Even as I type that title, I realize it’s probably an unrealistic pursuit… but as I’ve been putting together my new creative space, I feel like maybe I’m close.
When we moved into this house 3 years ago, the front room quickly became kind of a catch-all. It was where the pets got their meals, but otherwise, it was just a place where building supplies and tools sat around, waiting to be used. Over the course of those 3 years, we’ve done a lot of remodeling and repairing, and eventually, we didn’t need that space to serve as an oversized tool closet anymore. It was meant to be a formal dining room, but we’ve never been the sort of people to use a formal dining room, and we much prefer having guests in our cozy breakfast room right off the kitchen. The dining room was in sort of an awkward spot for meals, anyway, down a long, dark hall from the kitchen.
So it sat empty, home to just pet dishes and an old china hutch that was too small for my collection of teacups. I knew I wanted to upgrade the hutch at some point, at least so my teacups didn’t have to be stacked. Then, by happenstance, I saw a china hutch on Facebook marketplace. Not just a china hutch, but the china hutch. The most perfect, beautiful hutch, exactly the aesthetic I wanted, except that it was a tar-stained and yellowed oak veneer and not the dreamy white I wanted.
Well, we’d just remodeled most of a house. What was one piece of furniture? So, a little bit of white paint later…
Suddenly, my teacups had a new home. So did my pothos, which is the only plant I’ve managed to keep alive. Both looked happy, and from there, I thought… well, why not go all the way?
I always thought it would be nice to have a place to sit and drink tea, a dreamy spot to read books as well as write them. I already had a bistro set my parents had given me after they found it on clearance. I only really needed one more thing to put me on the track to having my ideal writing space.
So the hunt for a desk began. I collected artificial flowers for the space while I hunted for just the right desk. I knew what I wanted–something French provincial to nicely accentuate my china hutch, something that would work well for both me and my daughter so she could have somewhere dreamy to do her homework, too. She even asked for exactly that, particularly after the night I dragged a 12 foot long branch into the house and cut it to fit in the corner.
My husband took me shopping for artificial flowers to make the boughs. Originally, I was going to get white. “No,” he said. “Do pink.”
So cherry blossoms it was. Sprawling, crawling across the ceiling. Not all of the branches match, but we bought everything they had. We’ll fine-tune it later, using the ones that don’t match so well for arrangements in pots or vases.
Then one evening, I found a listing for an antique vanity in need of refinishing. The seat needed a cushion and upholstery, too. “It’s perfect, but it’s too far away,” I said to my husband. He looked at the location on the listing and checked it out on the map.
“It’s not too far,” he told me. “If it’s the perfect desk, then let’s go.”
So we did, and when the weather cleared up, he helped me cut stronger plywood for the seat. I repainted and reupholstered on my own.
And then, the room was… well, almost done. Done enough that a good chunk of The Artificer’s Wife was written in there, and done enough that it’s a welcoming and airy place I love to spend time in. But some areas are still a little bit sterile. I want more pictures for the walls, maybe a rug for the floor since the tile isn’t great–one of few things left in this house that we haven’t redone. A few house plants would be nice, if I can keep from killing them. I thought my monstera would love this room, but it much prefers the patio out back. This winter, it won’t have any choice but to liven up this room.
So it’s close. Almost there. Not quite perfect. But it’s a good place to sit and work on Paragon of Light, too, and this week… that’s just what I’m doing.
While shopping for rugs, of course.