If you have to ask, you probably don’t have it
By Joyce Reehling
Most people will look at a space, say a living room, and either like it or not. If they like it the way it is, it stays that way . . . forever or nearly forever. I, however, come from a line of women on both sides of my family who have what I call the Santini Brothers gene. When we were growing up there was a moving company called the Santini Brothers, so my dad used that name to refer to my mother’s never-ending desire to change things around in the house. One day the living room was arranged in one way, come home from school and it was another way altogether. The dining room became the den and then flipped back again. Don’t even get me started on curtains.
Science has not been able to isolate this gene but the anecdotal evidence supplied almost entirely by wives, mothers or female lab partners is overwhelming. Though not unheard of, men seldom have it unless they are very lucky and very arts minded. Those of us with the Santini Brothers gene walk through a space and just “feel” something is off, something is not right. Could it be the placement of the lamp? The chair? Maybe if I just switch those two paintings. Most men walk through a space and see the kitchen door.
And then there is the advanced case of the gene when nothing will do but everything in the room must go. No, not out and buy more, but out of this space and into another. I recently switched my living room for the dinning room. No longer as young as I once was, I hired two wonderful guys to come and help me — my Southern Santinis, gentlemen who have a keen eye for how to move things and how to place them correctly. These were no “wham-bam-you’re-moved-ma’am” laborers. Rugs were centered. A 200-year-old dining table from my husband’s grandfather — with six heavy chairs and a sideboard — all got shifted seamlessly and safely, proof that there is art in all trades.
For the cost of a glass of wine, two pals came over that night and we re-hung all the art from the picture molding. We had to restring some of the paintings to adjust for different hanging heights but we accomplished in a little under two bottles what would normally take one person three days.
The odd little tweak here and there can make your space seem new without all the bother of picking up and moving to a new house. Our eyes get so used to what we have that we stop seeing our own world. By switching a few things around we start to see all of it in a new light.
Moving the paintings highlighted what I loved but no longer really saw. Some of them were not hung to their best advantage. Others just needed a little more space around them or to be paired with an aesthetic pal, something that highlighted both.
The next part is where my husband comes home from a trip and sees the change. We had discussed the possibility of trying this but I know he needs to see the deed done before he can relax with it. My husband would hot glue the world in place if left unsupervised. He has no Santini Brothers gene at all.
Many years ago, I devised a rule that saves our sanity in the face of change. It is called the Three Day Rule. Either of us can change anything we want and the other person has to live with it for three days before saying, “put it back.” It has saved us from icy glances, bitten tongues and ill humor and to tell you the truth the “put it back” option has yet to be exercised.
The Santini Brothers gene can give everyone a new lease on life. Change. Try it. PS
Joyce Reehling is a frequent contributor and good friend of PineStraw.
