Stories Rooms Tell

My parents live in a large, new construction town home in a senior community.  First floor master suite, open floor plan, etc.  The second floor is basically bonus space, with a guest room and adjoining bath, as well as several other rooms.  When no one is visiting my dad uses the guest bath, letting my mom have the master bath downstairs all to herself.

My dad isn’t big on decorating – as a matter of fact, I think his engineer’s mind views it as unnecessary because the bathroom is perfectly functional without decor, so why bother.  Now you know that makes me a bit antsy . . every month when I visit I find myself wanting to paint and decorate it.  But it’s none of my business, and the layout is nice, and my adjoining guest room is cozy. As a matter of fact, I often sleep better there than in my own home.

Even though the room isn’t really my style, I appreciate the history in it:

• The bed was my paternal grandfather’s.
• The other furniture was my maternal grandmother’s.  Heck, even the mirror behind the dresser, and the lamps flanking it, are set up just the way she always had it.
• The window treatments are from the awful yellow & blue redesign I did to my old bedroom when I was in college.
• The doll and wooden cradle under the window were handmade by my aunt and uncle when I was a toddler.
• The bookcases that you can’t see were hand built by my parents.
• The three quilted pillows on the bed were handmade for me by a good family friend, in honor of my high school graduation.
• My mom found the sateen duvet cover & skirt set at a yard sale before blogs made thrifting popular, and she tried to make me use them in my post-college apartment.  (I said “ew, no way.”)
• Finally, the framed photo of Monet’s garden was my gift to her when I was a college freshman. . . purchased in my college bookstore . . . and I had no idea that that $20 poster would cost her about $75 to frame!  (oops)

Wow.  Isn’t it amazing what a story a room can tell?

Speaking of stories, however, there’s one thing that drives me bananas. It’s in the adjoining bathroom, and it’s not the fact that it’s undecorated.

Can you spy something odd?

If you didn’t notice, it’s the fact that there are 6 soaps on the sink.  It’s always like this, too, because where I like simplicity, my mom kinda has a thing for extra stuff.  She likes her blue liquid soap dispenser, but bought the bar soap dish to go with it.  So naturally both need to have soap in them.  But then she found another blue soap dish that she liked, so that has to be out too.  And to top it off my dad likes the soft soap, and my mom likes the Bath & Body Works foaming hand soap that smells fruity.  (The kicker to all this?  My mom doesn’t even come upstairs, unless she’s checking the room before guests come.)

And a closer look will show that the sixth bar is hiding on top of the 5th.  Don’t ask me why.

Do you see the dried ridges on the side of the large soap bar?  That’s because it’s been sitting there for about 2.5 years.  I try to use it as much as possible when I visit, because it drives me batty that an enormous bar of soap sits out for years on end, and more soaps are added to the collection.  And in the cabinet below, there are at least a dozen more large bars of soap . . . not to mention all the hotel-sized items that they hoard.

It’s no big deal, but sometimes I look at the soap situation in wonderment.  How could people who raised me could be so different from me?  I suppose all parents have their quirks.  Maybe because they were kids in the depression, but they do NOT like to get rid of stuff.   The house is clean and well-decorated – there’s just stuff hiding in the cabinets, basement, closets, and soap dishes.

When you visit your parents do you notice any quirks like that?  Any borderline hoarders out there?