clutter, which is one reason this process is driving me cuckoo. I hate to paint, though I’ve done more than my share and a darned good job of it too (she said modestly). However, I do love the results. People who love to paint are mysterious to me. More power to you!
January 5, 2018 at 10:27 pm
Painting fulfills my OCD tendencies. LOL There is a beginning, a middle and an end. 🙂
January 6, 2018 at 12:06 pm
I hope Mother Nature has confined the gorgeous, dangerous cold to outdoors rather than has given you a cold yourself. I’m confident that’s what you meant after a second reading but at first I was all ready to sympathise. For longer than I care to admit, after a leak was repaired, I lived with a room stripped of wallpaper. The paintwork was fine and the room was dry but the walls were plaster and revealed layers of history through different subtle colours left behind by different decorations that had come and gone. I live in a small Victorian terrace and, to me, the old, stripped back walls were glorious. My sweetheart and mother eventually persuaded me it was just not right to live like that, so now they are plain magnolia – provided of course, you don’t know what the facade covers…
January 6, 2018 at 5:55 pm
Thank you for your ready sympathy! Yes, that wording was a bit confusing; I was referring only to the cold outside. Your stripped walls sound most intriguing. But no one else found them so, I take it. Layers of time kind of reach out, don’t they? Please — what’s a Victorian terrace?
January 7, 2018 at 11:13 am
It’s a style of house often seen in England where the houses join each other on either side to make a street (or terrace). Your new house would seem large to most of us. I’m glad you’re keeping well, despite the cold.
January 7, 2018 at 11:47 am
Thank you!