My Apartment, Part 1: Thank Your Home
Hi, MTV! Welcome to my crib.
Historically, books about home organization have not elicited an emotional reaction from me.
Thus, I was caught completely off-guard when I got to this paragraph in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:
Just as you would greet your family or your pet, say, “Hello! I’m home,” to your house when you return. If you forget when you walk in the door, then later, when you remember, say, “Thank you for giving me shelter.” Or if you feel shy or embarrassed to say these things out loud, it is fine to say them silently in your mind. If you do this repeatedly, you will start to feel your house respond when you come home. You will sense its pleasure passing through like a gentle breeze.”
-Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
I thanked my home - why not try it, right? - and immediately teared up.
I am not a spiritual person. I’ve never been religious, I avoid anything wu-wu, I don’t even buy into the horoscope (which is very Aries of me, I know). But Marie’s practice, founded in the shinto religion, suggests that spaces and objects deserve gratitude, respect, and love, and that struck a chord in me.
I don’t believe that my apartment has a spirit inside of it like Cinderella’s mom-tree. But I did cry as I thanked it. Because honestly? I love my apartment so much. I really do.
I’ve been in this place for a very long time now, and at some point, I figured that if I was spending 90% of my life in my home, then it was worth my money and time to make my surroundings as lovely as I could. As someone who’s always loved interior design and has a penchant for (read: addiction to) buying tchotchkes, it felt like a natural way to spend the 4-6 month time periods that studio executives apparently need to send notes on a three-page outline (that is hyperbole, but barely).
My only real goals for my apartment have been to create a space that’s lovely to be in, and that feels like home - not just to me, but to anyone who comes over here. I’m so horrified by celebrity houses that look like hotels. Imagine not being able to describe your home as “homey.” Couldn’t be me!
Over time, my apartment has become a source of pride for me, as with everything else that I’ve put a lot of time and effort into (my writing, my cooking, the iPhone game Bubble Cloud, end of list). Because of that - and because I hired a professional cleaner for the first time in years - I thought it would be nice to take pretty photos of it!
Everyone comes at design from a different perspective. I have very strong opinions about color combinations, and most of my spaces are united mainly by color stories. However, as I’ve acquired and moved stuff around, my spaces have developed some semblance of “personalities.”
I recently redid my bedroom, with the primary objective of making my newly-acquired 1940s painting the star of the room. “Soft and calm” was the objective (a departure from the “BOYS BOYS BOYS” neon sign that used to hang above my bed), and I think the result is a nostalgic, romantic space that incorporates some contemporary design trends (lime wash paint, sagey greens, mid century beds, gay rights).
My living room (my main space is really just one big trapezoid that I did my best to divide into disparate spaces, so I use the term “room” loosely) leans more 1960s/70s, with a warm color palette, splashy art, and shag rug.
The period in which Art Nouveau segued into Art Deco is really where my heart lies; specifically the callbacks to ancient Greece, the use of the human body as sculpture, and the love of anything dramatic and theatrical. Until I own a grand foyer with a dramatic curved staircase, I am doing my best to make North Hollywood look like Gatsby’s manor.
My dining area is where most of my decor in that vein has landed, and hopefully evokes the spirit of the jazz age, with some pieces from the 1980s Deco resurgence thrown in.
My bathroom leans into the roaring 20s even harder, and really is just a shrine to my favorite artist Erté (who deserves a post dedicated solely to him). Why is it so purple, you may ask? Basically, that was just me trying to solve the problem of “how to make a bathroom with no windows look less grim using only paint and decor.”
My office is a mishmash of everything with an emphasis on blue, a color that doesn’t really appear anywhere else in the house. The tchotchkes within it are a hard-working team, united in their effort to give me a cute Zoom background on work calls.
Lastly, my kitchen follows an architectural style known in elite design circles as “Dakota Johnson.”
Despite the evidence to the contrary, in my head I have a relatively minimalist aesthetic. The dream is to one day have a house with, like, 17 bedrooms, each of which has one gorgeous thing as its focal point, the overall vibe airy and intentional.
While waiting for that, and reluctant to give away any of my precious, precious thrifted finds, my aesthetic has accidentally become maximalist. However, that word has recently become synonymous with a wacky, colorful preschool aesthetic that I occasionally brush against, but do my best to avoid (I am already edging a Miss Frizzle vibe without painted squiggles on everything).
Here is how most of the spaces in my apartment have formed. First, I set out to buy something I need, like a pair of flattering shorts (an urban myth, I think). Then, I walk out of the store with no shorts, but an insane new furniture piece that I simply couldn’t leave behind. The piece then sits in my entryway for about two weeks, and then finally, I have an emotional negotiation with my apartment in which I figure out what to move or sell in order to incorporate it.
In my head, my apartment is actually fairly stagnant, but sometimes my phone shows me throwbacks to only a year or two ago, and I realize that everything really has changed.
“Will you ever be ‘done’ with it?” a friend of mine asked me a few months ago. And while sometimes all I want is to relax on my couch with out a “project lamp” sitting in the corner… I don’t think so. At least not until I have a job (or a restraining order) that prevents me from going to Goodwill regularly. What am I going to do, not buy a Hollywood Regency chandelier for $40? Get real.
So I guess this is just what my life is. How exhausting, and how wonderful.
And I do think the mutability forces me to continually see my apartment in new lights, and to appreciate how willing it is to adapt to my whims.
Later in the same chapter, Marie Kondo takes a moment to switch perspective, and consider the client from the home’s point of view:
“Whenever I visit a client’s home I can feel how much it cherishes its inhabitants. It is always there, waiting for my clients to return and standing ready to shelter and protect them. No matter how exhausted they are after a long day’s work, it is there to refresh and heal them. When they don’t feel like working and wander around the house in their birthday suit, their home accepts them just as they are. You won’t find anyone more generous or welcoming than this.
- Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
To my apartment, I say this: I cherish you right back. I respect you, and I’m grateful for you, and I love you. I accept you for who you are, too - not the Victorian manor of my dreams, but the backdrop to my life, at least at the moment. You are so good to me.
And I’m sorry for just putting a bucket under the dripping AC a few months ago instead of calling a guy to come and look at it. You deserve better.
Cozily dramatic,
Johnny
Photos by Jess Higgins.
What an elegant tribute to the beauty you see and create.
As for ever being done decorating, your apartment could be the new Winchester Mystery House .
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! also the apartment looks very nice.
but dear Johnny, you have never INHERITED anything from your MOTHER, who is STILL ALIVE, good grief