I know what you’re thinking. What exactly is a story about a condom doing on this blog? Well, read on to find out. . .
When a client hires a designer for a consultation, sometimes they find themselves apologizing for the state of their house. Perhaps because it’s dated (What? You mean we can’t all completely re-decorate every 5 years?) or messy, because of their children, or that it’s dirty, eg. there’s drywall dust everywhere, etc.
First of all, I really want you to understand that I don’t judge. And here’s why; because if you knew exactly what to do, you wouldn’t be hiring me in the first place! And I am so happy to be here, why would I have a problem with the fact that you don’t have enough lighting? Or that you need some help decorating your living room? Or that you are having a hard time distinguishing between a pinky beige vs. a yellowy beige for the interior or exterior of your house?
The other thing you need to know is that I am so busy looking at the colour of your flooring, furniture, window coverings, etc, that I don’t notice a little dust or dirt. The following story illustrates my point perfectly:
A few years ago, I was picking colours for a clients bedroom. I was walking around, holding my 12 x 18 colour sample next to the bedding, behind the artwork, and on the wall next to the baseboards to see how the colour looked with the carpeting in the master bedroom. Suddenly my clients face turned beet red as she leapt forward and grabbed the condom off the floor—right in front of me—until she did that, I had no idea it was there! I like to tell this story to make people feel comfortable when they worry too much about how their house looks.
So the moral of this story is; we designers are simply thrilled to be in your space doing what we love to do! I have a client that recently said, “I trust you, please do what you think is best”, just like her clients trust her--she’s a financial planner--to do her job because that’s her area of expertise!
When I started writing this post, right away (because of the shock value of the headline) I thought of one of my blogger friends “Sara says Awesome”; this is a woman who writes about, and I quote, “this is about the awesome-ness that is ME. And on occasion there will be some stuff on home design, recipes, and some bitches too”.
She makes me laugh, I love her blog because I never know what I’m going to find when I get there. Like the time she talked about her name and how to spell it correctly, or the time she did this whole series on how to decorate a rental, they were called ‘Polishing the Turd’, Lack of Storage, or how about; “Polishing the Turd” Windows, or dealing with popcorn ceilings, and then to top it all off she wrote a post giving us all sh*t for not leaving her enough comments! Coincidentally, she just included me in a post she wrote yesterday, thanks Awesome Sara!
Like Nick Cernis says, in his post 7 Dark Truths, why readers really become subscribers. Dark Truth #5 “They want your wit – Whenever a blogger makes me giggle again and again, I look for the subscribe button. Partly it’s because I like being drip-fed humor every day, but in truth, I’m just jealous, I want their wit.” Whenever I’m over at Sara’s blog reading her posts and giggling, I remember this piece of advice and just wish I could be that funny :)
And don't forget (there was a point to this post in the first place), I love everything about your house that needs some TLC.
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