A design lover, not a design blogger

I love paint chips.  Not smelling them, looking at them - just to clarify.  Holding a rainbow fan deck in my hands takes me to my happy place.  In fact most aspects of interior design take me to this place where, strangely, there are always sheer curtains floating into the room on a light breeze.  Flooring samples? Glee! Lighting stores? Bliss! Faucets and sinks? Sigh.  Chippy-peely furniture? Jumpy claps!  I do love me some interior design and I have spent many happy hours in my head planning all kinds of rooms. It's even more fun when I get to do it in real life.

We spent this past weekend at my friend Heidi's.  She and her husband have recently purchased an amazing older home that has great bones and is old enough to have charm like original glass doorknobs and hardwood floors but was extremely well taken care of and has some modern updates like central vac.  Their house is reno central so on Saturday morning we left the kids with the husbands and slipped out to check out some local decor stores, lighting places and of course, Benjamin Moore.  On our way downtown we ran into a yard sale that had the most adorable cabinet out in front.  But this is not a design blog so I don't have pictures, I have a story.

The cabinet in question was being used to anchor a rope that had been tied from a nearby tree to create a clothesline of sorts off which hung a few random pieces of women's clothing.  There was no one in sight and there was an abandoned feeling about the place which was in eerie contrast to the yard sale items on the lawn/sidewalk.  Heidi's husband is a cop and as a guy came out the front door of the house towards us she said, "By the way this is a crack house."  The guy was shaking like a leaf and spent the entire time we were there grabbing/adjusting himself.  After offering us $4000 dollars worth of women's clothes from a dirty white boy (his words, I'm not arguing) and bending over several times so we could see his lovely assets, Heidi asked how much he wanted for the cabinet. 
"Make me an offer," he said.
"What's the absolute lowest price you'd let this go for?" She countered.
"10 bucks."
"Ok.  I have no cash on me right now so I'll have to go get some."
"Fine, 8 bucks if you have to think about it."
"That's great. I still have to go get some cash."

We drove away discussing the moral implications of buying a garage sale item from a crack house and then decided the cabinet was utterly perfect and really, how much crack can you get for 8 bucks anyway?  We did our design store rounds and on the way home stopped back at the crack house.  The cabinet was still out front but a new guy came out the front door.  He smelled...awesome.   But he said we could have the cabinet for $5 so we exchanged cash for cabinet and tried to load up as quickly as possible.  Just as we were getting back in Heidi's van original dude came out of the house.  He managed to lose his shirt in the two short hours since we'd last seem him and as he sauntered over to us with his pants hanging dangerously low on his hips even though he was wearing a belt I hissed to Heidi to start the car, START THE CAR!  She started it and having some sort of predilection that I can't explain I rolled up my window.  Sure enough he came over to my window and motioned me to roll it down.  I shook my head and he said through the glass, "So, I guess you're married then?"
It's nice to know I have options should I ever need them.

One other design story.  We had been at Pier 1 on our out-and-about tour Saturday morning and had seen a great light fixture on major discount that we thought might work to replace the ceiling fan in Heidi's kitchen that she hated.  We didn't buy it and then in the afternoon in a fit of inspiration after looking at paint chips and planning out all her colours ran quickly back to pick it up.  We set it on the counter and the girl at the cash looked at Heidi and then at me and said, "Um, who's this for?  I can't tell who's more excited."