Humour by Rehana Munir: You, me and a colour catalogue

Home improvement tests character and relationships like few other activities. And brings out an obsessive kind of love with the interiors

It’s early evening and there’s a hammer going tak-tak-tak in the near distance, like an overenthusiastic auctioneer’s gavel. I’m grateful, because this dull throb has replaced an insistent drilling that’s made any attempt at thought or rest impossible for most of the day. The charming old bungalow that overlooks my flat is deep in the throes of renovation. I’m afraid that the results of this makeover will be grand, shiny and disappointing, the neighbourhood’s very own central vista, standing on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, as Green Day sang.

Fear of brown paper packages

My fears of home improvement run deep. Deep enough to make me wonder if there’s a name for the phobia. I’ve recently found myself in the inescapable position of having to co-select upholstery fabric. I consider myself to be adequately well-adjusted when it comes to human relationships. But throw me into a situation where I need to make décor choices in conjunction with another human and all my neuroses are let loose before you can say vitrified tiles. All those rolls of fabric tumbling towards you like an inescapable fate. You need a special kind of gift to be able to tell the sea foam green from the Granny Smith apple green, and a superhuman interest in the small things to care about the difference between William Morris botanicals and Sabyasachi florals.

“It’s so easy online!” I hear the unflappable among you say. I see your confidence and raise you a too-big lamp that dangles threateningly from my ceiling, like a medieval torture instrument. Or the lurid lampshade with birds embroidered on to it by someone who knows very little about birds or embroidery. Brown paper packages tied up with string are a few of the scariest things.

Stockholm syndrome, pandemic edition

The thing about home improvement is that there is no finishing line. You can paint and mend and repolish and remodel all you like, there will always be a new beast to tame shaped like an alcove or textured like wool. The urge to upgrade can be triggered by all sorts of stimuli from an IKEA billboard to a Pinterest thread, but often it has nothing to do with external messaging at all. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a modern human struggling with doubt or difficulty must be in want of a haircut. When changing one’s look proves to be insufficient, one changes the look of one’s surroundings. Covid restrictions have forced us to stay indoors for long periods over the past two years. We’re now the victims of what can be called the Stockholm syndrome’s pandemic edition; we’re feeling an obsessive kind of love with the interiors that have taken us hostage.

In come the house plants and up go the curtains. Fauvist paintings and art deco wine glasses. Afghan rugs and kitschy wall brackets. If you fill your home with pretty things, your heart will be full too. But where does this leave us décorphobes, who are quite fond of bare walls and unremarkable soap dishes?

Interior monologue

I enjoy the effort that maximalists put into their homes, where every table-top is a museum and every sideboard a shrine. But there’s a problem when there’s more than one decision-maker in the house. One may share perfect compatibility in matters ranging from religion to money, but try discussing the orientation of a carpet and the relationship begins to unravel. It doesn’t get more personal than the space you live in, and differences in matters of interior decoration spiral quickly into deeper conflicts that throw up gems like “I don’t care if the couch is turquoise or teal or dishwater brown or climate change grey or angina pink—let’s just order the damn thing and get on with our lives!” Not my finest moment.

There’s nothing better than people who sympathise with your lack of interest in domestic goddessery. I recently received a corkscrew from a kind friend who was stranded without one on her last visit to my home. Brought to mind this Wendy Cope poem that skilfully connects romantic relationships with household objects.

Loss

The day he moved out was terrible —

That evening she went through hell.

His absence wasn’t a problem

But the corkscrew had gone as well.

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From HT Brunch, March 6, 2022

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