We’re only days away from the annual pilgrimage. I speak, of course, of the yearly trip to the living room. You know, that room at the front of the house where all the good stuff lives. The nice sofas, the lamps with the tri-lights, as well as the 20 x 24 inch books about Yosemite. The living room – that shrine to our inauthentic selves. It’s also the place where we park the Christmas tree. It goes there, in that corner, just like it has for years.
The living room – that shrine to our inauthentic selves.
Christmas is a litmus test for many things. I find it provokes my inner architect. Why, I wonder, do I even have a living room? A room that sometimes seems consecrated only to the Christmas tree. The ROI on the living room is very low. For the most part, it serves only ceremonial purposes. The real living gets done at the kitchen counter; that’s where real friends park themselves. It can be argued that the dining room earns its keep as much of what happens in the kitchen is destined for that room. Once people are seated at the dining room table, the rest of the house ceases to exist. Unless of course, there’s an illuminated tree in the living room. In that case, we all migrate to that room, a room that has surrendered a considerable amount of its seating capacity to the presence of a conifer.
Each Christmas, my inner architect ponders my ideal house. I have a list of features that I tweak with each passing year. The list includes a mudroom. Yes, a mudroom is the chief feature of my ideal home. It would be an immense space, capable of housing hockey bags, maybe a bike, things that are departing the house; things that are coming into the house. It would feature a place to charge devices, to house recyclables and a sink to wash your hands prior to entering the rest of the house. Another feature would be something called a Costco door.
Each Christmas, my inner architect ponders my ideal house.
My first apartment – an old wooden, walk-up – had a little door wherein a milkman could deposit bottles of milk. Quaint! Inside the apartment, there was a little latched door where I could remove the bottles. The modern expression of this device is called a Costco door, a door that directly connects your garage to your pantry. Now, Costco doesn’t sell this door; it’s a feature you build into a home and it’s brilliant. Everyone knows that the worst part of Big Box store shopping is unloading those two ton bags of potatoes when you get home. This makes short work of the problem. Yes, a Costco door is definitely on the list.
Vying for first place on my list is separate his and hers bathrooms. It wasn’t so long ago that people got excited about ensuite plumbing. The next thrilling innovation in plumbing was the presence of not one, but two, sinks on a countertop. Although this was an improvement over the solo sink, what’s even better is two entirely separate vanities. There can be a single toilet and tub/shower, but designing a space where you can floss in privacy helps keep mystery alive in a marriage. And by mystery, I mean not contriving to electrocute the other by “accident”.
The simplest way to deal with the presence of a floored-robe (think: wardrobe on the floor) is by the addition of a walk-in closet. On the stage that is modern life, there simply isn’t enough time to hang up after each and every costume change. A walk-in closet, at the very least, conceals the problem.
… the presence of a floored-robe …
So, there you have it: my ideal house. A shipping/receiving facility at the back door, two vanities, and a walk-in closet … and maybe a closet for the Christmas tree so I don’t have to assemble or decorate it every year.
This week’s question for readers:
WHAT FEATURES WOULD YOUR IDEAL HOUSE INCLUDE?
Leave your Comments below!
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Submissions to last week’s question:
DO YOU HAVE VISION CORRECTION OF ANY KIND – SURGICAL OR GLASSES?
One night, my husband and I became aware that the water bed we were sleeping on had a small leak. We snatched our glasses to examine the damage and decided to move to our guest room. Next morning, we picked up our glasses from the night table between the twin beds. We were ready for the day ahead. That evening, I could not read the writing on the TV screen. Suddenly light dawned. I realized I was wearing my husband’s glasses. We had both gone right through the day without noticing we had each picked up the wrong pair that morning.
Alison Parkinson
I’ve been wearing corrective lenses since I was five. I went to the optometrist’s to get my first pair of glasses. Apparently, my vision had been fuzzy for quite some time. It was dark outside when I left the office. I was almost blinded by the bright neon lights, glowing along Kingsway at Knight Street. It was spectacular! I will never forget it. I was also able to see the dead flies on the windowsill at the Aristocratic diner on West Broadway.
Later on, I wore contacts for about 15 years, before I got dry eye, and went back to glasses.
I refused to get laser surgery because, I reasoned, I only have two eyes. They are very nearsighted, but when corrected, are good enough for me. Last year I got bifocals, but I don’t wear them, because they are too weird.
During COVID, I stopped applying a lot of makeup. After the mask wearing ended, I adopted the ‘natural look’ (before it became trendy, a la Pamela Anderson)., I use my eyeglasses to frame my face, and I apply some lip gloss. I am an older Invisible Woman anyway, so I feel free to do whatever I want.
That includes wearing glasses, and very little, if any, makeup.
It’s fantastic!
Adele Cameron
Yes, I wear progressive lenses, and they’re awesome! I’m an Optician and have been wearing progressives for close to 20 years. Lots of people (including some of my friends and family) refuse to admit they need them so they suffer with drug store inadequate readers, taking them on and off to see distance (and looking aged, if you know what I mean!). I’m 65 and wear current styles, best brand lenses (looks and vision are important to me) and that’s what I recommend to everyone. Get the best you can afford – it’s worth it!!
Wendy Russo
My need for cataract surgery came after I found driving a car at night very difficult. But, the irony was, I had no idea how dramatic the surgery would change my vision of colour! Because I had three weeks between eye surgeries, I could close one eye and see how objects that had been appearing quite yellow, were now a blazing white! And, in a coloured glass collection, I found pieces that seemed brown, but were now purple. Such revelations made me wonder how much I had been missing out on. Thank goodness for cataract surgery!
Jean Imbach
I always look forward to your column but I especially enjoyed this week’s as I could so relate to it. Your line, “It became impossible to thread a needle except at high noon on the summer solstice” is priceless and had me laughing out loud.
Before I turned 40, my father told me I would soon need reading glasses, but the years went by and I secretly hoped that I would be unique and my eyes wouldn’t change. It was so reassuring to read about your experience while remembering how frustrated I was trying to do things like hook up a new DVD player and struggling because I couldn’t see detail but didn’t realize what was wrong and blamed it on new technology!
I’ve been wearing glasses with progressive lenses for many years now and greatly appreciate them.
Chris Wasylishyn
I was born with a lazy, weaker eye. Glasses at age seven didn’t strengthen it with a patch covering the better eye. I’ve had Strabismus surgery four times to no avail. Five laser surgeries to stop leaking vessels in the eye due to some unavoidable Type One diabetes events. Almost lost my good eye from a bucking angle grinder which sliced my eyebrow in two. Six scratched corneas. Two cataracts, eleven broken glasses, needles in each eye. Any speck of airborne dirt will beeline into either eye. I pick up all the ‘ i’s playing scrabble, usually three in one grab. Why me?
Stuart Walker
I wore glasses or contacts till I was 34 when I had laser surgery. I hated glasses through grade school. Contacts were cause for jubilation and laser surgery was like a new beginning. However when I turned 62 a small fuzzy area appeared. I had cataracts. Surgery followed, which for a small additional cost, I also had toric lenses installed to correct some further astigmatism I’d developed after the laser surgery. I now see better than ever but must now wear reading glasses. But, through it all. I’m so thankful to always have had some vision, albeit requiring correction in some way.
Scott McGillivray