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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?

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12 Comments

  • Reply Mikalah at 1:10 pm

    Haha, I loved this post! My Grandma is the hoarder in our family, and I lived with her for a few months before getting married. It just about drove me crazy! Seriously, she has SO many teapots. Like, probably about 100. It’s kind of funny, actually!

  • Reply tracie at 1:12 pm

    lol oh tthe soap thing is too funny! i had a granny that was a hoarder.. wowza i hated visiting her place! made me antsy just to step in the door. 🙁 but my mother is the exact opposite. she keeps very little in her place. says it is easier to keep clean! lol i guess that would be true.

  • Reply Adamaso19 at 1:29 pm

    Haha! The soap has lasted a LONG time!

  • Reply KatlynR at 2:28 pm

    Hilarious!
    My mother had a candle hoarding obsession! She has TWO of her lower level cabinets in her hutch (in the kitchen) FULL of candles. Any kind of candle, jar, pillars of all sizes, tapered, tealights, votive in ANY color you can imagine. She uses them, but would probably never need to buy another candle ever in her life. I cannot imagine two of my cabinets in my kitchen devoted to candles! My mother has great decorating style and her house is always clean, that candle obsession just drives me (and my dad) batty!

  • Reply TheScrappyHousewife at 4:05 pm

    My mother saved tons. Paper towels and toilet paper rings especially because she thought I could use tons of them when I was teaching. Thoughtful, but 5 and six bags of them?

  • Reply Jennifer Laughlin at 5:44 pm

    oh gosh my mom has too many “quirks” to list! haha! i love her for all of them though!!!!

    its so awesome how one room tells so many stories! thanks for sharing this with us jane! <3

    xoXOxo
    Jenn @ Peas & Crayons

  • Reply Anonymous at 7:36 pm

    Living through the depression definitely I think plays into this. My Grandmother lived through the depression so she kept everything, but my mother the rebel she is – toss stuff without as much as a second thought. I would like to say I live somewhere in between 🙂

  • Reply Liz at 6:14 am

    Cute and creative post! I love that everything in the bedroom has provenance and history.

  • Reply Anotheryarn at 6:55 pm

    I can’t think of any specific quirks, but I am certain some of them bothered me when I lived with my parents and my different methods are precise reactions to their habits.

  • Reply Pinkoveralls at 7:27 pm

    I’m waiting for my daughter to answer this question.

    Like your mom, I’m a grandma who keeps a clean house and loves soap. But I put only one bar out at a time.

    Alright, a bar and a pump.

    I can’t help it. They smell so good. And I buy only real soap, not “beauty bars.” If you look at the “soap” labels at the supermarket, none of them say “soap.” Because technically they aren’t. I buy online. Call me a soap snob.

    I knew when I saw the wrinkles in that bottom bar what was going on.

    • Reply Jane @ The Borrowed Abode at 7:30 pm

      That’s funny. Trust me, I won’t call you a soap snob. Because I have a
      thing for good handmade soaps. A pump and a bar at one sink? Also not an
      issue to me. It’s when there’s 5 or 6 that I think there’s a problem 🙂

  • Reply Ryan at 2:59 pm

    “As a matter of fact, I often sleep better there than in my own home.”

    That’s because of our cats. You don’t believe me but they use your head as a trampoline in the middle of the night.

    “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.”

    In some corners of the world, dry-aged soaps are treasured and much sought after by the effete.

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