I bought a carpet for the sun room. I am still entranced at how such a simple addition changes and enhances the room. It seems simultaneously larger and cozier, and a bit brighter as well. I keep wandering by, stopping, and sitting down for a bit just to experience the space.
It is a new carpet but it is made from old wool. Apparently the person who manufactures these carpets buys up the stock from old factories and uses it to make new rugs. So the wool is old wool, dyed using antiquated techniques. This changes the color. For the better to my mind. Apparently the wool for this carpet was dyed in the 1920's in all likelihood. That makes me smile, as in my dream vision I would live in a 1920s or 1930s house, not my contemporary new construction house. So I have a bit of the 20's in my room in spirit anyway. It makes me happy, as does the thought of making something new from something old and salvaging something that would otherwise have gone to waste.
Here's to new rugs from old wool.
Here's what I see in this picture. I am sitting on a large sectional unit which occupies two walls of the room. I love the carpet and the colors, which look different here than they did in the photograph I saw originally, and in the decorator's showroom, where I first saw the rug in person. I loved it, although perhaps in slightly different ways in each setting, which I suppose means I will love it anew in any new settings it might find itself in my life. I am looking at the Wassily chair that George bought me for one of my birthdays, I forget which one. I had admired a Wassily chair somewhere, one that was in the more commonly seen black leather, but had said I did not want black leather. George ordered the chair, took a day off work, drove to Long island to pick it up, and kept it hidden in his big suburban, the one with the plow attached, so that he could sneak it upstairs on the morning of my birthday. This leather shows the stains of time, but although they may be imperfections, they are also the signs of a life well-lived. There are drink rings on the arms, remnants of many cocktail parties and Christmas Eve dinners, and untold other celebrations. There is the stain on the back of the chair where George would come in still wet from the pool, or more likely hot and sweaty from mowing the lawn and sit, drink in hand. In his later, dementia addled years, he would curse the person who sat bare-backed in "his" chair and ruined it, and I couldn't tell him that he had done it himself. Now I look at it and see George. Someday I may change the leather, when there are future stories to be built, but not yet. It is too alive with history and history is what is to be savored.
I also look at the lamp and the cockeyed lampshade and think that is something I need to address soon. I didn't realize it bothered me so much until I looked at this photo. Those lamps were one of my early purchases from a craft fair. The original shades were broader, but were badly damaged when we had a leak through the roof our old house. The current shades were purchased here and they do not fit well. I need to change them. I have an idea in my head of something I want to create. It may or may not work, but the process is important; perhaps it is not more important than the final result, but it is at least equally important. I don't yet know how it will evolve. But that is the key: past, present, future.