Have you ever made an impulsive purchase for the home that turned out to be a disaster – or only came good after taking up space in the loft or garage for years?
Let’s face it – which of us hasn’t?
If you’ve been living with the results of an ill-considered buying decision, you may be reassured to know that even professional designers and interiors experts do exactly the same.
This article by Patricia Shackleford from the Chicago Tribune recounts purchases of huge furniture items, fragile Indian fabric and jaw-dropping bathroom fittings by people who had no idea whether they’d fit in the allotted space or even in the car home. Or failed to find a practical application for them, in one case, for a quarter of a century.
It’s a fun read, not least for the tales that serendipitously came good, and here’s an excerpt:
I stood in the driveway of a stately Tudor and bought a beautiful buffet. “Perfect,” I thought, for my new dining room. The piece would obviously not fit in my Accord, so I dialed up my husband and directed him to bring the Jeep.
“That,” he declared, “is not going to fit in the Jeep. Or in the house. It’s humongous.” It seems I have a little issue with spatial relationships. The homeowner smiled as he snapped the box shut on his garage sale bounty, my check securely inside. The buffet was mine.
Where did I go wrong? Could I be the first to follow my heart, foolish and unheeding the sanity of a tape measure? Not at all. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Read on here…