CORNER It Could Have Been Worse
I had my chance to run away and join the circus, but instead I thought to myself, “How bad could it be?” I should have jumped in the truck and headed for the hills, but to be honest, I was kind of intrigued by my beautiful bride’s idea. I was almost reaching for the truck keys when I saw her with a measuring tape and colour chart; I wasn’t surprised when she casually mentioned that “we” should redecorate a room in the basement. When my bride say’s ‘we’, she often means me. What did surprise me was that Mrs. B wanted to redecorate my music room a.k.a. my man cave.
When we moved to Liarton, one of the first projects was to move some walls in the basement and enlarge a small bedroom that was to become the music room that would hold my modest collection of guitars and other musical instruments. We doubled the size of the bedroom and I was pleased that it was large enough to hold all my instruments, stereo, LP’s, CD’s and enough gear to outfit a few bands. What a humble brag! We had concentrated our budget on the rest of the basement renovations and I was happy with unpainted drywall and old carpeting, but I had a room full of music and things to make music. I also had a place to practice in solitude and not bother my bride with bad notes and off-key “singing”, so when the project was pitched, it was in my key and I caught it. As any redecorator knows, painting is the reward for many hours of preparation and there were many hours of filling and sanding required before I got to splash the colour on the walls. Before the filling and sanding could begin, I had to remove all kinds of posters that had been strategically placed to hide the spots that needed filling and sanding. Not only were there posters to hide the wall defects, there were my guitars and stuff on hangers that hid even more drywall screws and gaps. I didn’t realize how ugly those walls were until they were bare…UGLY! I had half a pail of drywall mud that I had stored in the garage and I had thoughtfully and wisely leveled the mud and topped the mud with water when I stored it 3 years ago. That miserly wisdom saved me 3 bucks that could be better spent on beer. I thought that the ½ pail of mud would be enough to fill the “holy” walls, Have I mentioned how UGLY those holey walls were…recently? The walls seemed to suck up the mud like the government sucks taxes and, of course, I needed to raid my beer fund for more drywall mud. That was when I decided someone needed to invent one of two things: Either a paint that was thick enough to fill holes and gaps or some sort of wall covering that was easy to install and looked nice. That was when my beautiful and intelligent bride suggested that I may have just invented wallpaper.
We tracked down some of the coolest wallpaper murals that happened to be on sale, then ordered and installed a mural of a beautiful island with palm trees. It was as if I was on a beach and all that was missing was sand in my toes, the sound of the surf and the smell of the seashore.
That all changed after I hung up guitars, instruments, musical artwork and classic posters. If you squint your eyes a bit you, all that can be made out is a palm tree. Oh, oh… Mrs. B has a measuring tape, gotta find a circus to join.